What are Personal Components?

The second Breakthroughs assessment utilizes the four following areas to match with several career choices and give feedback to the employer.

Skills and Abilities - There are natural strengths that allow one to become highly skilled or to learn specialized processes more easily than most people their age or with their experience. Often the prospective employee may feel they have skills and abilities in areas you are looking for. We look at how they see themselves and how those skills score on standardized tests compared to other adults and their overall performance. That way as a manager/employer you know what skills you can actually expect to show up in the work place-not the candidates opinion or a former employer’s perspective.

Vocational Interests - What are the individual’s interests vocationally? Breakthroughs will rank and describe interests in 21 broad career groups. In a chart format, it will list the components that make up the top ten interests in Activities, Occupations and Subjects. Some job areas seem to appeal naturally to us, while others don’t, and these natural desires are our vocational interests. Another consideration is at what job level the potential or current employee is best suited. This will affect the level of training and education needed. Is this potential employee able to handle the work level you are expecting and needing?

Personality - How one naturally responds
Breakthroughs will give an analysis of the following factors:

1. Personality factors-dominance, extroversion, compassion, conscientiousness, adventurousness and innovation. With this information you will have more information to know if this person will fit with your current staff.
2. Typical strengths and weaknesses. Are there weaknesses where you are needing strengths?
3. Career environments and implications. Job satisfaction is critically influenced by this information. A good match will encourage this person to become a satisfied long-term successful employee.
4. Critical life issues. Stress level and the ability to cope influences an employee’s daily output and attitude. Stress also influences need for sick leave and days off. Knowing a potential employees ability to deal with stress is extremely valuable information to you as an employer with multiple financial ramifications.

Priorities and Values - What are this individual’s priorities and values? Breakthroughs will help identify personal values and priorities in three areas:

1. Work environment
2. Work expectations
3. Life values

Teams are greatly influenced by the priorities and values of each member.

What is Cognitive/Comprehension?

Comprehension is the ability to receive and process information. The comprehension score is a composite of ten different cognitive tests. Comprehension is critical for understanding and following routines, directions and written or verbal instructions. These skills are in high demand in many career fields. Comprehension affects our work environment, the need for structure or variety, our ability to work with details, the  type of supervisor or supervision required, our management potential and leadership abilities. Comprehension tests include:

• Visual closure (eye tracking)
• Visual conceptualization (organization)
• Coping skills
• Constancy of objects in space
• Spatial conservation (ability to apply what is learned)
• Comprehension of abstract relations
• Comprehension of numerical progressions
• Vocabulary concepts
• Comprehension of verbal relations (cause and effects)
• Comprehension of extended verbal information (listening skills)

Summary - the results of each of these comprehension tests have detailed career implications.

See testimonials.

What is Memory?

Memory is defined as the ability to commit information to storage for exact retrieval. Poor concentration and attending skills may affect memories. There are six tests on our memory assessment. One assessment scores awareness of details in the environment. Another is a measure of incidental, peripheral or short-term memory. A detailed oriented career would benefit with a high score in this kind of memory. Excellent long-term visual memories help a person remember what they’ve read or studied for several days. Efficient long-term auditory (hearing) memories help a person accurately recall what they heard. Underdeveloped auditory memories can lead to communication difficulties. Auditory memory can be affected if the auditory processing skills are in trouble. Therefore, these areas that affect the reception of information are important to check as well. Memories are used life long and affect all areas of our lives. One of Breakthrough’s original goals was to not compensate-but develop memories. We are excited to see so many people have life changing breakthroughs in these areas.

Memory tests include:

• Short term memory
• Visual memory for details
• Auditory attending
• Auditory sequencing
• Inferential memory

Summary - Most  careers demand one or more memory skill.

See testimonials.

What is Problem Solving?

These tests indicate how well one can use information or facts to achieve a defined outcome. These skills indicate weaknesses or strengths in the following areas:

• Eye-hand coordination
• Application of arithmetic facts
• Speed of word recognition
• Form reasoning and logic

Summary - These abilities reflect general working skills and production abilities.

If someone is weak solving problems they will like jobs which are predictable, where work is well documented and completion objectives are known ahead of time.

If the problem solving scores are low, then no matter how high other scores may be the person would probably not be academically oriented unless extremely motivated. Consequently they have a hard time in jobs that require abstract proficiencies or continuing education. A current employee in the above dilemma would benefit by attending Breakthroughs where they could develop problem solving brain skills. Work skills are highly correlated with these convergent tests.

See testimonials.

What is Evaluation/Judgement?

It is the ability to make judgments, to plan efficiently, to make good decisions, and to have foresight. Executives, supervisors, foremen, and administrators need to score well in these abilities. They have responsibility to make good decisions. Sometimes people are promoted past their ability to function in this area. These skills can be developed at Breakthroughs.

Areas assessed include:

• Visual discrimination (affects detailed data)
• Judgment of similar/ matching concepts (organization and efficiency)
• Judgment of arithmetic similarities
• Judgment of correctness of numerical facts (business procedures)

Summary - Just as high scores work well in decision-making careers, overall low evaluation scores have been found in delinquents and prisoners. With intense evaluation training, recidivism can be lowered.

See testimonials.

What is Creativity?

The highest score of the three tests will indicate the creative area one can most successfully use in a work situation. These scores reflect specific mixes of creativity such as fluency and the ability to produce a variety of unique responses. Whereas problem-solving skills help a person ‘zero-in’ to determine answers, creativity skills enable a person to ‘expand out’ to new or unique possibilities. Although many jobs do not require creativity, it is crucial to have high scores in these areas when the work involves divergent thinking. Ie. Photography, architect.

Creativity tests:

• Creativity with space and shapes (ideas)
• Creativity with math facts
• Creativity with words

Summary - When high creativity skills are balanced with high judgment skills a person often produces quality products. Their ideas are practical. They have learned to discipline their creative energy into productive action. 

Many with high creativity scores would benefit themselves and their workplace by increasing their judgment skills at Breakthroughs. They would be able to judge accurately when to share one of their creative concepts with their employer. One idea can multiply the bottom line.

See testimonials.