TOS CREW Review- PeopleKeys

Doctor? Lawyer? Policeman? Cook? Teacher?  Lab Technician? Writer?
My goodness, the possibilities for our children are as endless as the stars!  So how does one know what one wants to do in life?  How does a parent start to counsel their child about all that there is to choose from?  So many of the choices depend not only on training and interests, but also strengths and weakness.  

PeopleKeys  is a company that provides various tools, online and printed, for behavioral assessments. Though these assessments can be used by companies to help them hire the best fit for a particular job, they can also be used as a way to personal discovery as well.  I love this company's tag line-  "unlocking human potential".  How great is that!  Each person has so much potential and sometimes we just need a little encouragement to find our niche.

We had the privilege of using the DISC Career Style Report for my 15 year old daughter.  Since she is nearing the age of college and career choices, we thought it would be fun to see what someone else had to say about her strengths and weaknesses.  The DISC is supposed to be able to analyze not only those two things but also communication styles, workplace styles, one's limitations and potential contributions to a team. DISC is short for Dominance, Influence, Stable, and Compliant.  In a series of questions rating from most likely to least likely, the DISC system evaluates you and your personality.   This 15-30 minute online test is easy to access and once taken is immediately scored.  Test results are then emailed to you.  The end result shows your "type", which is a combination of the DISC values you received.
The test results come in several sections.
First, Description.  In this section your style is described by a key word.  That key word is then further broken down by General Characteristics, Motivations and Ideal Environments.  Our daughter's style was called "Governor", one who is "people-oriented, verbally fluent and loyal."  Yep, that's her to a tee.  One of the things that impressed me about this section is that it is not all positive and sunny skies.  It does show some possible downfalls and cautions, which I think is important for young people especially to hear.






Next, Work Place.
This section takes your highest scoring part of DISC and describes it in detail.  For example, our daughter scores highest on the "I", or influence.  It describes her personality as "enthusiastic, influential, expressive, social and Accepting."  Hmmm, maybe that explains why she is a social butterfly attached to her iTouch and friends!  There is also a part of this section that talks about how this type of person would function in the workplace, a great insight for those reading results for hiring purposes. Then, the part we were most eager to see, Career Match

Based on the DISC assessment, careers are listed that are deemed of interest to you.  This was no small list. If you are looking for AN ANSWER, this will not be helpful, possibly even overwhelming.  But for those like us who wanted to get a list of not often thought of possibilities, this list was great.  Over 40 careers were listed.  Your second highest profile, in her case "S" (stable) is also listed with even more choices.  Which one will she choose?  Well, that is still open for debate, but at least she now has a few more possibilities to explore.
And finally a section called Scoring Data. This section simply showed a graph with scoring for each value, D, I, S, and C.  This is helpful in seeing how strong or weak you are in each area.

What we thought- We really had fun with this review.  I think my daughter was pretty nervous and skeptical about taking it and then was pleasantly surprise that, 1) it was a non- threatening test and, 2) that it pegged her pretty accurately in our opinion.  Much of what we read we would shake our head in agreement on, specifically the part that mentioned "does not like confrontation but will handle it well", or "make loyal and dependable friends".  I like that your child is able to see themselves through another lens other than their own.  Isn't that, after all, what we need to be teaching them? That people are watching and noticing and that they are not an island unto their own?  
Because of her age, we were most interested in the Career Match section.  Like I mentioned, there are a lot of choices on this page that can be overwhelming at first, but I like the fact that it allows a young person especially to see that there are so many great options out there.   Unlike the well known options I first mentioned, the DISC talks about less well known, but equally exciting options that this mom would have never thought about suggesting. Now one of our goals is to mark some that sound interesting and do a little research on them.  I firmly believe that we should encourage our children to work within their strengths and identifying them is an important part of that process.  Once they know more about themselves and the opportunities out there, the better they will do in this world!
The DISC Career Style Report can be purchased for $32.00.  Our CREW was able to review many different products from PeopleKeys, so I would encourage you to click on the banner to take a look at what they had to say.