The Oxford Program

DISCOVER WHERE YOUR EXCELLENCE, SUCCESS, AND HAPPINESS IS!

The Highlands Ability Battery^TM (the cost is part of our Premier program) is the gold standard among tools assessing human abilities or aptitudes, which is the cornerstone of the Oxford Program^TM.

When we did our review of career tests, it came out on top.

More than any other test, the Highlands Ability Battery helps you understand the type(s) of work you should pursue and the types you should definitely not pursue.

 

How accurate is it?

 

This is not like the aptitude testing from years ago, or the tests available in certain books out there.The information and suggestions that it makes are HIGHLY ACCURATE. Many medical, technology, business, and science students use this aptitude testing to choose an area of specialization. Businesses use it to choose the top candidates for important positions. Entrepreneurs use it to determine the type of business they're most likely to be successful in. The testing is psychometrically valid and reliable. The minimum reliability standard for the 19 tests that make up The Highlands Ability Battery™ is r = . 80. It is like getting an MRI for a painful injury instead of a traditional X-Ray.

What can you expect from taking the Highlands Ability Battery?

• Understand where you are naturally talented and which work roles would make you most happy and successful.
• Know the careers and roles you are best "built for."
• Understand in black-and-white why you would be happy in some fields and not happy in others.
• Be able to accurately choose the best option from a group of career/job/business choices.
• Make the most accurate career decision possible.
• Understand what specialization is best in your field or organization.
• Know what other jobs within your organization you would be better at (and more fulfilled with).
• Learn of new career ideas.

"I put all this time into getting a degree in a career field and then realized it's not what I want to do. That's a hard place to be. Then I took the Highlands and it gave me reassurance that I had all these other options to choose from."

- Former client

"It's not like anything else that I've ever taken, and I think that that's a great thing. The HAB gives you a lot more information than a lot of the other tests out there."

- Former client

 

TESTIMONIALS

"I was in a very unhappy career situation that dramatically affected my daily life. I tried reading all sorts of self-help/career guidance books and took their prescribed career tests, but these were still unable to aid me find what was right for me. The Oxford Program was by far the only program that was able to help me gain a clearer perspective on assessing and understanding more about my own abilities and guided me to acheive a clarity on what I felt was more my ideal vocational path. The Highlands Ability Battery was by far the most helpful tool in giving insight as to what my natural abilities were and why I was so strong or weak in parts of my career."

E.I., ORANGE, CA

In October, 2002, 32 graduate students at Colorado State University were asked to compare a number of assessments which they had completed as part of their course. 

 The group was asked to rate 4 different well-known assessments in terms of effectiveness in measuring their abilities and talents, as well as in guiding them in future career decisions. The assessments were the Highlands Ability Battery, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Strong Interest and Skills Confidence Inventory, and True Colors.

Percentage of Students that ranked it #1 in measuring abilities and talents
Percentage of Students that ranked it #1 in effectiveness in guiding them in career decisions

Why is measuring abilities/aptitudes so important?

At the core of discovering your "natural vocation" is understanding your natural, driving abilities. Most sources of job unhappiness stem from natural abilities not being used, or being forced to perform tasks for which you do not have the natural abilities.

Research over 40-50 years shows that if a person has a strong aptitude and doesn't use it, it begins to bug him or her. In fact, that situation may be at the core of most cases of mid-life career crises, since people who do not use their best skills often become bored and restless.

If you choose a new career without a knowledge of your innate abilities, you have a relatively high probability of winding up back in a career that you find boring, frustrating, or unfulfilling.

What happens when there is a mismatch between your aptitudes and your job? For anyone other than humans, the answer to this question is: extinction. But because we humans are so adaptable, we survive, but at a terrible cost. What gets extinguished is the pure joy of life spent doing something that comes absolutely naturally. We spend our days in our job feeling either bored, frustrated, and/or sense that "something is missing". Sometimes having only one thing out of whack can ruin your chance for career satisfaction. They key is to find out what needs to be changed for you.

• Very few people know their natural abilities -- that is, what they are good at without having developed a skill for something.
• Just because you're "good at" your job doesn't mean it fits your natural abilities.

About Abilities

Each of us is born with the talent to excel at something. The secret is to identify those talents, then to use them. Knowing your natural abilities may be the most powerful piece of self-knowledge available to you. The cost is invaluable. Your natural talents can help you succeed at whatever you do. They show you the tasks and environments that are most conductive to your complete happiness and success.

Your innate aptitudes remain with you, unchanging, for your entire life. They are the hand you have been dealt by mother nature. You can't alter them. You can, however, learn to play the hand you have been dealt wonderfully and to your best advantage. 

One combination of aptitudes makes the consummate salesperson. Another combination describes a person that enjoys computer network administration. Another combination explains why a person enjoys one part of management, but not the rest.

If you ignore what we call your "driving abilities", you run the significant risk of getting into a role that doesn't use your strongest talents or that loads on a talent you don't have.

Our experience has been that a great deal of dissatisfaction at work can be traced to having strong talents that you never use
 - Bob Donald, Ph.D.

Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong.
 - Peter Drucker, Renowned author and speaker on management and leadership

 

YOU GET...

• Highlands Ability Battery Testing. The test is completed online.
• Your Highlands Ability Battery Report. You will receive a personalized thirty-page report explaining the results.
• Your "Natural Vocation" Report: We use our proprietary matching system to write up a diagnostic report which interprets your scores and recommends everything from tasks, to careers, to perfect work environment. We combine your HAB scores with Myers-Briggs and CareerFitNow scores to obtain the most accurate results.

The Results:

Using the insights learned from the Highlands Ability Battery in combination with follow-up guidance or coaching achieves a remarkably consistent result: people experience an exceptionally high degree of satisfaction, meaning, connectedness, productivity and success in their work and in their lives.