Most Career Tests Go Stupid.
Friday, November 30th, 2007Career tests go wrong four ways:
1. Most of them force every characteristic you have into an extreme. (Should you score in the 49th percentile on some kind of “social” scale, your are labelled an introvert. But if you hit the 51st percentile, suddenly you’ve become an extrovert.) That’s silly. Most of us fall into the middle of that bell shaped curve for most characteristics, so these measures mean less. And, if you had an extra cup of coffee that morning, you might have been an extrovert while missing a few hours sleep could’ve turned you into an introvert. This is all bunk. Only those traits where you’re out there, different from 90% of the other college seniors, matter.
2. Most career tests give specific job titles. That’s hopeless. The “financial analyst” who counts the daily salmon catches at the Anchorage docks had a far different job from the “financial analyst” who tracks long term currency trends in Manhattan. There’s more to every job than the title.
3. No test tells you whether you’ll do better in a small group or large organization. And this matters way more than location, title, industry and even salary, within reason. Big and small groups are totally different environments. Make sure you fit in the right place.
4. Hardly any of these tests give repeatable results. The Meyers-Briggs test, given to millions of people every year, was shown to be non-repeatable in two different and independent analyses. Yet it goes on and on, giving different answers every time.
I don’t say the WAYA (Who Are You Anyway) test is perfect, but, we worked hard to solve these errors all other tests seem to make.