How to Use Aptitude Testing In Your College Counseling Business

What an Aptitude Test Is Not

It may seem strange not to define what an aptitude test is first. However, by knowing what an aptitude test isn’t, you’ll better understand the value they provide your students. You see, the internet is rife with scammy aptitude tests. And you don’t want to be caught pushing an inferior service to your students. For example, if you google the “Best Aptitude Test for High School Students,” you’ll likely see the following results. 

Here’s the problem with that. None of these alleged “aptitude tests” are actually aptitude tests. They’re personality tests, interest profilers, or skills assessments.

Aptitude Tests are not…         •Personality Tests

               •Interests Profilers

                                                  •Skills Assessments

Personality tests aren’t useless or ineffective. Neither are interest profilers or skills assessments. However, personalities are not aptitudes, so it wouldn’t make sense for a personality test to measure aptitudes, and it would be highly unethical to advertise it as such.

What are Aptitudes? 

So that brings us to the heart of our discussion. What exactly are aptitudes? Why are aptitudes important? And how would you offer aptitude tests in your business? Let’s address each of those. 

Aptitudes are natural abilities. In this definition, we place a keen emphasis on the word “natural.” In other words, we’re born with them. They come prepackaged within us from birth. They fully develop at fourteen to fifteen. We don’t grow them through practice and repetition (that’s a skill). Thus, aptitudes predispose us to excel at specific tasks. 

For example, a med student with a high design memory (the ability to remember images)  would have an easier time becoming a radiologist. A defense attorney in court would greatly benefit from a higher classification (quick problem-solving aptitude), while a divorce attorney would benefit from a lower classification (reflective problem-solving). Which aptitudes a person is born with determines which tasks they’ll have a more accessible time mastering. 

Why are Aptitudes Important?

Students who don’t know their aptitudes leave much of their career success to chance. And it happens all the time. I love my students. The lion’s share of them are bright and well beyond their years in wisdom, maturity, and resourcefulness. However, many spend far more time researching colleges they might go to than what they’ll study in college. I would argue many of them spend more time picking out their prom outfits, than planning their careers. 

An aptitude assessment removes much of the guesswork from career planning. They show students if they have a knack for graphics or designing, potential for engineering, or a penchant for excelling in learning a foreign language. Consequently, students can make more intentional choices about their future.

As you can see, this level of self-awareness offers impressive advantages. However, they’re challenging to measure. Only with an advanced aptitude technology that has gone through the rigors of scientific validation can reliably provide these insights. Yet, only with the wisdom of an advanced career aptitude test can one know if they are a natural at something. Otherwise, they may major in something that emphasizes their weaknesses, not capitalize on their strengths. 

Offering Career Aptitude Testing Services Helps Your Counseling Skills & Business

Before using aptitude testing in your business, let’s discuss how to market it. Every consulting business is a problem-solving business. That same axiom goes for college counseling. If you’re a college admissions consultant or counselor, there’s a cluster of problems your customers need you to solve. And if you don’t communicate to them the problems you solve with clarity, they will find someone else who will. 

Marketing Your Aptitude Testing Services

Donald Miller, one of the most excellent marketing experts alive, said this: 

“Your customers don’t really care about your business beyond how it can help them solve a problem and make life better. The sooner you realize this and embrace it, the sooner you can show customers how much you can help them.”

Our services should make the lives of our clients easier. However, we must emphasize the correct problems we’re solving. Miller claims that most companies sell solutions to external problems or surface-level problems. As college counselors, an external problem would be a parent telling us, “my daughter’s really struggling with her college essays.” 

If all you say to your clients is, “I’ll help your daughter with her essays,” they may hire you. But they may not. And truthfully, why would they? How are your services better than your competitors? And besides, that parent likely isn’t concerned with solely getting their daughter help with essays. There’s something more at play. 

Fortunately, Miller reveals the secret. Consider this:

“Companies tend to sell solutions to EXTERNAL problems, but people buy solutions to INTERNAL problems.”

Internal problems are problems deeply rooted in emotions.

Thus, the daughter doesn’t just need help with a college application essay; she’s feeling overwhelmed and fears her inability to communicate her thoughts will limit her college education. No parent wants to see their kid go through this. So, what internal problem would you need to solve for this parent? Here’s the answer: 

You prevent parents from having to watch their child suffer. 

It may sound dramatic, but that’s the heart of what we do. Great businesses don’t just give people success; they help people avoid tragedy (why else would you hire a lawyer?).

