Online Career Assessment, as a tool, has really been becoming popular of late. This tool draws its strength from the huge reserve of information that is internet. The online career assessment is primarily based on tests that are administered on an individual who is trying to find the strengths and weaknesses as a professional.
These types of tests mainly have an array of tests which again has a series of questions to test an individual in the areas of personality, professional skills, and areas of interests and so on. In short, the objective of such tests is to have a detailed Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis.
How does an online career assessment exercise go about its task?
There is a certain flow or sequence of activities that are followed when an individual tries to gauge the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT). The flow goes like this:
First, an interested individual needs to state the exact requirements in terms of assessing career needs. Some people may not be sure of the professions that are most suitable given the skills and aptitude. Another group of people may be sure of the areas they are in but do not know how to enhance their skills.
Second, an online career assessment test takes detailed information of the interested individual on various areas (for example, educational qualification, academic performance, extracurricular aptitude, family background, relations with parents and other people in the family, professional qualification and current area of work, if the individual is working).
Third, depending on the information obtained and the requirements of the individual, one or multiple tests are given to the individual. The sole objective of these tests is to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the individual, professions the individual would do well in, and various other parameters. These days, a typical online career assessment test uses a lot of psychological models in the tests in order to find the best fit in terms of the individual’s strengths, likes and dislikes.
Many online career assessment tests give objective or numeric ratings to give a clear area of an individual while many online career testing methods rely on giving a combination of objective and subjective evaluation to an individual as an outcome.
The main drawback of the online career assessment exercise is the inability of the tools to gauge the reactions of an individual when certain questions are asked. Many are of the opinion that an assessment of career is incomplete without talking to someone personally. However, it must be said that many assessment tests taken online use scientific methods and are definitely good. Lastly, no test can achieve 100% precision in such areas.