Career Assessment Integrating Interests, Abilities, and Personality

This book will help career assessors offer practical guidance that can make a real difference in people's lives. Key assessment factors include occupational interests, abilities, and personality characteristics.

Career and work contribute significantly to personal and life satisfaction—and, when they are problematic, to personal unhappiness and stress. In this comprehensive career assessment book, Rodney L. Lowman addresses the three major areas that matter the most for understanding and helping people with their career choices: occupational interests, abilities (broadly defined), and personality characteristics. Chapters examine how these factors relate to career satisfaction, how to assess them using psychometric measures, and how to integrate the results of these assessments with the clients’ specific needs and goals. Detailed case examples are included, as well as a nuanced discussion of ethics and technology.

Lowman’s career assessment model is one of the few that aims to fully integrate vocational interests, abilities, and personality characteristics—three domains that have proven their value in career assessment across a broad range of career concerns. By applying this model, career assessors can offer practical career guidance that makes a big difference in peoples' lives.
 

 

Rodney L. Lowman, PhD, ABAP, is president of Lowman & Richardson/Consulting Psychologists, and a distinguished professor emeritus of CSPP, Alliant International University, San Diego. Dr. Lowman is author/editor of 13 books and monographs and over 130 peer-reviewed articles and chapters and has made presentations worldwide. His research/practice areas include assessment, career/work issues, and professional ethics. He is a fellow of several American Psychological Association divisions (1, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17, and 52). His books include Counseling and Psychotherapy of Work Dysfunctions; An Introduction to Consulting Psychology: Working With Individuals, Groups, and Organizations; and Career Assessment: Integrating Interests, Abilities, and Personality. 

Preface 
Introduction: The Interdomain Model of Career Assessment
Chapter 1. Scope of Career Assessment Work 
I. Assessing Vocational Interests
Chapter 2. Defining and Contextualizing Vocational Interests
Chapter 3. The “Big Six” RIASEC Interest Types 
Chapter 4. Applications: Choosing Interest Measures, Interpreting Individual-Level Interest Results, and Case Illustrations
II. Assessing Career-Related Abilities
Chapter 5. Career-Related Abilities: Conceptual Issues and General Intelligence  
Chapter 6. Mechanical and Physical Abilities
Chapter 7. Spatial Abilities  
Chapter 8. Artistic and Creative Abilities  
Chapter 9. Social Abilities: Social and Emotional Intelligence
Chapter 10. Managerial and Leadership Abilities
Chapter 11. Perceptual, Computational, and Other Abilities
Chapter 12. Case Illustrations of Ability Profiles
III. Assessing Career-Related Personality Characteristics
Chapter 13. Conceptual and Measurement Issues of Career-Related Personality
Chapter 14. The Five-Factor Model of Personality  
Chapter 15. Other Career-Relevant Personality Characteristic  
Chapter 16. Applications: Case Illustrations of Personality Profiles
IV. Applying the Interdimensional Model
Chapter 17. Relationships Across Interest, Ability, and Personality Domains  
Chapter 18. Applying the Interdomain Model: A Step-by-Step Process for Integrating Career Assessment Data 
Chapter 19. Client Feedback and Report Preparation 
Chapter 20. Ethical/Legal and Technological Issues
References