Thus, a clever college consultant might say this instead:

“Our college essay coaches simplify the writing process for students. By their final draft, your daughter will have crafted an essay that will make her memorable to an admissions team and arm her with skills she needs to write confidently.” 

That sings a little sweeter than “I help with college application essays.” And herein lies the secret to using aptitude assessment with your business.

Aptitude Tests Give Parents Confidence in Their Child’s Future

Aptitude testing solves a straightforward external problem for families. High school students need a career plan for college. Yet, most parents I work with don’t care about solving this external problem. They have more immediate needs, like ensuring their student graduates, keeps up their grades, and finds a college. 

Consequently, I nest my aptitude testing services within my college consulting program. In other words, nearly every student I advise for college counseling gets an aptitude test. It’s not something I need to sell them on. It’s just another added benefit of working with me. As I’m advising said student and relaying how I’m helping them to the parents, they begin to understand the value of this service. 

In the olden days, college was where people went to find out what they wanted to do. Now, however, with the rising cost of college tuition (around 4% per year!), most families can’t risk paying for a college education that doesn’t culminate in their student successfully entering the workforce. It’s just too expensive. Parents need to feel confident about their student’s career plans. Ironically though, most just don’t have one. In fact, some students might spend more time picking out what they wear to prom than planning for their careers. 

Here comes the internal problem your aptitude testing service solves. Parents worry their child won’t emerge from college with a viable career path. They fear for their child’s success. 

Comedian and television host Conan O’Brien alluded to this concern in his address to the 2011 graduating class of Dartmouth. In that address, he gave this advice to the parents:

• Many of you haven’t seen your children in four years.  Now you are about to see them every day when they come out of the basement to tell you the WiFi isn’t working. 
• You will spend more money framing your child’s diploma than they will earn in the next six months.  It’s tough out there, so be patient.  The only people hiring right now are Panera Bread and… drug cartels.

While this punchline elicited a hardy chuckle from the crowd, it underscores a pervasive worry. Parents fret about their children. They worry for their safety, emotional well-being, success, and virtually any concern under the sun. More than all of that, they worry about their children’s future. It’s the nature of a good parent to want to spare their children from needless suffering.

Your aptitude testing services stack the deck in the student’s favor. With advanced aptitude tests, you, as a consultant, can give your students data-driven evidence on careers that align with their natural talents. Students can spend their time in college executing their career plans rather than making them.

That’s what aptitude testing gives your college counseling business. You empower your families with confidence in their child’s future success. 

How to use Career Aptitude Testing in Your Business

You can use aptitude tests in your business in one of two ways. You can offer the services yourself or recommend your customers to a certified aptitude specialist. Gaining certification is straightforward enough, but it does require time and monetary investment. However, if you don’t have the time or resources to get certified, you can contract an aptitude testing consultant as part of your team. Additionally, you can simply refer your customers to aptitude-testing research centers in your local area. In this portion of our discussion, we’ll explore both options.

#1 Become a Certified Aptitude Testing Consultant

The path is simple if you want to become certified to administer legitimate aptitude tests. The only company that certifies aptitude consultants is the Highlands Company. The Highlands Company administers its proprietary aptitude test called the Highlands Ability Battery. 

If you want to use the aptitude testing under your brand, you become a Highlands Consultant. However, becoming a Highlands Consultant isn’t for everyone. You don’t just pay a fee and get certified. You must undergo 16 hours of supervised educational training and 4 hours of presentation coaching. This training ensures you can interpret and present the results of someone’s aptitudes. 

I’ve worked as a Highlands Consultant since 2019. Truthfully, it’s the best investment I’ve made in my college counseling business and professional development. The company devotes time and resources to ensuring its consultants possess the tools to deliver practical excellence to their clients. I just want to be clear that certifying with them is no passive endeavor. Additionally, I would only recommend becoming a Highlands Consultant if you are genuinely passionate about helping your students, not just interested in making money. 

Don’t get me wrong; the service is lucrative. Offering Aptitude testing is a tremendous asset to your business. But, as my business coach and good friend Spencer Hornonce told me, regarding the use of assessments in consulting, “It’s the wizard, not the wand, that makes a difference.” In other words, aptitude testing doesn’t help people by itself. An aptitude testing certification does the most good in the hands of a caring consultant invested in the success of their students. 

How to Become A Certified Highlands Consultant

If you want to become a Highlands Consultant, here’s what you’ll do. I’ll give a summary first. Following that summary, I’ll go into more detail on each step along that process. As promised, here’s an overview of the steps involved in becoming a Highlands Consultant.

