So you know what the Career Profile has to offer in its Mirror and Positioner reports.

Question: What is the next step?

Answer: To find out how the Career Profile can assist you in growing your career.

Many people stop at the point where they have got their reports and they have no idea how they should fully maximize them. Once you know how these reports can do for you, you will realize how powerful they are. This article is to help you with exactly that.

Forget about the jargons and technical terms. This article is designed to lay it all out in a straight-forward fashion for you to understand and absorb.

First of all, let us start with the most basic question.

What is the Career Profile?
The Career Profile is a psychometric tool designed specifically for the employment sector. The focus is to unearth individual uniqueness, work behaviour, work strengths and weaknesses, as well as management competency and potential. In short, it is like a mirror. However, the reflection that you see in this mirror is not a physical view of yourself. Rather, it describes YOU clearly and concisely in terms of your employment capabilities.

Why should I need the Career Profile?
Different people at different points in their lives purchase the Career Profile for various reasons. We will break them down and see which category you fall into:

1. Fresh graduates

   The most challenging part of being a fresh graduate is to land a decent first job. Many see it as their stepping stone to a better career but before they could settle down in the comfort of their first cubicle, they are gone – to another company. More often than not, fresh graduates do not know which profession would suit them best. When they realize that they have spent years to identify the right profession, it may be too late. The Career Profile helps fresh graduates not only to identify the right career, but also win in job interviews.

2. Working adults (junior & senior executives)

   When people start working, they fall into their comfort zones. The comfort zone is a killing factor to a growing career. Everybody likes the idea of a growing career but the question is: are you growing the right career? By knowing what type of job suits your personality best, a working day is another day for you to live your passion! Climbing the corporate ladder is popular among aspiring executives and you need all the excellent qualities sought after in a leader. So, do you know what you need to have to go all the way to the top? Or, do you already have those qualities? What you need now is someone (or something) to unlock your potential and show you the march in the right direction.

3. Managerial level

   If you think you are already at the peak, think again. There is always a mountain higher and grass greener on the other side. At this level, the focus shifts from promoting oneself to overseeing those below you – how you can motivate them, improve their productivity, move your team towards the company’s goal and mission, and helping them to achieve career satisfaction. So where does the Career Profile come in? It is for your team and you as the manager. There is so much to achieve when you have synergy in your group and knowing who does what best.
   
   The Career Profile describes work behaviour in a person and by identifying that, you can (among others) decide who to hire, who should play what role, and why conflicts arise.

I hold the reports in my hands – what then?
If you think by reading it once would be sufficient, then your investment will be wasted. Put the report to good use and you will gradually discover that every page in the report is worth as much as what you invested for the entire report.

Interviews
There is nothing more impressive than knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are, and how your abilities can contribute to the growth of your potential employers. Since launching the Career Profile, we have received numerous requests by employers to have all JobStreet.com members to have the Career Profile reports!

Why? Because they found the report very useful in helping them to determine the type of person their candidates are and assist them in deciding the suitability of the position you applied. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out how the Career Profile can help you with your career prospects when employers are already requesting for it.

Every paragraph in the Career Profile is a potential winner for your interview. Tell them how well you can handle stress, whether you are a creative person or someone who adheres to structure/routine, and whether you are someone who is energetic and dynamic or reserved and quiet. All these are vital information that would help the interviewer to assess your ability to process information and suitability to fit into the company culture.

Step into the interview room with the Mirror and Positioner reports in your hands and show your potential employers the initiative that you have taken. An employer appreciates someone who takes their employment seriously.

Career Choice
How do you set out to pick the right job? You cannot be too choosy though. If you are, you would probably end up with nothing! These are a few instances that are happening all around us and could be something that you might want to avoid:

• Stick only to the same industry you studied/specialized in, e.g. IT specialization – must work with computers.
• Follow the industry that everyone is going into.
• Consider only those with the highest salary offer.
• “I don’t want to do sales. I want sit in an office with air conditioning. Must have paid leave.”

When analyzing your PEAKS factors, take into consideration your strong and weak points. Compare and contrast these points with the work requirements of the position you want to apply. Avoid positions where they require you to be proficient in areas where you think may be weak aspects of yourself.

You can generally find out the requirements of a profession by talking with someone who is in that profession. Identify your strong points, gather them, and play around with them. Come up with work-related situations that demonstrate how your strong points can be influential in deciding the outcome of the scenarios. If you think your strengths can be good assets to your career, then you have just found the right one.

It is all right to give a few attempts at jobs that may not necessarily be suitable for you. As you go along, learn and experiment. Soon you will discover that for every rock you stumble upon, there is knowledge revealed.

Career Change
It is never too late to make a career change as long as you have identified the right career. How does one know whether he/she is in the right career? Simple: When you assimilate your personality with your career, going to work does not feel like work anymore. It is another opportunity to live your passion. Why sit in the office when you do not like it at all? Is it because it is a “safe” job that guarantees the rice bowls are filled every month? This is what happens to most people.

So try not to do what “most people” would do. Network more with people in different industries and find out the characteristics of these people. Match these characteristics with your Career Profile reports (i.e. the eight Work Competency Traits). Refer to the Job Fit Index in the Positioner report and the professions where you have the highest scores. Yes, you may think that the list contains some silly suggestions like listing “Hotel Manager” while you are in the engineering field. As silly as it may appear to you, one should never rule out such possibilities; more so when there are people who are similar to your characteristics in the suggested industry.

Chances are, you can awaken the sleeping giant within you and unleash your full potential. When you have lived past the most productive years of your life, you might sit down in your rocking chair and wonder just what you had been doing for the last 50 years or so. Surviving or living? You can decide now.

Middle Management
Being a manager says it all – you manage people. You might wonder how the Career Profile fit into the management equation. By identifying your team members’ personalities and how they function, it enables you to assign the suitable tasks to the appropriate person. By doing so it enhances productivity and work satisfaction. Everyone does their part and they’d go, “Hey, my manager understands what I do best”

The three core areas of competency listed in the first few pages of the Positioner represents the kind of mindset one needs to be in for one to go far in one’s career. By having an awareness of your ability to communicate with people, engaging in long-term planning and showing that extra commitment, you can leverage on what you or your employee does best. When you do, then it is more of recruiting new personnel who would complement each other’s strengths or make up for weaknesses.

Everyone asked for a recruitment test and now we have it. Use it to your benefit by applying the advantages that the Career Profile offers.

The PEAKS

The PEAKS is essentially a profiling system designed for application specifically within the employment sector. The initials of the five main personality descriptors in this system also add up to the word PEAKS: Purpose, Energy, Affirmation, Knowledge, and Sustainability.

The Eight Work Competency Traits
The Work Competency Traits lists down personality-driven work traits that also act as a guideline on how one would generally perform in the workplace.

The Job Fit Index
A listing of recommended jobs best suited to your unique personality. It is derived from the results of the Mirror report.