Motivation

Motivation is about what you want to do. It makes sense to match a person’s interests to an occupation: it is difficult to succeed if you are bored. Interests tend to develop because of our exposure to different sorts of experiences and also in relation to different talents which tend to find some outlet for their expression. Obvious questions arise from these circumstances: how do you know whether you would like a certain career when you have not yet had a chance to try it? How do you know that there is not some career which you have never thought about, but for which you may discover a talent when you try it?

Test it No

Test Name	Cost	Remark
Motivation Test	$99

In fact, through our education, reading, watching television, listening to the radio, and many other experiences, we have all had at least second-hand experience of many different forms of work. We are drawn to some more than others. True, we may not know ourselves as well as we could and may miss out on something which suits us. Or, maybe, there is more than one type of career that we are suited to. These are the sorts of reasons that lead many people to have more than one career.

The aim of this testing is to assist you to see where your major interests lie at the present time. They may well change, although, in most people, interests, like personality and abilities, remain remarkably stable. Having established where your interests are, the objective is to relate them to different careers. The process is designed to assist you to choose from different avenues of opportunity. It is not only to get you started, or, for those who are thinking of a second career, into something which may appeal to you more than your present job, but to persuade you to consider the long-term benefits of choosing one area rather than another.

This testing, you could take the questionnaire simply on the basis of what appeals to you, not on the basis of whether you think you have the talent for it or not. This approach often works very well, because it establishes the nature of what you want to do. This approach makes the motivation questionnaire work like a personality test. Say the idea of being a musician appeals to you, but you know that all your attempts to learn a musical instrument have failed. What emerges from the questionnaire may well be a desire to pursue some expressive form or work, or to work in some way which allows you to be creative.
So, although you might have said that you would like to be a musician, knowing that you could not be, the questionnaire may well reveal a career direction that is right for you. Motivation testing is designed though they often appear rather simple and ‘easy to fake’ are actually rather complex instruments, if used thoughtfully.

You could equally well take the questionnaire on the basis of what you know you can, and cannot, do. Thus, you might leave out careers that demand a specialist degree or other qualifications. If it does not look as though you would obtain them. Even so, the
questionnaire might occasionally force you to choose between two activities, neither of which you might think could possibly be you.

There is no reason at all why you should not ask others what they think you are capable of doing or what would suit you. You might find this to be revealing, especially when others’ thoughts about your potential disagree with your own.

At MissConsult.com Motivation testing like this one are not only used for career guidance, but also for selection purposes by organizations to which you might apply.

They want to establish as quickly as possible whether your aspirations are going to be met by the job. There will be little point in your starting work if you and they discover that it does not really appeal to you. There is little point in you trying to fake such questionnaires in order to get the job either. You will not be helping yourself. Moreover, if your results look bizarre in comparison with your experience-, you will have done yourself no favours. Far better to have established before your interview or other selection process that the occupation you are seeking is consistent with your own motivation.

As mentioned above, it takes a ‘forced choice’ format so that, in the end, you will have relatively strong interests in some areas and not in others. Occasionally, one or two people are interested in doing everything or in none of the activities within the questionnaire. Such results emerge, for different reasons, as ‘middling’, and will be dealt with later on under Interpretation. Most people have leanings to one area of work rather than another, and the structure of the questionnaire reveals this. The idea is that, although each career is different, each one falls roughly into a different, broad category. It is generally more useful to get the broad category right, since this keeps your options open, than identifying any single occupation.

The questionnaire is composed of different occupational titles and different descriptions of work activity. They are designed to establish what type of work might suit you. They are not selected on the basis of what level of work you might be capable of.

The Motivation Questionnaire is a general questionnaire which encompasses most types of occupations at all levels. If you are already a mature person and, perhaps, have already had a career with responsibility, maybe as a manager, you could be asked to complete a questionnaire designed specifically for managers when