The Desautels Faculty of Management of McGill University prizes itself in its competitive students ready to enter the world of business with a determined career path ahead of them. As a management student, a friend of mine was recently asked to complete a 200-item career test to discover, based on her interests, motivators, and skills what path she should pursue.

Thanks to PSYC 406, my first thoughts regarding the test were about what construct they could possibly be measuring, and how this test could have any value of validity or reliability. How do you define a leader in business?

Think of all the qualities you need to succeed in a work environment. Ability to be a team player, entrepreneurial spirit, ambition, motivation… the list goes on. How could one conceivably measure all of this in a single online test?

Further investigation allowed me to find what constructs they were measuring, and it turned out to be quite interesting. This questionnaire assesses “interests, motivators, and skills” by looking at how importantly people rate different aspects of a career, such as: influencing others, creative production, recognition, financial gain, intellectual challenge, altruism… For some of these constructs, the assessment places you at a percentile against other people who took the test. A high percentile means you are highly motivated by something (e.g. having power over others). I think this is a smart way to present the results of the test, as giving a reference to the norm helps underline where you may succeed relative to others. In an environment as competitive as the business world, knowing where you excel in comparison to others is important.

In fact, this test seemed to have been well constructed! They had a reference group in order to give students the percentile rankings, and provided a lot of information on careers that fit students performing above average in certain domains.

Given the omnipresence of casual “psychological” tests in our society, many of my fellow bloggers and I have questioned their significance and applicability. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the field of psychometrics can extend as far as career placement tests, where rigorous methodology can still be applied.

That being said — I still find it hard to adhere to as broad a construct as a “businessman.” How would you define a strong leader in management? Should people who answer similarly on these questionnaires really all be placed in similar career paths, or is diversity within one same business team an asset? Let me know what you think!