Need Career Direction?

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Students, potential students, and others are offered opportunities for evaluative services in the Assessment Center.  A variety of academic and vocational assessments are available on request, enabling examinees to clarify interests and abilities.  Full-time SWCC students may utilize many assessment services free of charge, others are offered at reasonable charges.  Services are provided to potential students, the business community and others at moderate charges.

What's Available?

Career Assessments

Self-inventories can help one identify interests and compare them with the interests of others who have found a certain degree of job satisfaction in a given area.  Available inventories are the Career Occupational Preference System (COPS), Career Assessment Inventory (CAI), Campbell Interest and Skill Survey (CISS), Interest Determination, Exploration and Assessment System (IDEAS), and the Strong Interest Inventory.

Personality/Temperament Inventories

These inventories can be useful in measuring personality factors that may affect contentment in work situations.  They strengthen career exploration activities by adding the important temperament and values component to the big picture.  They are helpful in predicting how an individual is likely to perform or respond in certain job situations and what is personally rewarding.  Available inventories include Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Sixteen Personality Factor (16PF), and Career Orientation Placement and Evaluation Survey (COPES).

Skills Assessment

Self-reported skills are compared to skills of persons currently employed in an occupational area giving another dimension to career planning.  Available assessments are Eureka Microskills, and Campbell Interest and Skill Survey (CISS).  ASSET Career Skills measure Clerical Speed / Accuracy, Space Relations, and Mechanical Reasoning.

Academic Assessments

Basic skills in writing, reading and numerical reasoning plus more advanced skills in algebra are measured with the ASSET and COMPASS tests and the Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE).  The General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) measures General Learning Ability, Verbal Aptitude, Numerical Aptitude, Spatial Perception, Form Perception, Clerical Perception, Motor Coordination, Finger Dexterity and Manual Dexterity.

Other

The Personal Profile System-Dimensions of Behavior (DISC) is available and can be utilized in four main application areas.  These include:

• Self-Awareness/Self Management
• Peer Relationships/Team Building
• Performance Coaching/Managing Others
• Client Relationships/Sales Strategies

Work Keys is a system designed to measure workforce skills.  The intention is to establish a common language for schools and businesses to use to communicate a set of workplace skills and the necessary levels, or standards, for those skills.  For this system to effectively work, job profiles need to exist then workers are assessed to see if personal skills match.  Assessments are available in Applied Mathematics, Applied Technology, Listening, Locating Information, Reading for Information, Teamwork and Writing.  The Iowa Workforce Development Centers are Work Keys service centers in Iowa.

Contact Assessment Staff For Your Testing Needs

Marilyn Werner, Assessment Coordinator
Phone:  641-782-7081 Ext. 330 or 1-800-247-4023 Ext. 330
E-Mail:  werner@swcciowa.edu