Due to the numerous appointments in technical and engineering-specific fields, the need arose for an aptitude diagnosis that is primarily tailored to engineers.
As a result of years of successful cooperation between HR Consult Group AG and geva-institut, an aptitude diagnostic was developed especially for engineers: the Soft-Skills Check. The geva-institut is a psychological consultancy specialising in diagnostics and HR consulting.
The scientific know-how of the geva-Institut and the many years of experience of the HR Consult Group AG came in handy.
Before the development of aptitude diagnostics for engineers, there was no test for this occupational group that came close to recording and evaluating personal, social and methodological competence with regard to engineering-specific characteristics. Although soft skills tests from various other fields already existed, these fragments were not specifically tailored to engineers.
For many years, HR Consult Group AG has been working closely with the geva-institut, which fulfils all the necessary quality criteria and ensures compliance with the DIN standard.
The good cooperation combines the theoretical elaboration of the procedures and the expertise from real interactions with companies and candidates. This creates a solid basis for the most accurate possible instrument for analysing personal, social and methodological competences. Even today, the test procedures are constantly being further developed. Strengths are further developed and weaknesses minimised by relying on empirical values.
The Soft Skills Check for Engineers answers questions on the core topics of motivation, behaviour, interest, leadership, educational path and activity.
In order to be able to record the different groups of engineers, the degree, age and leadership, industry, gender, hierarchy and activity are also prerequisites for meaningful evaluations.
These offer a possibility to form different clusters. A cluster is the totality of several thematically related profiles. The prerequisite for this is not only the differentiation of the various groups of engineers but also a high number of participating engineers.
In total, more than 1,500 engineers took part in the Soft-Skills Check in cooperation with VDI Nachrichten. The engineers became aware of this through the online and print editions of VDI Nachrichten. Only after the large-scale test was it possible to form a wide variety of clusters. For example, according to gender or field of activity.
It is clear from the above figures that the industry cluster shows the areas in which engineers are employed. Engineers are mainly needed and employed in the automotive and machinery and plant sectors. It is clearly visible in the cluster area of activity that most engineers work in development. Only in second place is project management.
A large proportion of the participating engineers are between 30 and 45 years old. This is also confirmed by the hierarchy. Many of the participants work as specialists or project managers. With the help of the hierarchy cluster, different examinations can be aimed at. For example, the hierarchy can be divided into specialist / skilled worker, project management, department management and divisional / executive management. Through this classification, the developments of personality traits can be determined and differentiated.
The next article in this series of topics will not only take a closer look at the personality traits that remain the same in their expression over the entire professional career, but also at those traits that are responsible for a career in engineering. Do you know in which personality fields development must take place in order to make a career successful?
Image source:
Betz, Armin: Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz - "Ingenieur bleibt Ingenieur", German National Library, 2015, p. 111 f., ISBN 978-3-00-052093-8
About the author
After graduating as an automotive engineer and industrial engineer, he began his career in the automotive industry in the areas of sales, development and marketing and also spent a year in Japan with one of the largest automotive suppliers.
He then moved to a world-renowned premium car manufacturer, where he was responsible for product marketing in Japan and South America and marketing strategy in North and South America.
In 1994 he decided to become self-employed and founded a personnel consultancy in Munich, where he has been driving development and expansion for over 20 years. As managing director, his industry focus is naturally on the automotive world as well as mechanical and plant engineering.
With his doctorate in the field of aptitude diagnostics, he ideally rounds off his fields of competence, especially with regard to personnel and management consultancy. The dissertation deals with the identification and proof of typical personality traits of engineers as well as the definition of development areas for a successful professional career.
These are scientifically derived and presented in the book "Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz".
At the same time, his focus is on building networks and cooperation models as well as the continuous further development of systems and processes in HR consulting.
Within the last 20 years in personnel consulting, he has developed several brands that are still successful on the market today.
