Some people know at a very young age what they want to be when they grow up and never waver from the path to get to that career. Others don’t have a clear idea of what they want to do, even though they will spend the majority of their adult lives working.
And many are sure of what they want to do until they study for their chosen career, only to find out they don’t like it.
“People change careers seven to 10 times during their adult lives,” said Peg Hendershot, director of career planning services for Career Vision.
Career Vision, begun in 1988, is a division of the not-for-profit Ball Foundation, founded 19 years ago by Carl Ball, owner of Ball Seed Company in West Chicago. The foundation researches the relationship of aptitudes to career success.
Career Vision, based in Glen Ellyn, is the consulting and career counseling arm of the foundation.
Career Vision can help people at any stage of their lives-be it high school, college or mid-career-by testing them to assess what their aptitudes are and how they can make best use of them.
“Interests may change over time,” Hendershot said, “but aptitudes don’t.”
The results of the tests are also used for research at the Ball Foundation. The tests cost $295, although special rates sometimes are negotiated with schools.
John Saxtan of Naperville, 48, decided in mid-career to take a look at what he was doing. He wasn’t unhappy in his work as editor and publisher of Outside Plants, a magazine for the telecommunications industry, but he wondered if he was making use of all his abilities. “I had been reading about midlife crisis,” he said, “and that’s what made me think about something like this testing.”
When Saxtan graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in journalism he set out to be the best copywriter he could be. He was successful in advertising, and gradually moved into magazine work.
A former employee of the Ball Seed Company, he was aware of Career Vision, so he went through the eight-hour regime at its offices, which included an interest and personality inventory as well as a wide battery of aptitude tests.
The clerical test, for instance, tests a person’s perceptual speed and accuracy. Idea fluency measures the ability to think of creative alternative uses of a given object. Inductive reasoning measures the ability to take a series of unrelated facts and arrive at a conclusion.
To determine if someone has an objective or subjective orientation, a word association test is administered.
An objective personality, Hendershot said, tends to be more satisfied in people-oriented generalist jobs. A subjective personality, on the other hand, is more satisfied in specialized fields working with a few people, on his own or with objects.
Not all the tests involve paper and pencil. Finger dexterity measures the ability to skillfully manipulate small objects with the fingers. Grip measures not only the strength of grip but indicates overall physical endurance. Shape assembly measures the ability to visualize and manipulate objects in three-dimensional space.
Saxtan received his results in a half-inch thick book that not only gave results but information about careers that the tests showed he was well suited for. He also went through a two-hour session with Career Vision counselors to discuss the results.
“The interview after the testing is very important because part of learning is having an opportunity to process and discuss,” Hendershot said. “Too many times people will look at results and be curious about what they got wrong. The idea is to examine strengths, to understand patterns.”
Saxtan said his results were not very surprising. They didn’t indicate, for instance, that he should quit his job and go out to the mountains and be a sheep herder.
“In many respects, the results reinforced what I knew about myself and about what I was doing,” he said.
The results did give him some ideas about interests he could pursue out of work, however.
“I have picked up some free-lance advertising work,” he said, “and am doing some public relations work on a volunteer basis.”
The idea, Hendershot said, is not necessarily for someone to make a radical career change, although that may happen. “If someone has a musical aptitude that surfaces, for instance,” she said, “they don’t necessarily have to go out and get a job in the music industry; they can find fulfillment in this through some other outlet.”
In one case, Hendershot said, a surgical nurse discovered through the tests that she lacked the finger dexterity that is more important in an operating room than an examining room. She no longer works in the operating room, and her degree of job satisfaction has increased.
In another instance, an accountant who felt he didn’t enjoy his work now runs marketing seminars for the company he owns and hires others to do the actual accounting.
A woman from Chicago who did not want to be identified because she is actively seeking a job said she was happy with the testing process because it helped her make an important career decision. “I realized that I am well suited for what I am doing (sales),” she said, “but I realized also that I was doing it for the wrong company.”
Chris Holze, 18, of Elgin, a freshman at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peters, Minn., said that he is glad he took the tests. “I wanted to be a chiropractor,” he said, “and the tests made me realize that I would be good in that area.”
He, like many others, would much prefer to find out before he begins his studies whether his chosen career is suitable for him.
Last spring, Career Vision administered the battery of tests to the 586 freshmen at Glenbard North High School in Carol Stream. Students took the tests over a four-day period.
Judith Bailey, assistant principal for instruction, said that the tests will provide valuable information for students and teachers alike.
Later this month, Career Vision will meet with guidance counselors there to explain the results. Meetings with students and parents will be held after that.
“We have done some things with student interests, but the missing piece has been aptitudes,” Bailey said. “We can now help students look at their aptitudes, and we can tell them when their interests are not consistent with their aptitudes.”
“The tests show us better how students learn,” she said. “We can help teachers work with them better.”
There are also benefits for Career Vision.
“This gives us a large pool of research subjects from one community,” said Hendershot.
Bailey said that among the buzzwords of education is “school to work connection.”
“We are now looking at careers in a much more broad context than saying, for instance, that we are training someone to be an auto mechanic.”
Glenbard North will continue to work with Career Vision; freshmen will be tested again in the spring. Other high schools are looking at implementing the same program.
Hendershot, who herself admits to several career changes in her life, said that working with people to help them understand their career options is rewarding. “We are helping them to look at careers which will give them the most satisfaction,” she said.
