CareerLeader™ Guided Tour
|
 |
 .
|
|
You just saw the BCII Score Summary for someone we'll call Jan Wright. We're going to be looking at Jan's CareerLeader™ results on the MPRP and MPAP as well in a moment. Jan is (like many of us) trying to "figure out what she wants to do when she grows up."
|
Understanding Your BCII Results
|
Note: This is an abbreviated version of the BCII Interpretive Guide. The full guide and materials will of course be available for users of CareerLeader™.
Now it's time to understand what's on Jan's score summary and how, if you were Jan, you would use the information. As you look at the BCII Score Summary, you can see the names of the eight scales (Application of Technology through Influence Through Language and Ideas) that our research showed to be the eight sets of essential activities that are carried out in business work, regardless of industry or functional title ("marketing," "sales," "finance," etc.) These business core functions are the irreducible "building
block" activities of work in the field of business. To understand Jan's score summary you need to understand something about the business core
functions.
The Eight Scales
| Application of Technology | measures interests that are often associated with engineering, production, operations, and the general use of technology to accomplish business objectives. |
| Quantitative Analysis | measures interests that are realized through problem-solving that relies on mathematical analysis |
| Theory Development and Conceptual Thinking | measures interests involving broadly conceptual approaches to business problems |
| Creative Production | measures interests that are realized through highly creative activities such as the development of new products or marketing concepts, the generation of new business ideas, etc. |
| Counseling and Mentoring | measures interests that involve developing relationships as a crucial part of business work, such as coaching, training and mentoring |
| Managing People and Relationships | measures interests that involve working directly and consistently with groups of people in the roles of manager, director, or supervisor |
| Enterprise Control | measures interests that are realized through having ultimate decision-making authority for complete operations |
| Influence Through Language and Ideas | measures interest in exercising influence through the skillful use of written and spoken language |
Scale Scores and Value Ranges
The number alongside each scale measures Jan's interest (with an "average" of 50) in each of the activities. If your score is 50, your interest in a particular set of activities is exactly average when you are compared to a large sample of business professionals from a wide variety of industries and functions -- more interested than half the people and less interested than half.
Two of Jan's scores are marked "Personal High." Your highest scale scores are meaningful and useful regardless of how they compare to a group of business professionals; these are the areas you are most interested in. Jan's Personal Highs are in Enterprise Control and Theory Development and Conceptual Thinking.
Validity Statements
Below Jan's scale scores you see three Validity Statements (Omitted Items, Inconsistent Items and Response Range). These are three ways we check your responses to make sure that your inventory results are valid. Most of the time you won't need to pay attention to them; for example, if Jan's had not answered a very large number of the items, she would be instructed to retake the inventory because her results were invalidated by the large number of items not responded to.
The General Business Interest Index is like the Validity Statements, giving you a way of looking at your level of interest in business careers in general. Jan's general level of interest in business careers as a whole is high.
|
Advanced Interpretive Tools
|
We've designed three Interpretive Tools for use with the BCII. Only portions of the tools relevant to Jan's case are available through this Tour. Naturally, users of CareerLeader™ have free access to all parts of all the tools. The first is the system presented in Chapter 7 of Discovering Your Career in Business (which is automatically provided to users of CareerLeader™), and which has the advantage of being loaded with real-life examples of people's career choices and "best fits." Since the publication of our book we have also designed two Advanced Interpretive Tools that will be available online as part of CareerLeader™. The first, the Personal High Matrix, uses your Personal High interests, and the second uses your actual scale scores.
The Personal High Matrix
You'll find valuable information in this area that relates to your own combination of interests in the eight sets of business activities -- clear and specific ideas of how you may want to manage your career going forward. What we have done is match Personal Highs into pairs, and examine the combinations of two personal highs (most people have 2 or 3 personal high scores; people with more than 2 will want to look at more than one matrix). Each matrix pair has recommendations of one or more CareerLeader™ Profiles to read, based on the combination of interests found in those careers.
Jan's Personal High interests are in the Enterprise Control and the Theory Development and Conceptual Thinking functions, so she would look at that Personal High combination. Since her interest in Creative Production is almost as high as her interest in Theory Development and Conceptual Thinking Jan might also investiage the combinations of Creative Production and Theory Development and Conceptual Thinking and Creative Production and Enterprise Control. (Note: other combinations are not available for the Guided Tour.)
The Career Interest Patterns
If you have some idea in mind of what you might be interested in doing for the next phase of your career, you can check how well your interests match those of people in that career by using another advanced interpretive tool, the Career Interest Patterns. These are graphs of the interest patterns of satisfied business professionals in several different careers, including finance, marketing, general management and consulting.
CareerLeader™ users can view any of the careers they may be interested in and compare their interest patterns to that of the sample of people in that career. Jan's Personal High Matrix information suggested that she consider careers in management consulting and strategic planning, so we'll take a look at those two interest patterns. Out of curiousity, she might want to look at a salesperson's career interest pattern as well.
In looking at the Career Interest Pattern for management consultants you'll see that Jan's interest profile matches that of senior management consultants (partners and senior project managers on track for partnership) better than it does the pattern of more junior consultants (those with five or fewer years of experience). In particular, her strong interest in Theory Development and Conceptual Thinking and lack of interest in Managing People and Relationships make for a better match with senior level consultants. This does not mean that Jan will have difficulty as an entry level consultant -- remember, the BCII measures interests, not abilities. What it means is that she may find herself feeling a bit different from her cohort colleagues in the early years of a consulting career, and more "akin" to the partners in the firm than to her peers. It also means that as a junior consultant she may find less of an outlet for her interest in theory development than she would like. She might often be the member of the team wanting to draw the client problem to a higher level of abstraction; and sometimes be frustrated when her fellow team members and the case team leader push her toward more concrete activity. (Like many people, if she could only skip over the first few years and go directly into a partnership position Jan might be very happy and successful! Unfortunately, this is like wanting to skip acting classes and bit parts and go directly to stardom -- an understandable, if impossible, desire.)
Discovering Your Career in Business
On Jan's score score summary you will notice a "Business Career Profile" composed of three letters (in her case, HMH). This is a profile system that allows you to read in Chapter 7 of Discovering Your Career in Business about what our research has shown about various interest profiles. The book provides case examples of the careers of other business professionals with similar profiles. We recommend Discovering Your Career in Business as a valuable complement to the CareerLeader™ program. Our book is available to purchasers of CareerLeader™ at nearly 50% off of the suggested retail price.
Now that you've seen the Business Career Interest Inventory and what it can do for you as you think about your career, let's move on to the Management and Professional Reward Profile, which will help you clarify your priorities about what you want to "get out of" your work.
 
|