1. Schedule a Consultation with the Highlands Company’s Representative to CounselMore (see the link below to schedule that meeting)
   
   
2. Complete the Highlands Company’s Application Form
   
   
3. Pay the Certification Fee
   
   
4. Complete the Mandatory 16-Hour Training

Now, let’s dig into each step of that process. 

First, click here to schedule a free consultation with me. As the Highlands company’s Liaison for College Counseling, I will review the requirements to become a Highlands Consultant and answer any questions on how and where to introduce aptitude testing services into your service delivery process. 

Second, you must fill out an application form and send it to Highlands Company. 

Third, once your application is approved (approval is not guaranteed) you will pay the certification fee. The Certification fee is $2050. However, if you’re a member of CounselMore, you get an exclusive $100.00 Discount. The price includes the cost of the 16-hour training you’ll receive. 

Fourth (and finally), complete the Highlands Certified Consultant Training. The training is an absolute blast. Here’s everything involved based on the Highlands Company’s website information.

An opportunity to take the HAB yourself and receive your own reports and debrief. Which is fascinating!

• 16 hours of initial training on the Highlands Whole Person Method.
• Ongoing professional development as part of your certification.
• Your own listing in the Highlands online consultant directory.
• Resources to assist you in the development and marketing of your business.
• An invitation to be part of an elite community of practitioners who work to transform the careers of students, adults, and business leaders worldwide.

#2 Or Don't....and Just Refer Customers to Aptitude Testing Centers

With that said, you don’t technically have to get certified to use aptitude testing in your practice. If you don’t wish to acquire certification from the Highlands Company, you can work out an agreement with a Highlands Consultant. The Highlands Company has a list of consultants on its website. Additionally, you can refer your students to an aptitude testing research center. However, this is a different animal than working with an independent consultant. 

I recommend two aptitude testing research centers. The first is the Johnson O’Connor Foundation. The AIMS organization is the second aptitude testing center I endorse. Both deliver quality aptitude testing services to help students pick their college majors. I recommend them because they require all aptitude-testing students to attend a debrief presentation. An aptitude test loses value to your customers if they merely take it and get a report. Without a debrief to help your students interpret your results, an aptitude test becomes a meaningless statistic. 

However, these centers are not without their limits. Aptitude testing research centers exist to collect data on aptitude testing. Their primary goal is to expand their body of research and help their clients while doing so. With that said, know that their mission is not to incorporate their services into your business model. There are two other limitations of aptitude research centers for your families. These limitations are as follows:

• Expensive Cost: The Johnson O’Connor costs $850, and the AIMS Aptitude Test costs $925. On the other hand, the Highlands Ability Battery retails between 400-600, which makes it cheaper for your customers.
  
  
• Travel Accessibility: However, The AIMS and the Johnson O’Connor Aptitude Tests require families to travel to one of their locations. AIMS is only located in Dallas, Texas. Johnson O'Connor has 14 locations across ten states. This means most families must accrue travel expenses to an aptitude center location. 

The high cost may not bother some of your clients. Yet, these families usually prefer to avoid the traveling expenses and the time spent traveling. So, if you live in a state other than Texas, there’s a good chance it’s more convenient for families to use local aptitude testing services. These services could come from your college counseling businesses or others. 

Join us at the Next CounselMore Mentorship Roundtable Meeting

Did you find this article helpful? If so, remember that this was a summary of a live discussion. The actual discussion occurred at a CounselMore Mentorship Meeting on zoom. If you’re interested in attending that meeting next month, click here and sign up for the next meeting. 

There’s no cost to attend. You’ll also mingle and rub shoulders with other IECs, college counselors, college planners, academic advisors and tutors, among other education professionals. At each meeting, we have a single college counselor dive into a best practice for your college counseling business. We also discuss admission topics, marketing techniques, and other subjects that enhance your counseling expertise. We hope to see you there!

Frequently Asked Questions

During our aptitude testing discussion, several counselors asked several great questions. Below is a sample summary of the questions and my response to them.

How Long Does The Highlands Ability Battery Take To Complete? 

The aptitude assessment takes 3 hours to complete. However, what I love about it is that your clients need not complete it all at once. The test is comprised of 19 work samples (or mini-tests). Luckily, students can complete the test’s work samples in chunks. The longest work sample is 11 minutes. So the assessment is pretty digestible. 

