Career Fitness Profiler

This self-reported questionnaire and the first of a new generation of career questionnaires. It is definitely worth looking at! It could be your new pair of glasses to start driving your career or support one of your employees, clients, or coachees!

Developed and validated by TalentLogiQs®, a spin-off of the University of Antwerp, the Career Fitness Profiler is an evidence-based questionnaire that provides insight and facilitates conversations related to talent and succession management, career development, mobility, and stress/wellbeing. It measures career values, the extent to which the respondent can actively manage his or her career and his or her current energy level. This gives a very complete picture of how the participant stands in their career today. What pitfalls may arise and what development steps can be taken to make more informed career choices, so that subjective career success is within reach.

What is the Career Fitness Profiler used for?

At the individual level, data can be used for one-on-one conversations or group development interventions such as:

• Conducting career dialogues with employees
• Individual or group outplacement programs
• Coaching young talent in developing clear career visions
• Coaching people at a crossroads in their career from a value-driven perspective
• Hiring new employees, taking into account organizational needs and culture

Although the instrument applies to beyond outplacement and traditional career guidance, it should never be used for evaluation purposes.

At an organizational level, data can be used as HR analytics to make data-driven policies and interventions such as:

• Prevention of stress-related issues and maintenance of employee energy and motivation
• Quantitative succession planning in which the individual perspective is included
• Guidance and empowerment of employee mobility
• Engagement strategy balancing the interests of the organization with those of the employees
• Boosting internal mobility

What data is being measured?

This scientifically validated questionnaire offers measures of three contemporary career management frameworks:

• Career Values: What drives people in their careers, what motivates them? This model uses 12 subjective career motivators, categorized based on the most influential contemporary motivation theory. They will highlight the conditions to make future career moves a success and pitfalls that the respondent shall be warned about.
• Career Attitudes: The attitudes that individuals require to take control of their own career. This involves adaptability, goal orientation, self-initiation, and mobility. They are important predictors of personal career success and enhanced wellbeing.
• Energy-stress balance: To what extent does existing work put pressure on your employees? Long-term “over stretching” or “under stretching” of individual capacities are recipes for burnout or motivational challenges.
  The Energy-Stress balance provides a snapshot of the current career energy and identifies areas where adjusting pace up or downward will sustain long term performance and energy.

Based on these three models, the Career Fitness Profiler can also make a statement about the general Career Fitness Index of a respondent in the form of a % and three underlying constructs:

• Career focus: the extent to which the respondent has a clear career orientation
• Career strength: the extent to which the respondent is able to manage their own career
• Career energy: the extent to which the respondent has the energy to take their career one step further

What reports are available?

There are four types of reports available that all have a specific objective:

• 1. Participant’s report: a lot of explanation is given about the concepts used, the specific scores for the respondent are limited. This report is ideal for forwarding before the feedback interview. The respondent can prepare himself by becoming acquainted with the various measured concepts.
• 2. Participant’s report -detailed: this provides both an explanation of the concepts used and in-depth information about the respondent. This report is intended to go through the feedback conversation with the respondent and to provide it as a reference work after the conversation.
• 3. Career Fitness Report: This report is the same as the previous one, the Career Fitness metrics are also shown here.
• 4. Coach report: in this report no explanation is given about the concepts. More extensive information is, however, provided. This report allows the coach to prepare thoroughly for the interview. This report is not intended to be given to the respondent.

It is possible to download the various parts of the report in partial reports. This can be useful should the career guidance practices and processes of the key account require it.

Questionnaire and reports are available in 4 languages: Dutch, English, French and German.

Data can be reported for all indicators, or separate sub-reports are available to boost your HR analytics for better decisions regarding your personnel policies.

Scientific details

The questionnaire has been validated by Dr. Wouter Van Bockhaven and Prof. Dr. Jesse Segers at the University of Antwerp. Here are more scientific details about the 3 sections of the questionnaire.

Career Values

Items and questions: 12 factors in 56 items

1. Personal growth
2. Social drive
3. Need to contribute
4. Intellectual challenge
5. Entrepreneurial ambition
6. Professional autonomy
7. Personal goal attainment
8. Reward and recognition
9. Managerial Ambition
10. Professional stability
11. Work-life balance
12. Self determination

There are 55 possible pitfalls that warn respondents about possible career risks.

Reliability: alpha> 0.755; CR> 0.703
Validity: CFI = 0.925; TLI = 0.914; RMSEA = 0.048
Scoring: STEN
Duration: the session takes an average of 15 minutes

Career attitudes

Items and questions: 4 factors in 26 items

• Adaptability
• Purpose and values
• Pro-activity
• Mobility

Reliability: alpha> 0.655; CR> 0.65
Validity: CFI = 0.966; TLI = 0.933; RMSEA = 0.059
Scoring: STEN
Duration: the session takes 8 minutes on average

Energy Stress balance

Items and questions: 4 factors in 24 items

• Professional Self-confidence
• Resilience
• Optimism
• Hope

Reliability: Cronbach alfa> 0.645; Composite reliability (Rho)> 0.761
Validity: CFI = 0.977; TLI = 0.968; RMSEA = 0.031
Scoring: STEN
Duration: the session takes an average of 7 minutes

The three areas of focus can be used together or separately.

Read more on how we use the Career Fitness Profiler