Andrée Harpur and Associates have a proven track record of 25 years reassuring parents and helping students choose a career which is most suitable to them. We look forward to doing this for you too!

Our role to help your daughter or son achieve a solid sense of clarity around their career choice. We have helped thousands of students to do this over 25 years!

All of our consultants are qualified to a Masters level, so you can trust our advice. Our goal is to put your son or daughter on the right career path!

Are you asking these Questions?
  • My daughter or son is now is preparing for Leaving Certificate, what do I need to do?
  • How does my son or daughter make decisions on subject choices for Leaving Cert, when they are not clear which to choose?
  • How do they choose between all the career options available, and decide which option may be best for them?
  • How do they best prioritise their CAO or further education options?
  • How can they bed helped to clarify their overall career direction?

If any of these questions are going through your mind, then the Career Assessment System with Andree Harpur & Assocs. can help!

I was so stressed out about my Career and the CAO (so was my Mum!). Now I know. What a relief! Thanks.” (Mary 18)

Your Son or Daughter will learn:
  • How to identify their natural skills and talents through our scientifically validated psychometric testing system. They receive detailed feedback on the results of their assessments.
  • How to explore careers which will utilise these natural skills to best effect.
  • Which career activities they are most interested in, and which work environment would call for these.
  • How to identify work environments that are most compatible with their personality.
  • How to choose Leaving Cert subjects which allow them access a career they love and maximize on their potential leaving certificate points.
  • How to access information on courses which most suit them and the careers that these courses lead to.
  • How to prioritise their career choices in their CAO form, or in other relevant college forms.
How the Career Assessment System Helps you as a Parent

You have peace of mind in knowing that you have helped your child as much as possible in making their career choice, by providing them with objective and expert career advice.

You can rest assured that your child is advised by a counsellor who has in-depth knowledge of the careers area, and who has over 20 years’ experience of working with thousands of students just like yours.

  • When your son or daughter completes a Psychometric assessment, you are assured that the results produced are as a result of your child’s consistent choices.
  • Your daughter or son is given the opportunity to be evaluated and consulted by someone who is objective.
  • You can trust that your child is making the choice which reflects their real potential.
  • By going through this process with your child, you can test out and verify the instincts you have had around what career areas may best suit your child.
  • You can be confident that your child will be exposed to the widest number of career choices, possibly even to careers they have never thought of.
  • You have peace of mind in knowing that you have helped your child as much as possible in making their career choice by providing them with objective and expert career advice.
  • You feel part of the loop. You are involved in the process from day one. You attend the feedback session and therefore know exactly what the career plan is. Should your child need your input in the future, you are in a far better position to provide it.

 

How does the Career Assessment System Work?

The Career Assessment System consists of two stages:

  1. The Assessment Stage
  2. The Feedback Stage

We use scientifically validated psychometric testing.

We guarantee the highest quality of information for your child to make a sound decision.

The Assessment Stage:

This stage consists of 4 questionnaires which will be completed by your son or daughter before we meet. These are all completed online. They take on average two hours to complete altogether, but they can complete them one by one.

These psychometric questionnaires have been approved by the British Psychological Society.

It is important to bear in mind that there is no such thing as a “bad” result. Whatever scores emerge for your child are the perfect ones for them.

1. The Interest Inventory:

Your daughter or son discover what work environment they would naturally gravitate towards if all blocks and obstacles were taken out of their way. This profile reveals career areas which would excite and stimulate them.

2. The Personality Profile:

This profile tracks their natural personality traits. Students feel most comfortable when they are using these aspects of their personality. They have had these traits since they were very small.

Every work environment calls for different mind sets. We explore work environments in which they will use their most comfortable personality traits to best effect.

3. The Motivation Questionnaire:

This profile shows what values are most important to your son or daughter. For them to be happy, their career must reflect their deepest values. This will allow them to commit to their career in the longer term and to be most effective, productive and happy.

4. Natural Intelligences:

There are many different intelligences. This profile shows which intelligences your daughter or son uses most naturally, probably without even realizing it.

By identifying these intelligences, they can then choose a career that uses these to best effect. When they put these intelligences to use in the work place, they feel more comfortable and happy. They may even discover aspects of themselves that they previously thought were weaknesses, could in fact be strengths!

These questionnaires are completed online, and can be done in their own time. Once they are complete, they send them back to us. We then compile all of this data into a comprehensive report which will be explored at the Feedback Stage (See below).

Your child may discover that aspects of themselves that they previously thought were weaknesses, could in fact be strengths!

The Feedback Stage:

The Feedback stage is 100% tailored to your child’s needs and expectations. The duration of this session is usually 2 hours. There are 4 stages:

1. School Experience:

We explore your son or daughter’s entire experience in school and identify the strengths they have used to date. We discuss the achievements they are most proud of and how they would like to develop these in their future studies.

2. Identifying Strength Patterns:

We study the scores of each questionnaire in depth. We look at the overall patterns of Strengths and Talents and see how these can map out onto Fifth year Subject Choice, CAO preferences, College Course Choice and eventual Career.

3. Career Action Plan.

The Career Action Plan will include:

A list of website links of courses that are most suitable to your daughter or son.

  • We detail the points needed for each course.
  • We map how the student hopes to perform in each subject.
  • We explore extracurricular activities that may be useful for access to each course.
  • We construct the “Safety Net System to College Application”. This is a system we have devised whereby the student will aim for the course they most want. However, we will also insert a Plan B, Plan C and Plan D. These plans will cover all eventualities and make sure that they student will have maximum choice at College entrance time.
  • When we are finished the Career Assessment with your student, we then meet with you the Parent. This is to ensure:

 

  • That we get the full picture. You, the parent, know your child better than anyone else. We find that meeting parents is invaluable because you can provide nuggets of information that we could not get from any other source.
  • That you are completely in the loop. When you attend the Career Assessment System feedback, you then know exactly what is going on. You can pick up on things that your daughter or son may not have thought of and you can participate fully in the process right to the very end.
  • This session gives you the opportunity of asking questions or discussing issues around your child’s course choice that may have been worrying you.
  • We assure you at this stage that we will be happy to answer any future questions you may have around your child’s assessment.

You, the Parent, are completely in the loop during the Career Assessment System feedback session.

Final Report:

When our session is completed, we compile your student’s final report. This will be sent to you via email. This final report summarises:

  • A complete description of your child’s Strengths and Talents that emerged in the Career Assessment System.
  • A thorough range of College Courses that would be most suitable for them.
  • A list of Careers that they would most enjoy.
  • All of the questions we discussed in the feedback session.
  • Their CAO and college application choices and preferences.
  • A summary of how they hope to perform in the Leaving Cert.
  • A list of subjects that will be crucial to their Career Choice.
  • A complete list of Website links of courses that will lead them towards careers they will love.

Because we will write everything down for you, your child and yourselves can fully engage with the feedback process, without feeling pressure to remember everything. This report is especially tailor-made for you.

By taking this path, you have peace of mind in knowing that your son or daughter is making the career choice that reflects their true potential.

We look forward to putting your daughter or son on the right career path!