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Career Assessment

For current PSU students who are taking 5 or more credit hours only.

The Center for Student Health and Counseling (SHAC) offers counseling and testing services to help you develop your career goals. A psychologist will work with you to assess your interests, personality characteristics, and work values and then discuss the occupations that are most congruent with those results. Since a psychologist will meet with you individually, the psychologist will tailor the process to your situation and can explore with the you any other factors that influence your career planning.

Please note that career planning resources, including workshops and classes, are also available through Career Services. A battery of career tests is only one tool to use for self analysis and career planning. Although testing will not tell you a career to choose, it will engage you in a methodical assessment of your interests, personality style, and work values--information that you can then apply to help you identify occupations that are most likely to be a good fit.

FEES

You do not need to pay to see a psychologist.

Testing fees can range from $50 to $150, which is based on the number of testing instruments that the psychologist and you determine during your initial appointment. The Career Assessment fee is subject to change.
CAREER ASSESSMENT PROCESS

Step 1: Initial Interview

Meet with a psychologist to discuss your current career planning situation, your educational and occupational background, and other influences on your career planning endeavors. You will not be charged for your initial interview.

Step 2: Career Testing

At your initial interview, you will receive more information about this and subsequent steps. Testing can approximately take 2 to 4 hours. Tests may include the following:

  • Interest Inventories: These assess your interest level in several occupational groupings and compare your interest patterns with those of individuals working in various occupations.
  • Personality Indicators: These identify your various personality characteristics as well as the occupational setting and roles that best suit those characteristics.
  • Values Inventories: This helps you reflect on the relative value you assign to various aspects of the occupational environment.
  • Aptitude Testing: This brief assessment of your verbal, quantitative, and abstract reasoning skills is used to identify any strengths or limitations you may have in these areas.

Go here for a map and directions to SHAC Testing Services.

Step 3: Interpretation

Meet with the psychologist to review the test results. Steps 3 and 4 may be combined.

Step 4: Individual Planning

The psychologist will help you map out a course of action. Since SHAC uses a range of tests, a realistic question is whether they will help you. The key to getting the most of a battery of tests is to use them as one tool in a process of self analysis. The tests can abet you in piecing together information, assessing yourself, and thereby, reaching clarity about yourself.
MAKING AN APPOINTMENT Contact SHAC at (503) 725-2800 to make to make an appointment with a psychologist for an initial career assessment interview.
QUESTIONS Please call (503) 725-5301 or e-mail SHAC Testing Services.