Declan Sperry

Arizona State University

OGL 482

1 April 2022

Module 3 Discussion – Self Assessments

Prompt #1: Summarize your results and any particular “aha moments” that you may have had
when working through the “interests-based” assessment on the O*NET Interest Profiler
website. How could you use interests-based assessments to help move your career and your
life forward? If you have taken any other interests-based assessments in the past, please
comment on those, and any relevant connections to this assessment.

According to my results from the O*NET Interest Profiler, I ranked highest in the

category of ‘Social’, receiving a score of 30, with my second highest score being a 23 in the

‘Artistic’ category. My third highest ranking category was ‘Enterprising’, with a score of 15. In

the categories of ‘Investigative’ and ‘Realistic’, I received scores in the lower end of the mid-

range, earning scores of 11 and 10 respectively. Finally, the category in which I received the

lowest overall ranking was that of ‘Conventional’, receiving a score of five. Additionally, after

viewing the suggested careers based on the results that fell into Job Zone 4, the careers

determined to be best fit included Adult Secondary Education, Broadcast Announcer, Social

Worker, Choreographer, and Health Education Specialist, along with a variety of additional

careers related to education and teaching.

In terms of ‘Aha moments’, the most significant revelation I had while completing the

assessment was the realization that I already had a decently accurate understanding of my overall

career interests, but despite this, had not considered many of the specific positions listed under

the ‘Careers’ section. When completing the 60 questions featured in the assessment, I was able to
select answers that felt right to me with relative ease and limited hesitation. I believe this ease

was due partially to the fact that I have reflected actively about my interests in the past, and in

part because I have been deliberate and consistent in making career and educational decisions

that align with my interests and values throughout my life.

However, even with a pre-existing awareness of my interests guiding both my real-life

career decisions and my answers to this assessment, I still received career suggestions in areas

that I would not consider pursuing. For instance, I never seriously considered the option of going

into social work, mainly because I know that despite my interest in roles falling into the ‘Social’

category, I would struggle with burnout in that occupation due to the emotionally demanding

nature of working with people in that capacity. The insight that I gained from this observation is

that identifying interests is only the starting point in determining a well-fitting career path.

Identifying interests helps in early stages of considering careers, as it helps to cast a wide net and

to avoid assigning too much weight to less important factors such as what roles we think we

ought to want, rather than the roles we want. After interests and related potential careers are

identified more broadly, then one can begin the work of narrowing down the list based on

consideration for a variety of additional factors.

One way I could use interest-based assessments to help move my career and my life

forward is to retake the same assessment once every few years or so to compare results from

different points in my life to see what has and has not changed. In doing so, I could gain greater

insight into what areas and aspects of my interests have been consistent and lasting, and which

have seen greater levels of change over the course of my life. In turn, I would then be able to

better understand what interests seem more integral to who I am as a person overall, versus

which ones are more likely the result of the external influences acting upon me at a given point
in my life’s journey. Gaining this type of insight would be highly beneficial in the long-term, as

it would enable me to prioritize the interests that seem more fixed when making decisions, as

they would be the interests most likely to persist and to influence my preferences throughout my

entire life.

In the past, I have taken this exact interest assessment, although I did not end up saving

the results at the time. If I had saved the results from the first time I took this assessment, I would

have liked to compare my old rankings to my new ones to see if there were any significant

differences between them. In addition to the O*NET Interest Profiler, I also completed a

different but similarly structured interest assessment while in high school, although I cannot

remember the name of the specific assessment tool. While I do not remember which specific

careers were suggested from the results of my first attempt at the O*NET Profiler or from the

other interest assessment test I completed in the past, I do remember being shocked and

somewhat annoyed at my results, as I felt that they were unrelated to my interests and were not

careers that I would want or enjoy. However, when viewing this reaction in hindsight, it becomes

more apparent to me that at the time, I did not properly understand the broader purpose and value

of such assessments.

