Career Assessments

During the middle of the 20th Century, Henry Murray, a Harvard psychologist, wrote about the interplay between our personal needs (for example, our need for achievement or need for approval), and the environmental settings and events that press on us at any one point in time. When we look at the careers in which we participate, there are needs that we want fulfilled – and there are the presses associated with the organizational setting in which we operate.
As Edgar Schein has noted, our career is the meeting place between personal aspirations and the goals and mission of the organization: personal development and organization development meet in the career interstices. Following is a listing and brief description of the available CPOA career assessment inventories.

CA 1. Career Interest Inventory

Edgar Schein identifies eight anchors or themes that are commonly found among all people who are motivated to work. In modified (and updated) form these anchors are:
• Creative,
• Technical/Functional,
• Autonomous/Independent,
• Safety/Security,
• Service-Oriented,
• Challenge-Oriented, and
• Lifestyle.
Each of these anchors is assessed regarding relative preference in this inventory. The career anchor preferences of a respondent help to determine the extent to which they are likely to find specific jobs and career paths to be motivating and the extent to which they will sustain high levels of activity and commitment to their job. Members of organizations will prioritize preferences for specific anchors and tend to stay anchored in one area and their career will echo this in many ways.
In the descriptive document accompanying this inventory, an important distinction is drawn between two different types of anchors. The first type of anchor is the so-called bottom anchor. The second kind of anchor is called a sea anchor. The second of these two types of anchors functions in a manner that more accurately typifies 21st Century careers than does the first type.
While ground anchors keep a boat from moving very far from its mooring and use the sea floor as the base of resistance, the sea anchor is primarily used to slow down (but not prevent) the drifting of the boat in open sea and is used to help guide the direction in which the boat is headed. Similar functions operate with ground and sea career anchors.

CA 2. Career Alignment Inventory

This CPOA inventory moves beyond the identification of career anchors to assess the respondent’s perception of the alignment (or misalignment) of their organization with their dominant anchors. The inventory consists of four sections with each of the career anchors being represented in each section.
• The first section asks the respondent to assess the current status of their organization with regard to valuing their work associated with each anchor.
• The second section concerns the extent to which the respondent would like (desired status) the organization to value their work regarding each anchor.
• In the third section, the respondent is asked to assess the extent to which their organization recognizes and rewards them for demonstrating specific competencies related to each anchor.
• Finally, in the fourth section, the respondents indicates that the extent to which they would like (desired state) their organization to recognize and reward their performance of certain tasks related to each anchor.
Results from this inventory provide “gap analyses” – the gaps between the extent to which the respondent’s assessment of current and desired states are in agreement (or disagreement). These gap analyses can be of particular value when considered by a client who is assisted by a coach or consultant and when considered by not only a respondent, but also their supervisor. When administered to an entire division or project team, the Career Alignment Inventory can provide valuable insights regarding the source of overall moral in this division or project team.