Career Potential Survey

Identify Competencies

Knowing one’s strengths, weaknesses and the gap between desired competencies and current/demonstrated competencies helps in identifying areas needing improvement, which is a key to success.

The purpose of Career Potential Survey is to help respondents see which competencies they currently demonstrate at work.

It also helps organizations with individual career development planning, HR strategies, in-house training, as well as in identifying the ideal career paths of high-performers.

 

Survey Report Types

The Career Potential Survey has two types of reports.

1. Personal Report

  • How individuals currently demonstrate the surveyed Competencies
  • How each individual’s scores matches with the Talent Profiles

2. Organizational Report

  • Overall trend based on Competencies and Talent Profile
  • Trend overview; tendencies by pre-set codes (department, hierarchy, age etc.)

 

Basic Concept

Career Potential Survey helps individuals/organizations see which competencies (attributes) are currently present at work. These competencies are the attributes most commonly shared with high performers in similar organizations, which then are compared to average performers. Below is a diagram to shows how these competencies are related to performance.

 

How competencies related to results, behaviors, knowledge, and skills

CPS

 

Key Features

The Career Potential Survey diagnoses competencies from two different points of view.

1. The 33 Competencies

The 33 competencies are derived from a database of tens of thousands of people. Through this lens one can see how the competencies are demonstrated at work. They also help in identifying strengths as well as areas in need of improvement.

 

The 33 competencies, based on the competency model of highly effective global leaders, were developed and later updated in Japan by Dr. George O. Klemp, Jr of Cambria Consulting, Inc.

The 33 competencies are divided into four sets of attributes. As one goes down the list, the attribute becomes less concrete and more abstract.

Intellectual Attributes: Characteristics of patterns of thinking, or thinking processes. They explain, for example, the order in which one processes information, approach one takes when forming an idea, etc.

Interpersonal Attributes: Characteristics of relationships with people, groups, organization, or society. They explain thinking and behavior with regards to relationships with others, for example: ways of relating to others, gains from relationships, influencing others, adaptability to situations, etc.

Intra-Personal Attributes: Characteristics that are triggered or strongly influenced by one's own self-perception. They explain different thinking and behavioral patterns that occur as a result of how one understands and views oneself.

Motivational Attributes Characteristics of one's sources of energy. They explain, for example, why one puts a lot of his/her energy into certain things, and what his/her motivations are.

2. The Six Talent Profiles

The six talent profiles are the ideal competency profiles for six core roles in highly successful organizations. Career Potential Survey diagnoses each individual’s talent profile based on their current role. It helps building up the existing talent in the organization.

 

The six talent profile is developed by compiling key work-product elements (roles, tasks, activities and styles), looking at the top 3-5% who performed highly in the organization, and analyzing what talents were exhibited. The combination of the 33 competencies is different in each talent profile. Also, these six talent profiles are defined along two continuum ("generalist vs. expert" and "incremental vs. discontinuous").

By comparing one’s profile with a specific talent profile, the Career Potential Survey assists respondents (as well as supervisors/managers) in understanding the characteristics of a particular (the current) role. The survey WAS NOT designed for use in assigning employees to a certain job type or category, nor should it be used to evaluate one’s abilities to perform different roles in different circumstances.

Although Talent Profiles are different in each organization, the six archetypal profiles below will help everyone understand at a glance the current talent profile in the organization.

 

 

How should it be utilized?

Here are a few examples of how the Career Potential Survey could be used:

To increasing self-understanding and in developing a career plan

Self-determination and self-development are highly valued attributes in one’s personal career development. As such, the Career Potential Survey helps individuals identify which paths can be taken to close any gaps between their current and ideal self and/or desired self in a particular job. It also helps individuals determine their suitability for a workplace, role, or whether they should aim at a managerial or an expert position.

It also helps organizations identify gaps between current and expected competencies, helping them design career development plans for individuals to advance their career.

To identify which talent profiles match with the HR strategy

How to discover and nurture the talented individuals who create future business opportunities and leadership is one of the key concerns of any organization’s HR strategy. We hear from many of our client companies (as well as others in different industries) that there is a lack in talent pools of individuals capable of creating new businesses, even when many of their employees took an active part in building and expanding their current business.

Our Career Potential Survey helps organizations identify this very central talent profile in their organization. In cases where organizations specifically need personnel who take an active role in creating new value, innovation and future businesses, they can this survey’s Talent Profile to identify “Entrepreneurs” in their organization to help them do this.

To collect data to build their in-house training systems

One of the reasons for an in-house training system is to have a way to bridge quality gaps within employee groups and help them align training with the organization’s strategic plans.

Our Career Potential Survey helps identify the distribution of an organization’s 6 talent profiles, breaking it down by department, role, position in hierarchy, age, etc. Once an organization identifies their ideal talent profile, aligns it with its vision, they can use the Career Potential Survey to help determine what kind of in-house training would be effective to develop each different segment.

To collect data for a successful career path

There is a well known model in the Learning and Development industry that uses a 70/20/10 ratio to describe what is optimal in organizational learning. This ratio suggests that successful managers learn within three clusters of experience that go as follows: 70 percent comes from job-related experiences, 20 percent from interactions with others, and the final 10 percent from formal education. Based on this model, it is, therefore, very important to carefully design job experiences, and the appropriate timing of these experiences, for optimal talent development.

The Career Potential Survey, which enables organizations to collect data about the career paths of their high-performers’, helps organizations see which experiences are contributing to their competency development and how to enhance it.