My Strong Certification Program Experience
posted by Kara Neureuther
In June 2011, I participated in the Strong Interest Inventory® Certification Program provided by GS Consultants, led by Judi Grutter. Many of you probably know Judi, have purchased one of her authored-products, or have seen one of her webinars featured on CPP.com. The level of both practical knowledge and years of industry experience provided for an exceptional learning experience for me.
My Strong results are an EAS theme code, Enterprising Artistic Social. The easiest explanation is that I am interested in fast-paced, business-oriented positions where I can be creative and work on a team. Thinking about my happiness in previous careers, whether they were marketing-related or not, it revolved around those motivators.
It was also great to experience an interpretation session where the client may not relate to the high themes in his/her profile right off the bat. It was fascinating how a theme that a client said seemed not to fit revealed itself as the client reviewed all the aspects of the theme.
For instance, say your client has Strong results of a Realistic Investigative (RI) theme code, but also has a high or moderate interpretive comment for Enterprising (E), which also showed up in several of the Occupational Scales in the profile. As you go through Holland’s theme codes separately, your client reveals no interest in the motivators for Enterprising (e.g. persuading, leading, selling). Are you stumped at this point? Well, a good course of action that I learned is to use the Where Do I Go Next? booklet and point to the descriptors for the E theme code while asking your client to see if any of the words he/she thinks are interesting. If there are a few or even many that your client does seem to think fits, you can then go back to the profile to show your client the General Occupational Themes most commonly associated with his/her top 10 Occupational Scales, not necessarily the titles, in which he/she can then review to see if any of those types of work environments seem interesting.
Judi mixed up the “book” learning with hands-on activities and visuals to help drive home the concepts, which was incredibly helpful to me. Her energy throughout the program was really enlivening as well. At no point did I doubt her passion for the assessment or providing these certification programs. Highly recommended from this certified practitioner!
