What Your Scores Mean
These scores are calculated as a percentage of the possible points you could have scored for each attribute. This can help you understand how strong your leanings are towards a specific trait. As you might guess, a higher score means you identify with an attribute more. This isn't a right-or-wrong type of score- just an extra indicator of your preferences!
What is the Domain Breakdown?
This is a snapshot of what form of compensation matters most to you and the balance between them. The report is intentionally broad and should be used only as a guide as assess your fit with an opportunity. The three domains (Approach, Environment, and Outcomes) are presented as a diagram proportionally divided to correlate with your responses. We find it helps to see the forest before we focus on the trees.
Your Results
Check out our guide on How to Read Your Results.
Domain Breakdown
What's this?The strength of our Domain scores indicates what domain and category of attribution we value most. While not as specific as the individual results that follow, these results help us better understand our priorities and enable more productive conversations with our employers. Consider focusing negotiations and team-building discussions around the Domains that are strongest, even if you need to give a little on the side of the circle that is smallest. (For more tips on developing Domain-based strategies, contact a Career Placement Specialist.)
Attribute Results
High Report
The following results represent the Attributes that contribute most to your fit with employment opportunities. With the insights shared below, you should be able to develop a strategy that will effectively support career selection, contract negotiation, employee evaluation, and self-discovery.
Variety Highest Attribute
Strategic Insights
With variety in your top attributes, you should consider jobs that don’t necessarily look the same from one month to the next, or even from day to day. One option could be project-based jobs. You may also enjoy working on a team where everyone needs to wear multiple hats from time to time (for instance, most startups). Variety comes with unpredictability, which for some is a perk. You get to solve problems, and you’ll often be thrown into situations in which you are not yet an expert. This is a fast track to gaining competency and experience across many different areas.
Variety doesn’t necessarily mean a chaotic or unpredictable workplace (though it can in some fields if that’s what you want). Some jobs, such as K-12 teaching, coaching, and construction, have variety built into them because of the different topics, lessons, projects, and people you interact with every day.
To find a job that’s high on variety, look for positions that have structural reasons for why your work would vary. Does the position entail working for diverse clients on their various needs? From consulting to accounting to home remodeling, working with clients is one way that variety can be built in. Another often overlooked source of variety is working on a small team or in a small company. As part of a smaller firm, relatively few people must address the day-to-day tasks and problems. Everyone has to pitch in for the venture to succeed. This is a good way to avoid boredom.
Interview Questions
- How many clients do we work with at any given time, and how different might the jobs be for various clients?
- What will my day-to-day work look like? (Often, in positions with high variety this will be a hard question for them to answer, which is a good thing in this case)
- How big is the team I will be working on and how do job assignments get handed out?
Job Search Tips
- Look for the words “client” and “project” or “project-based” or “many/multiple/different hats.” These are not the only ways to find jobs with high variety, but they’re a great start.
- Want variety? Go work for a startup. There are job boards that post positions specifically for startups and you will likely end up doing work across all sorts of areas in a fast-paced environment.
Flexibility
Strategic Insights
With flexibility high in your results, you want to be able to blend your work life with the needs and desires you have for the rest of your life. Well, you're in luck! Research shows that those who value flexibility and free time tend to be the happiest and most satisfied with their lives. Why? Because they avoid the (un)happiness traps of spending too much time focusing on things that don't actually make them happy and might even make them miserable.
Consider looking for a job that is outcome-oriented, perhaps project-based, and where strict, in-person time is not highly prized. More and more employers are making it possible for people to be more flexible with their work. Flexibility can be found in hourly jobs, salaried positions, and production-based work. Management is the single most important factor in determining the flexibility of the company's operations—more significant even than the industry or company.
Covid-19 has led to some dramatic changes regarding flexibility and work. A 2021 Harvard study found that of those who switched to working remotely, only 12% wanted to go back to work every day in the office, the rest wanted to either stay fully remote or return to a hybrid situation with some days remote and some in-office every week. Why? The main reason: flexibility. It turns out that feeling like you are constantly under the watchful eyes of your employers and co-workers can dramatically curtail how much flexibility you feel your job has. Remote work has not impacted productivity. Rather, it has allowed people to prioritize other, often more important things, in their lives.
This is a fast-moving situation, but things will not go back to the way they were before because most workers who have tasted flexibility don’t want to give it up. Increasingly, the companies offering the most flexibility will be able to get the best talent. This is good for you. With a little legwork and flexibility on your part, you will have more choices to arrange work the way you want across the different stages of your life.
Interview Questions
- Is there a set time that I am supposed to arrive and leave every day?
- Are there any employees who have taken non-traditional approaches to this position?
- What is the company's sick day/vacation policy?
Job Search Tips
- Don't be sneaky about this. If you're hiding what you really care about now, there are two things you need to realize. First, you're going to keep hiding these things once you're hired, which will not lead to more flexibility. Second, if you're applying for a job where you FEEL you need to hide these things, it’s probably a sign that the company won’t give you the flexibility you're looking for.
- Most jobs that are actually flexible are upfront about it during the interview process because it's attractive. So, speak openly about your priorities. To excel in flexible jobs, you need to earn trust. The better your work is, especially when it's done while utilizing flexible working arrangements, the more trust you will earn, the less your manager will worry about what you're doing, and the more freedom you will have.