The real fun starts when the student finishes their assessment. When students complete their assessments, they schedule a time with their Highlands Consultants to review their results. This meeting typically takes 1.5 - 2 hours. During that debrief, the consultant reviews each aptitude and shows students and parents how to access and navigate their aptitude reports. 

What does an aptitude test report look like? 

Here are two sample aptitude test reports. The first is the student standard report. The student report is designed to help students and parents understand each aptitude measured during the assessment. The second is the Student Career Report. The Student Career Report enables parents and students to connect their student's aptitudes to careers that align with their strengths. 

• Student Standard Report
  
  
• Student Career Report

Highlands Consultants interpret these reports for their families. So, if you find the reports puzzling, remember these reports provide the most aid when interpreted by a certified Highlands Consultant. However, looking at the career report, you’ll notice that page 10 lists the top 50 career occupations for students. These occupations aren’t just empty lists. Each occupation links to ONET, the Department of Labor’s database for every occupation in the US. So, students don’t just get a career recommendation; they get robust data on the career. 

This occupational data consists of the following: 

• Education Requirements
• Average Salary
• Demand of Occupation
• Demand of Occupation in Each State

As I tell my clients, “Yes. There are more fun things to see on the internet. But these reports have done hours of tedious career research for you.” When I say the word “you,” I’m referring to the students, but I’m really speaking to their parents because they’re the ones who end up researching those careers the most. Because as college counselors, we serve the students, but it’s the parents whose minds we’re putting at ease. 

Are there other assessments you recommend to help students or use in your college counseling practice? 

For career planning, there’s nothing better than the Highlands Ability Battery (HAB). However, I use another assessment tool in conjunction with the HAB. The assessment is called the O’NET Interest Profiler. I use this to filter the career recommendations the HAB provides. The best thing about this assessment is that it’s fast and free. It takes most of my students 5 minutes to complete it, and it streamlines the career-planning process by identifying students’ interests. After all, aptitudes are just one piece of the puzzle. By knowing a student’s interests and aptitudes, a consultant can help students find careers that they’re interested in and will master more quickly. 

• Link to ONET Interests Profiler

If you use test prep in your counseling practice, use the MindPrint Cognitive assessment. MindPrint is especially useful for test prep. If you tutor the ACT or the SAT, MindPrint can determine which test students have an affinity for. The test takes an hour for students to complete. They complete it remotely on their laptop or desktop computer. When they finish, you’ll be notified. Then you can review their results with them and their parents and advise them on which test they have the best chance of scoring the highest on. I use it with all my test prep students. It’s a great tool. I charge families $200 per assessment, though I throw in a practice test with that bundle. 

How does YouScience hold up to the Highlands Ability Battery and other Aptitude Tests? 

The YouScience assessment has taken the US by storm. It’s everywhere now. I love that it’s popularizing aptitude assessments. What YouScience does, it does well, and it’s more affordable to the average family. YouScience does measure advanced aptitudes. However, I don’t use YouScience because it only measures a fraction of the aptitudes the Highlands Company, Johnson O’Connor, and AIMS measure. For example, YouScience only has one aptitude work sample to measure someone's spatial aptitude. The other three aptitude assessments I’ve named measure two. 

Therefore, YouScience has half the accuracy of the HAB for mechanical aptitude. This may not seem like much, but it’s vital for engineering, technology, and healthcare careers.

Additionally, YouScience doesn’t measure any of the sound or musical aptitudes. This means students will miss out on discovering how good of an auditory learner they are. Moreover, students won’t know the full range of their foreign language abilities without musical aptitudes. With the HAB, I can tell if a student has a knack for writing, reading, speaking, and listening to foreign languages. If I used YouScience, I would lose all that. There’s just too much missing for me that I wouldn’t have with a more comprehensive assessment like the HAB. 

I also love the Highlands company's emphasis on empowering its consultants, not its brand. YouScience aims to provide resources for students and school districts with their organization directly. This is a noble goal, and I applaud their efforts. However, students need an expert to gain the most from their aptitude results. YouScience doesn’t require experts to guide students through their aptitude reports. Why does this matter? It’s kind of like the information Fitbit provides. I can learn how I sleep, my resting heart rate, and how many steps I take daily. However, Fitbit doesn’t offer a practical way to use that information. Likewise, aptitude data grows fuzzy in practicality without a certified aptitude specialist. 

So, do I like YouScience? Absolutely. I love what it’s doing for schools and aptitude testing at large. Would I use it in my college consulting practice? No, or not as long as I have the HAB or an aptitude assessment that gives more comprehensive aptitude and career data for my students.