Prompt #2: Discuss your primary and secondary career anchors. Any surprises? Make some
connections between your current work / life and your scores on the career anchors
assessment. What was your lowest scoring career anchor? Comment on your perceptions
about that (and the career anchors instrument, in general).

After completing the Career Anchors Assessment, I found out that my primary career

anchor was Independence/Autonomy, with a score of 65 points. My secondary career anchor,

Sense of Service/Dedication to Cause, was one point shy of my primary career anchor, earning a

score of 64 total points. Overall, I did not find these results to be particularly surprising, as they
align with my espoused values and previous self-knowledge. Among my top core values

identified back in Module 1 were Helping Other People and Close Relationships, two values that

relate closely to my secondary career anchor of Sense of Service/Dedication to a cause.

Additionally, considering that my number one identified top core value was Integrity, it makes

sense that Independence/Autonomy would be my primary career anchor, as having a job that

enables me to exercise independence would in turn allow me to act with integrity and to align my

work-related decisions with what feels genuine and authentic.

Another aspect of my results that I would like to note is just how close my primary and

secondary career anchors are in terms of their numerical scores, with my Sense of

Service/Dedication to a Cause ranking a mere point below Independence/Autonomy. This also

did not come as much of a surprise to me, as these two areas have functioned as competing major

themes in my life so far. What I mean by this is that most of the important decisions I have made

so far in terms of career projection and lifestyle have been arrived at through weighing and

considering the influences of these two anchors until I can come up with an option that satiates

the demands of both.

In terms of my current work life, now, I am a full time Organizational Leadership student

and a part time barista and trainer at a local Starbucks Store. In addition to these roles, I also do

five to ten hours of virtual contracted work per week for a small start-up called PepTalkHer,

whose mission is to help close the gender wage gap. When viewing my primary and secondary

career anchors as two key themes of my career progression so far, my current occupational roles

seem to act as supporting data for both themes.

For example, my decision to study organizational leadership as a topic acts as supporting

data for the central theme of Sense of Service, as what I learn in my classes will enable me to
help organizations and the people in them. At the same time, my decision to study it through

Arizona State University’s online program supports the theme of Independence/Autonomy, due

to the time and location flexibility, as well as the asynchronous nature, of the courses offered.

Similarly, my role at Starbucks fits with the theme of Dedication to a Cause, as Starbucks

is generally a socially conscious and mission-oriented organization. Finally, my role at

PepTalkHer functions as a very strong piece of supporting data for both themes expressed by my

career anchors. As a virtual workplace with team members scattered across five different

countries and time zones, this role features a very high degree of flexibility and allows me to

have full control over my work schedule and hours. This aligns very closely with the theme of

Independence/Autonomy. Additionally, since the purpose of this organization is to tackle the

issues of pay inequality and a lack of gender parity, it also aligns closely with the theme of Sense

of Service/Dedication to a Cause.

Out of the remaining career anchors, the area in which I scored the lowest was that of

Security, Stability, and Organizational identity, scoring a total of 48 points in that category. As a

member of Generation Z, I have been raised in an era of increasing instability and decreasing job

security across the board. Because of this, I have been conditioned to view genuine job security

and stability an inaccessible relic of the past, no longer available to the currently emerging and

future members of the workforce. Due to the lofty and unattainable aura that the ideas of job

security and career stability possess in my mind, I do not tend to prioritize them in decision

making, as it makes sense to prioritize anchors that I am more likely to be able to obtain.

Overall, I enjoyed engaging with the Career Anchors Assessment, and found it to be a

useful and insightful learning experience. I prefer this assessment over the O*NET Interest

Profiler, as in my mind, it makes more sense to me to focus on career anchors rather than specific
occupational roles when embarking on my career path. As job stability has decreased, there has

been a decrease in the prevalence of careers in the traditional sense, leading to an increased

interest in the idea of the Protean career, which tend to include a higher degree of flexibility and

a wider variety of roles occupied by a given individual over time (Harrington & Hall, 2007, p.

