The Importance of LEVELS

Even politicians know the importance of education and training.

But when measuring occupational interests not everyone understands the central importance of Levels.

Suppose you were to ask a group of high academic achievers the following:

“As part of a future career would you LIKE or DISLIKE such work-activities as
– load and unload trucks
– go shopping for people who are too ill to go out
– set out goods on display shelves”.

Research clearly shows resulting profiles are highly skewed towards DISLIKE for high academic achievers.

Similarly, if you ask non-academic people if they LIKE or DISLIKE such work activities as

– design electronic circuit boards
– identify viruses in a laboratory
– write magazine articles

then the results again are highly skewed towards DISLIKE.

Now, getting negatively skewed profiles is very unhelpful for everyone. And basing career plans and occupational suggestions on DISLIKEs is very disappointing.

Career Voyage and Career Compass treat this issue systematically and based on solid research.
Regrettably other (competing) systems actually miss this point completely and scramble together items of different Levels. One of the worst examples is where two items at different Levels are paired.

Suppose for example that I ask you whether you would prefer to “Load and unload trucks”, OR “write magazine articles”.

Faced with such a forced choice we could predict with reasonable accuracy your answer based on your known Level. In such cases we are in fact measuring Level (not Occupational Interest), which flies in the face of our intention to measure occupational interests, which of course makes such questions invalid. (At JIIG-CAL we avoid asking people useless questions  .)

Within Career Voyage related helpful features include

• 50% overlap between the different Levels
• Clients/Students are able to go through the program at more than one Level
• Once they get to the Job Suggestions screen there are various options including “Explore Other Jobs” where users can choose specific Jobs, look through the whole Jobs database, check their Pros&Cons, Similar Jobs, and much more.
• The introduction makes it clear that both achievements and realistic aspirations are important.
• The Levels are based on solid research and reflect conditions in the world of work, education and training.
• The program has been carefully designed for Accredited career practitioners to provide professional support for their clients/students. Secure logins for Advisers enable client records management, easy identification of support strategies, customisation of the software, reports creation, and more.

Bob Bredemeyer