Should Career Counselors Use Digital Personality Tests to Help Students Choose Majors?

At Butte College in Northern California, Brian Donnelly is the only career counselor for about 10,000 students. He doesn’t have much time to interact personally with his advisees—a typical day only allows for about seven individual appointments of one hour each. Those limits are especially unfortunate, Donnelly says, because many Butte students are the first in their families to attend college and could benefit from substantive advice about choosing their majors, classes and future jobs. “Colleges design themselves in a way that requires students to navigate a cafeteria-style menu of courses with little guidance,” Donnelly said Tuesday during a webinar about community college advising. Yet his students often “don’t have the time, energy or outreach to explore careers in a meaningful way.” So Donnelly looked for a digital tool that could more efficiently deliver guidance to students about choosing a major and a career—which in turn could help them avoid dead-ends in their course paths and graduate faster. Donnelly ended up turning to personality and personal-interest tests.