How an Interest Assessment Connects Your Talents to Careers

Back in 2006, when Willoughby Newcomb was in high school, one of her teachers made her class go to CFNC.org and fill out an interest profile assessment. This is a quiz that examines what students are interested in to try to predict what career fields they might want to go into.

“My tops were film director, teacher assistant, and then a land surveyor,” Newcomb said. “As a 16-17-year-old girl, I did not want to do the land surveyor thing. So, I ended up doing my internship my senior year of high school in a first-grade classroom.”

But she never really thought that she would spend her adult life back in the classroom.

She said she knew she was a helper and an organizer, but when she was going to college at the age of 24 -- just out of a divorce with a two-year old -- she was thinking about something more like cosmetology. She just wanted to get an associate degree and a job.

But when she started dating her current husband, he told her that he would take care of expenses if she wanted to pursue her education further. She considered being a nurse or midwife.

“I shifted quickly when I realized anatomy and physiology were not my strong suit,” she said.

But she got high grades in psychology and sociology while she was getting her associate degree at Cape Fear Community College. And when she transferred to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, she got a degree in psychology. It was while she was at UNCW that her future started to take shape. She interned at a domestic violence shelter and had an important insight.

"I realized I couldn't relive the trauma every day,” she said. “I wanted to work on prevention of domestic violence and teach the importance of healthy relationships to adolescents."

She went on to get her master’s in education in school counseling, and now she is a counselor at Duplin Early College High School.

It’s been a long time since high school, and she hadn’t really thought much about that interest profile until a recent dinner with an old high school friend.

“We were talking, and I told her. ‘When we were in high school, I never would have thought I’d be back in a school building,’” she said.

Her friend, Kristen Roberson, barely remembered filling out the interest profile until the conversation sparked a memory. She remembered the top industry recommended to her by the profile: Real estate. She is now a property manager.

“Definitely it seems that it’s asking the right questions to really kind of get in there and see what your baseline internal interests are,” she said of the profile tool.

And they’re not the only ones with this experience. Newcomb said her husband had to take the assessment for a senior project in high school. It said he would be interested in the automotive field. He now owns his own towing and repossession company.

Kristen’s sister was told by the assessment that she would like the health care industry. She is a medical practice manager.

“These tests, they work,” Newcomb said. “They don’t tell you exactly what your job title will be, but they definitely get you in the job field you’re going to be satisfied with.”

The whole reason the conversation came up between Newcomb and Roberson is that Newcomb now makes her students take the modern version of the assessment linked to nccareers.org on the CFNC.org website.

But she also makes sure they understand that they’re not going to find the exact job they will have for the rest of their lives.

“That’s not reality with most people,” she said. “So, I give them the example of my husband a lot because he has had different types of jobs throughout his career, but he has always been very mechanical.”

She tells them that most people change their job title every four to seven years. But the good thing about the interest profile tool is it gives them a wider view of what job fields they might like to consider a career in. Plus, it helps them to see that there are more options out there than the ones they’re always hearing about, such as doctors, lawyers and teachers.

And who knows? Maybe 20 years down the line, those same students will be having a conversation with an old schoolmate and realize that the profile they took way back when had them pegged. Roberson said she knows the last thing students want is another test, but if they’re open to it, it might just show them a valuable path forward.

“I do think that when you are that age, and you’re trying to figure things out, the last thing you want to do is take this assessment, because how accurate can it be?” she said. “But obviously there is something to it.”

And if you’re reading this and wondering what your future holds, maybe it’s time to gaze into the tea leaves of that interest profile tool, or one of the many other tools that CFNC.org has to help you find your career. Check them all out at www.cfnc.org/plan-your-future/plan-for-a-career/