Vocational guidance tool jolts old ways of thinking

By ADAM GIFFORD

Selector Group has developed a new internet-based vocational guidance tool which gives job sites greater ability to attract and screen candidates.

The tool, CareerStep, is available at www.careerstep.co.nz, and also at Australian job board seek.com.au under the brand Seek Direction.

Developer Keith McGregor says it was developed after Seek Communications sought an online testing tool costing about $41.

"They wanted something they could offer to people to focus their job search, particularly people who were not sure what sort of jobs they should think about."

Mr McGregor, who has 25 years' experience as an industrial psychologist, responded with a stripped-down version of the main Selector PA (personal assessment) testing tool.

It uses the Holland psychometric model which looks at how a candidate works with people, how they work with information, whether they prefer administration or hands-on roles, how they handle working commercially and whether they like working creatively.

"To that we've added other scales which measure not just people's preferences but what they have done, so we're looking at any gaps and competencies," Mr McGregor says.

"We also give pointers - not absolute recommendations - to whether they should look for jobs in large organisations or small firms, whether they are suited to the public or private sectors, whether they will thrive in a high-pressure job or prefer something lower pressure."

He says CareerStep could be useful for students trying to decide what they should study, workers who want a change of career, the unemployed, those made redundant, or people who want to return to the work force.

Some people may just get confirmation they are looking in the right places. For others the tool will offer new ideas.

"People often get locked into ways of thinking and when jobs come up they don't realise they can do them.

"Most people can do most jobs, but as individuals we have intrinsic motivators, things we like and dislike.

"CareerStep tries to match up those individual motivators with jobs that have those characteristics."

As well as CareerStep, Selector offers another subset of Selector PA called e-Profiler, which assesses personal style, a CV builder called e-Résumé and Selector e-Search, a database search engine.

Selector chief executive Jon Vincent says the company saw a gap in the market for online vocational guidance tools based on science.

"There are dozens of women's magazine-style quizzes, but few based on psychometric measures," Mr Vincent says.

As well as being available for sale to job boards, Selector has also been talking to companies about using CareerStep to pre-screen applicants.

"We have spotted a gap where employers who have more than two or three jobs available at any one time, are constantly under siege.

"We can pre-screen, so instead of applying for a particular job people apply to work for the company and our tools are used to identify which jobs in the company suit their talent and behaviours."

Selector is tendering for a job in North America which will involve screening 5000 candidates.