Professional interests describe which tasks and areas of activity a person prefers. The most well-founded model for recording professional interests Is that “RIASEC model” by John L. Holland (1997). In addition to the question of what a person is interested in, the question of how broad the interests are or how specialized the interests are is also relevant.

Differentiation of professional interests describes a person's tendency to specializes to show and concentrate intensively on a few areas of responsibility and activity instead of focusing on generalist to show and find many different areas exciting (Bergmann & Eder, 2018).

In doing so, specializes and generalist than two poles of a continuum looks at the dimension of differentiation of professional interests. The value of each person can therefore be located at one point on the following scale:

Specializes

For people who rather specialized show and are more interested in a few and narrowly defined areas of professional tasks and activity, it is typical to have a particularly strong profile in one area of interest while the other areas are barely developed.

More specialized people have few clearly dominant professional tasks and areas of activitythat they are particularly interested in. This is particularly an advantage for jobs that provide employees with clearly defined and very similar tasks and require a very high level of expertise in a specific area of activity. Specialized people usually reach a higher performance as generalists in their area of expertise.

Generalist

People who more generalistic show and are more interested in many and diverse areas of professional tasks and activities, it is typical to have a balanced profile in many areas of interest, while no area really dominates.

More generalistic people have diverse and wide-ranging professional tasks and areas of activitythat they are particularly interested in. They are therefore best suited for jobs that provide employees with interdisciplinary or varied tasks. Or jobs that require a Overview of various areas of activity need, for example in project management.

Benefits in a professional context

Is a position designed more for specialists or generalists? Whether a person who has more specialized or gene-realistic professional interests is suitable for a job depends largely on the requirements of the position.

Ideally, not only do the interests of an applicant match the tasks and areas of activity of a position (see Assouline & Meir, 1987), but also the differentiation of the applicant's professional interests with narrow or broad range of tasks and activities a place.

How do you record the differentiation of professional interests?

Do you want the Differentiation of professional interests record your applicants? Aivy is happy to help you with this!

Our mini game “Diversity of activities” offers users the opportunity to brief self-assessment in addition to their professional interests, to experience the differentiation of their professional interests.

Sources

• Assouline, M., & Meir, E.I. (1987). Meta-analysis of the relationship between congruence and well-being measures. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 31 (3), 319-332.
• Bergmann, C., & Eder, F. (2018). General interest structure test with environmental structure test (UST-3) — version 3. Hogrefe: Bern.
• Holland, J.L. (1996). Exploring careers with a typology: What we have learned and some new directions. American psychologist, 51 (4), 397.
• Holland, J.L. (1997). Making Vocational Choices: A Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments. Psychological Assessment Resources.

‍