11). Because of this, I think it make more sense to approach my career path while placing focus

on staying in alignment with my career anchors, rather than focusing on obtaining specific

organizational roles or titles, making this assessment one that I find extremely helpful.

Prompt #3: With respect to additional self-assessment instruments that you included (at least 3
from either past courses or taken from the Assessment Links list below), write briefly about what
you learned about yourself (cite the new assessments you took, and briefly describe your findings,
and how those findings relate to how you see yourself in the world).

Throughout your personal or professional life, what have been the most useful self-
assessments tools for you, and why?

In terms of additional self-assessments, I completed the Gallup Strength Finder Top Five

assessment, the Big Five Personality Test, and the INDIGO Assessment, which combines

elements of the DISC profile with assessments of strengths, skills, and motivators. I took the

Gallup Strength Finder and Big Five assessment for the first time for the purposes of this

assignment and had already taken the INDIGO assessment as part of a previous Organizational

Leadership course.

For the Gallup Strength Finder, my results stated that my top five themes regarding my

strengths were Strategic, Achiever, Relator, Restorative, and Positivity, in ranked order. While I

am not surprised that these themes made my top five, I was a bit surprised by the order in which

each theme was ranked. Overall, I tend to think of myself as relating mor heavily to the themes

of Restorative and Relator than I do with Strategic or Achiever. As to why I think this

discrepancy may exist is that I associate myself with those themes more because they align more
closely with my values, and the Gallup instrument is meant to identify the areas one excels in

most, which may not always align with which areas one values most.

In relation to the Big Five Personality test, I had was in the 94-percentile range for

Openness to Experience (Very High), the 97-percentile range for Contentiousness (Very High),

the 88-percentile range for Extraversion (High), the 93-percentile range for Agreeableness

(High), and the 28-percentile range for Natural Reactions (Low). These results did not surprise

me, as the areas in which I scored ‘Very High’ are all traits that I generally tend to associate

myself with.

Finally, while I did not just take the INDIGO Assessment, back when I did take it, I felt

like I gained a lot of valuable insight into my personality that have influenced my self-concept

since. In relation to the DISC Profiler element, I was surprised that it determined me to be a DI,

as I have taken the DISC profiler previously, independent from the other elements of the

INDIGO Assessment, and was profiled as an IC. Overall, this helped me to reassess how

accurate the way I view myself is, but ultimately, I still feel like I resonate more with the

category of IC than that of DI. In relation to the other elements of the INDIGO Assessment,

many of thing findings, while not overly surprising, have helped me to gain a more nuanced

understanding of different aspects of my strengths, skills, and motivators, and has allowed me to

explore new ways of doing things to better align with the insights I gained.

While the various personality tests and other types of formalized self-assessments that I

have taken have without a doubt been beneficial to my personal and professional development, I

would argue that the most valuable self-assessment I have undergone is not a standardized test,

but rather the result of ongoing introspection. A highly reflective person, I tend to think about the

types of qualities and traits that these types of tests attempt to measure on a regular basis.
Because of this, I feel that I have gained a very nuanced and complex understanding of how I as

an individual relate to the different categories and profiles offered by these types of tests.

Although these tests have helped me to make sense of how to describe certain aspects of myself,

the reality of my self-concept is too complex to articulate definitively through such labels.

Therefore, the most valuable self-assessment tool I have ever used has been my own ongoing

series of introspection and my ability to integrate the findings of each assessment with what

makes sense to me in a more intuitive sense at any given moment in time.

Prompt #4: Post e-portfolio link for review making sure it can be accessed freely or you
may not receive credit for this section. (If you are not comfortable sharing your e-portfolio
with your classmates, please contact me.)

In order to view the results from my self-assessments discussed in the preceding

prompts, access the ‘Self-Assessment’ sub-page under the ‘Pro-Seminar 2’ section of my
Electronic Portfolio, the link to which is https://declanorion.weebly.com .
 References

Harrington, B., & Hall, D.T. (2007). Career Management & Work/Life Integration: Using Self-

Assessment to Navigate Contemporary Careers. Sage Publications, Inc.