How can you talk about your career assessment results with your mentor?

1 Why share your results?

Sharing your career assessment results with your mentor can help you gain insights, feedback, and guidance on your strengths, interests, values, and personality traits. Your mentor can help you interpret your results, identify potential career paths, and suggest strategies to overcome challenges and develop your skills. Sharing your results can also help you build trust and rapport with your mentor, and show them that you are proactive and committed to your career development.

2 How to prepare for the conversation?

Before you talk to your mentor about your career assessment results, it's important to review them carefully and reflect on what they mean for you. Consider questions such as: what are the main themes and patterns that emerge from your results? How do they align with your current role and career goals? What are the gaps or areas for improvement you need to work on? What opportunities or options do you want to explore or pursue? And, what questions or concerns do you have about your results or career direction? Additionally, prepare some specific examples or stories that illustrate your results and how they relate to your work experience, achievements, or challenges. This can help you demonstrate your skills and potential to your mentor, making the conversation more concrete and engaging.

3 How to start the conversation?

When you are ready to talk to your mentor about your career assessment results, you should schedule a meeting or a call with them, and let them know the purpose and agenda of the conversation. You can also send them a copy of your results in advance, if they agree, so they can review them and prepare some questions or feedback for you. You should start the conversation by thanking your mentor for their time and support, and expressing your interest and enthusiasm for learning from them. You should also explain why you took the career assessment tool, what you hope to gain from it, and how you plan to use it for your career development.

4 How to structure the conversation?

A good way to structure the conversation with your mentor about your career assessment results is to follow the STAR framework: Situation, Task, Action, and Result. This can help you organize your thoughts and present your results in a clear and concise way. For each result, you can describe the context or background (situation), the goal or objective (task), the evidence or example (action), and the outcome or impact (result). For example, if one of your results is that you have a high score on the creativity dimension of a personality assessment tool, you can say that you took the XYZ personality assessment tool; its creativity dimension measures the ability to generate novel and useful ideas. Your score of 85 out of 100 indicates a high level of creativity, which is important for career development as it helps to solve problems and innovate. You have used this creativity in various ways in your work such as designing websites, brainstorming ideas, and writing content. As a result, it has helped to increase visibility and attract customers, as well as enhance the reputation and brand of your organization.

5 How to ask for feedback?

Asking for feedback from your mentor is an important part of your career assessment results conversation. Open-ended questions can help you gain new perspectives and insights, such as how your results relate to your current role and career goals, what strengths and weaknesses they suggest, or the opportunities and threats they imply. Additionally, you can ask for specific actions or steps to use your results for career development, as well as resources or people to consult or connect with. When listening to the feedback, be active and attentive, show appreciation and curiosity, and ask for clarification if needed. Avoid being defensive or argumentative if you disagree with something; instead, try to understand the perspective and rationale behind it. Ultimately, use the feedback as a source of learning and improvement.

6 How to follow up?

After you talk to your mentor about your career assessment results, you should follow up with them to thank them again for their time and feedback, and summarize the main points and action items from the conversation. You should also update them on your progress and achievements, and seek their guidance and support as needed. You should also review your results and feedback regularly, and reflect on how they help you to grow and advance in your career. You should also consider taking other career assessment tools or repeating the same one after some time, to see how your results change or evolve over time.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?