Excitement
Strategic Insights
With excitement high in your results, you're looking for something that provides you a literal physical/psychological reaction, at least from time to time. Excitement and work are not often spoken of together because most jobs, even great ones that people really enjoy, aren't usually exciting. Luckily, there are plenty that are. Nobody wants a monotonous job, but you would probably prefer something beyond just “not monotonous.”
Excitement is mental, but it has effects on the whole body. It is motivating, thrilling, and can enliven your senses. Excitement is also associated with perceived danger, and there are many jobs with a risk of physical danger (firefighter, etc.). These important jobs require people who thrive in dangerous situations. Physical danger, however, is not the only form of perceived danger. Social danger can also be exhilarating. Virtually any type of performance in front of a crowd is exciting, from arts to athletics, to public speaking, sales, or even teaching.
Excitement at work often overlaps with unpredictability. A hallmark of exciting work is solving unexpected problems on the fly. Sometimes these will place you into situations that you weren’t prepared for, and to be honest, are not even fully qualified to handle. But you may be the best or only one available to do it. Done right, this can lead to a lot of growth and personal development. People who can make things happen AND make good decisions on the fly in high-stress situations are diamonds in the rough.
Forging a new path is also exciting. When you can go to bed at night knowing that something new was created today because of the work that you did, that's exciting. While some of the jobs listed above may provide obvious thrills, unpredictability and urgency go hand in hand with excitement and can be found in many positions. Others will often pass up on such jobs because they are unpredictable. It's their loss and your high.
Interview Questions
- What parts of this job do you think will be the most exciting?
- Every job has some boring parts. What do you feel are the most tedious parts of this job?
- Why do you feel most of your employees enjoy working here?
Job Search Tips
- Sometimes excitement is a form of payment all by itself, so the most exciting jobs often don't pay as much as more monotonous jobs. Don't let that deter you! If your financial needs will be met, considering the excitement as part of your pay.
- What's exciting is different for everyone, so you may have a unique opportunity if you are excited by something that others are not. Find dog grooming to be very exciting? Great! Use that!
Low Report
These Attributes are the least relevant to your finding a professional fit. While not as important for you to recognize as the positively correlated Attributes, we have found that, because no job is perfect, it is helpful to know what you might be able to give in exchange for what you need from an employer.
Location
Strategic Insights
With location in your bottom results, you can confidently pursue the best opportunities regardless of their location. You are highly adaptable and can adjust to life in the big city, small town, near family, or far from it. This does not mean that you don't have preferences, just that those preferences don't strongly determine your level of satisfaction at work.
Agility can be a very powerful advantage when job hunting but if overindulged can prevent you from developing the deep roots that are often essential for advancement. Stay flexible on location but keep an eye out for aspects of your location that really resonate with you and try to maintain and maximize those going forward. (Note: Location preference is a domain that often changes over the course of a career. It may be in your top three at one stage of your career and in the bottom at another. Don't assume because it’s at the bottom now, which suggests that you can be happy working anywhere, that you will always be geographically versatile).
Status
Strategic Insights
Having status-seeking relatively low in your motivations means that you can more easily find value and meaning in your work without being constantly recognized by others, (though it virtually always feels good to be admired). It can also mean that even in less meaningful/enjoyable job you are getting enough respect and esteem in your life outside of work that you don’t need as much affirmation from your job and co-workers.
Not needing as much external validation opens up good opportunities that others might not enjoy and has the side benefit of helping to keep you away from some of the potential pitfalls and temptations of self-aggrandizement. On the flip side, you might not do a good enough job of self-promotion and might even downplay your accomplishments. You might want to look a little deeper and see if the work you have done is better than you are giving it credit for. Because you don’t get as much satisfaction as others from external affirmation, it might not occur to you how important it is to recognize your own achievements.
Predictability Lowest Attribute
Strategic Insights
Having predictability toward the bottom of your test results means that structure and clarity are less necessary for you to succeed. You should consider a wide range of options, even those with no formal structure. People with low predictability demands thrive in startups or relatively new and fast-growing companies. In these situations, everyone comes into work every day prepared to help pitch in on just about anything. Done right, this can be very exciting.
Although predictability is low in your values, it does not mean that you can thrive in a situation with terrible communication and vague expectations. For instance, being an author comes with very low levels of predictability. There is no set work schedule, and it is very difficult to know if your book will be successful. Unpredictability is built into the job. Imagine you have an editor that gives you the feedback to “make this better.” This is unhelpful and can even be counterproductive. Even if your job is unpredictable, work with your managers to make sure you have a good sense of what they’re looking for.
While having predictability toward the bottom of results will allow you to trade formal expectations for qualities that are higher on your list, understand that you will still need to demonstrate how you bring value to your employer. Without clear expectations, it can be challenging to prove your value. Think about ways you might demonstrate how you are contributing.
The Job-Hunt Guidebook
A collection of the most important myths and truths found in the last 20 years of academic studies on interviews, resumes, and applications.
The Truth Behind Job Postings
The great mismatch between how hiring managers view job postings and how applicants view job postings, and how that’s derailing applicants.
The Three Things Employers are Looking For in Applications
in Applications and Interviews and the central questions the interviewer is asking themselves about you.
The Four Lies Employers are Worried About in Your Application
- These affect how they view all applicants, even the 100% honest
- How this changes the way you need to present yourself
- Detailed and specific steps you can take to use this knowledge in your application, resume, and interviews to rise to the very top of the stack