SDS

The famous Holland test (Self-Directed Search) is a tool used in self-assessment, which means it can also be used for self-administration, autoscoring, and self-interpretation. The main objective is to assess candidates for professional counseling.

The test includes two notebooks: one for evaluation and one containing an occupational classification, useful for the person who has assessed themselves in choosing their route of further development.

SDS has been developed with two main objectives: (a) to increase the number of persons a counsellor can serve and (b) to provide a professional recommendation based on the experience of persons who do not have, or do not want to have access to, a vocational advisor.

In general schools, high schools, colleges, adult centers, correctional institutions, women's centers, and recruitment offices, vocational education, guidance, and placement are provided through the use of SDS. In business and industry, it is used for selecting, placing, and developing personnel.

Using SDS

To use SDS correctly, it is necessary to have a good understanding of the typology (Holland, 1992a) that led to its creation. The typology has been developed to organize voluminous data on people with different occupations and data on different work environments, to suggest how individuals make vocational and professional choices, and to explain how professional and vocational satisfaction manifests.

Main elements of Holland typology

The typology is based on six postulates. These postulates have been developed to generate a typology of people and environments, as well as their interaction patterns.

1. There are six personality types that most people fall under: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Entrepreneurial, and Conventional.

2. There are six types of media: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Entrepreneurial, and Conventional. Each environment is dominated by a certain personality type and is characterized by specific physical situations that pose specific challenges. Humans tend to be surrounded by individuals who share their interests, skills, and future prospects. Human beings create an environment that reflects their personality no matter where they are. The environment can be assessed in the same manner as individuals by simply identifying the various types present and converting the distribution of types into percentages. The formulas provided in Holland (1992a) are used to interpret the six percentages.

3. People are looking for environments that enable them to practice their skills and abilities, express their attitudes and values, and take on challenges and roles. The realistic guy is looking for realistic environments, while the social guy is looking for social media, and so on. To a lesser extent, individuals are sought by averages through recruitment practices or other attracting methods.

The interaction between a person's personality and their environment's characteristics determines their behavior. Based on the pattern of the interaction between the individual's personality and the environment, some of the possible medium-person pairs can lead to professional satisfaction and performance, while others are more difficult. Such results are based on the choice of vocation, change of position, vocational achievement, personal competence, educational and social behavior.

5. The degree of congruence (or understanding) between a person and their occupation (environment) can be estimated according to the hexagonal model.

6. The degree of consistency in a person or environment can also be defined using the hexagonal pattern.

The test can be applied on line.

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