Test helps get career on track

When Julene McCorkindale is not working with her husband on their Waitahuna farm, she is trying to put an end to high youth unemployment and the high number of tertiary students who do not complete their degrees in New Zealand.

The Aptitude Institute managing director has come up with a test designed to find out what jobs people are most suited to.

She said research had shown 60% of tertiary students in New Zealand failed to complete qualifications and 60% changed their degree after their first year.

She believed the main reason people failed to choose their best education and career path was they did not know what they were capable of, enjoyed, or were most likely to succeed at.

"Education and career choices are often the result of trial and error, unconscious choice, such as following in the footsteps of family, or reference groups, or sometimes simply paralysis when the decision seems so large it results in no action being taken at all.

Mrs McCorkindale said the situation identified the global need for an improved career planning and assessment tool.

With the help of Aptitude Inventory Measurement Service president, chief scientist and senior test administrator Irvin Shambaugh, of Dallas, Texas, she has developed SortMyCareer - an online aptitude test which was launched this week.

The testing took between 60 and 90 minutes, it was affordable, scalable, accessible and able to effectively and efficiently match individuals with "best fit job and education options".

Mrs McCorkindale said aptitudes were measurable factors which could predict performance in a vocational or educational setting, based on natural ability to perform a particular type of task better than the norm.

"It's been around for over 100 years and proven time and time again. Just as psychometric testing identifies personalities, aptitude testing identifies natural abilities."

The test has been piloted with more than 1200 people from schools, polytechnics, government departments and not-for-profit youth development agencies, such as the Malcam Trust.

Malcam Trust founder Malcolm Cameron was impressed by the SortMy Career reports.

"Those students who had identified areas of interest gained in confidence from the validation that they had the right aptitude to pursue a career in their chosen field.

"Those students who did not have any idea were pleased to have something that they could refer to while looking into future career options."Mr Cameron said the trust also offered the test to three past students who had been undecided which career path to take.

"In all three instances, the young person has been able to clearly identify the best career pathway for themselves based on the feedback report they received and have followed this through to further tertiary training and study."

john.lewis@odt.co.nz