As the old adage goes, “Find a job you love, and you will never work a day in your life.”

Though you may be passionate about a particular career or field of study, how do you know it will really make you happy? Nothing could be worse than studying for years to become a financial trader on Wall Street, for example, only to discover the first day on the job that you prefer a quieter, more stable, and more predictable type of working environment.

When considering a career, knowing more about what type of environment you prefer can impact job satisfaction. Do you prefer to work on a team or independently? Do you like positions of leadership? Do you desire recognition for a job well done?  Do you want a supportive employer? These are all aspects about yourself as an employee that you may not even realize. Employees who are a good fit have been shown to be happier, stay longer in a position, and be more productive.

The Work Values Inventory™ (WVI™) is a new test that measures work values (also known as vocational needs) to help users find job satisfaction by identifying a career that fits. It is based on and tied to the Department of Labor’s Occupational Information Network (O*NET). In just 10 minutes, users learn their top three work values (Achievement, Independence, Support, Relationships, Working Conditions, and Recognition). Using the WVI Occupations Finder, users then match their top work values to careers that are a good fit.

The WVI is self-administered, self-scored, and self-interpreted, and no special training is required. It benefits job seekers by helping them learn more about what they need in a position for job satisfaction. It also benefits career counselors, and it is a useful tool for human resource personnel when evaluating potential job candidates.

The WVI is an important part of the career personality puzzle—but it’s not the only part. The Working Styles Assessment™ (WSA™) evaluates work personality and approaches, such as initiative, cooperation, and innovation. The Self-Directed Search® (SDS®) examines aspirations, activities, competencies, and levels of interest in different occupations. Used together, these three tests help identify a user’s complete work personality to help him or her find a career that a fits.

Beyond the technical requirements of the job, what are the workplace personality traits that lead to success in a specific work environment? Understanding the personality traits needed for a particular job or workplace can be the key to a good career choice—a match that works for both employee and employer.

The new Working Styles Assessment™ (WSA™) from PAR is a measure of work-related personality traits such as initiative, persistence, concern for others, self-control, conscientiousness, and analytical thinking. By measuring these traits, career counselors can help their clients find jobs they love—and employers can find workers who have what it takes for success on the job.

The WSA is the only workplace personality assessment that uses the current Occupational Information Network (O*NET) terminology, which means that the personality traits measured by the WSA can be compared to the traits associated with hundreds of current occupations listed in the O*NET database.

The WSA helps create a win-win situation for job seekers and employers:

• Career counselors can help their clients use the WSA to identify their own strengths and explore the career options that are most likely to be a good fit.


• HR professionals can decide which traits are most important for a given job and then use the WSA to identify candidates who have those traits.


• Job seekers can look up interesting jobs on the O*NET and compare the working styles required by those jobs to their own working styles.

The WSA is a useful complement to the recently released 5^th Edition of the Self-Directed Search® (SDS®), John Holland’s gold standard career interest inventory. The WSA will also soon be available on PARiConnect, PAR’s online assessment platform.

To learn more about the WSA and other career products from PAR, visit www.parinc.com or call Customer Support at 1.800.331.8378.

Here at PAR, we are delighted by the positive response to our new Self-Directed Search®, 5th Edition. One of the most widely used career interest inventories in the world, the SDS® has been revised to meet the needs of today’s clients.

To help spread the word about the new SDS® 5th Edition, we created a humorous video about college planning—or rather, what happens when there isn’t a plan! This video is making its way around the Internet as students, parents, teachers, and counselors are sharing the message that students need reliable tools to help them explore careers and find their future.

So take a moment to enjoy this short video, and if you like it, please share it through e-mail or your favorite social medium.

Introducing the (ahem!) four-year plan…