The ITS is specifically designed to map the interest profile of adults. Interest questionnaires for adolescents provide insight into suitable courses or further education. Interest questionnaires for adults also indicate interest in specific tasks and sectors. This added value is provided by ITS. It is easier to articulate suitable professions if the link is made between kinds of tasks and the sectors in which they fall. This is of crucial importance for employee satisfaction. After all, an optimal match between job and interest ensures more satisfaction!
The ITS report starts by sketching the contours of the key factors. Click here for a sample report. The structure factor provides insight into the overall pattern of interest. These are the results of the factor analysis of the first version of the questionnaire. The ITS factors are related to the well-known Dutch model, validating that model on the one hand while making it special on the other. We have compared the ITS factors and the Dutch model with one another:
| ITS | Holland |
|---|---|
| Social | Social |
| Entrepreneurial | Entrepreneurial |
| Administrative | Conventional |
| Automation | – |
| Creative | Artistic |
| Service-minded | Conventional, social |
| Technical | Realistic (indoors) |
| Nature | Realistic (outdoors) |
| – | Intellectual |
The ITS offers the additional factor of ‘Automation’ which probably was not that prominent at the time the Dutch model was being developed. The ITS splits the Dutch factor ‘Realistic’ into two factors, an ‘indoors’ and an ‘outdoors’ factor called ‘Technical’ and ‘Nature’ respectively. Apparently a distinction can be made between a desire to conduct realistic work indoors or outdoors. The Dutch ‘Conventional’ factor is also divided into two factors, an administrative and a more social component: Administrative and Service-minded, the social side of the conventional professions. The Dutch ‘Intellectual’ factor is not clearly identifiable, but appears as a separate factor. Additional research is taking place to create clarity in this respect.
The interest profile is loaded on interest in sectors. Only the highest-scoring sectors are shown in the table in order to show the trends in the search process. The sectors are the same as the Dutch social welfare office (UWV) presents on its website (www.werk.nl). In this way, it is easy to develop insight into the professional job openings available in this sector. Visit www.werk.nl and see for yourself.
You can select sectors that rank highly on the ITS in Step Two in order to gain insight into professions and job openings in that sector. The screenshot shows the way in which you can use the ITS results to gain insight into suitable professions. In this way, the ITS results lead directly to suitable professions as well as to information about the number of job openings.
The report also provides insight into the tasks someone prefers. That does not necessarily mean the candidate is good at it. Other tests are able to validate that. For the sake of clarity, only the 15 highest-ranking tasks are presented in this report. To give an example, the following tasks became apparent:
Reading, Organising, Strategic thinking, Analysing, Teaching, facilitating Courses or Workshops, consulting with colleagues and Convincing people.
The combination of these tasks provides useful insight into which professions match the interest profiles the best. When professions are researched in the competence atlas, it is also possible to research the fit between professions and interest in the task.
The Interest questionnaire for Tasks and Sectors is primarily applicable for career consulting, outplacement and reintegration. Other interest questionnaires in the Test-Toolkit are to be preferred for choice of study. When reviewing the options, it is advisable to discuss the main structure and discover if this has been recognised. The next step is to research whether the sectors can indeed be aligned with the interest profile, with the support of the competence atlas for example.
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