I just scored a Strong that has all six GOTs in the “moderate” range, with standard scores only 5 points apart. The order of the GOTs is RSECIA. The five highest Basic Interest Scales are also only “moderate,” along with six others in the “moderate” range. The Profile says that this person’s Theme code is RSE, but how do I know that is right when they are all the same?
This sounds like an undifferentiated Strong Profile. The very first thing that you want to do is check the percentage of “Indifferent” responses in the Response Summary on page 9. If the percentage is higher than about 45%, the Profile isn’t going to be very useful. You will probably need to back up and approach your client’s concerns from another direction. The MBTI can be very helpful here. If the two middle letters of the person’s type are somewhat clear (ST-SF-NF-NT) you can suggest interest areas on the Strong that they would probably like if they knew about them. That’s the major difference between the two instruments — the Strong only picks up on what you know about; the MBTI can predict what you might like.
Assuming that the “Indifferent” response percentage isn’t out of bounds, you can approach the Strong through the Occupational Scales to suggest a Theme code. There is a worksheet in the User’s Guide that takes you through the process of generating an overall Theme code from the individual Occupational Scales.
If that doesn’t work, you can “backdoor” into the Strong through the Personal Style Scales, and at least get the discussion going from preferences indicated there.
The bottom line, though, is that if a personality isn’t differentiated, the Strong won’t do it for them. You might have to do some work over and above career assessments to sort that out. Keep in mind that Realistic and Social represent opposite personality characteristics. When two opposite Themes show up in the first two positions, they tend to cancel everything else out. Very often people with Strong results like this need some help in getting to know themselves better, prioritizing, values clarification, etc.–all a part of what career counselors and consultants do.
As a career consultant, I also often find it difficult to interpret some moderate strong reports. However, I would like to suggest another assessment- called The Highlands Ability Battery (www.highlandsco.com) Its one of the few assessments that measures natural abilities. It is a group of timed work samples and gives invaluable info about a person’s abilities such as writing, spatial and artistic abilities. Had your INTJ taken this assessment in high school, she would have been steered to look at more math and science majors. When the Highlands is combined with the Strong and the MBTI, a person learns a lot about themselves and good career matches and can gain a better understanding of past struggles.