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In order to ensure that the guidance process is effective, career guidance professionals must make decisions about what techniques and interventions to implement with clients in the limited time generally available. Given the variety of interventions in the professional's repertoire, a decision to implement any one of these must be based on a strong probability that the outcome will be constructive. This study reports on the relevance of using vocational interests and aptitude data in the guidance process. The immediate and longer-term aptness of the assessment results is examined through analysis of measured interests, aspirations, scholastic aptitudes and tertiary course entry of 335 female secondary students. Results indicated excellent concurrent and predictive validity for the interest data while also indicating the role played by aptitudes.

Where students participate in guidance programs of which interest measurement is a component, careers counsellors often tend to base their initial intervention approach on the inventory results, Some students do not respond positively to this approach. It is suggested that this may occur particularly when students’ direct statements of occupational preference and their inventoried interests are at odds. Whether particular groups of students may be predisposed by virtue of their interest orientation to this condition is investigated. The extent to which a sample of Year 10 students express preference for occupations which are not congruent with their measured interests is analysed within the context of Holland personality/interest groups. Results imply that students who display interest in non-traditional areas are more likely to express incongruent occupational aspirations.

Many readers have expressed interest in reviews of computerised career guidance packages. As a first step in this process, Dr Esther Care has provided the following guidelines for evaluation. If you have any comments to make about these guidelines, please contact me. Future editions of the journal will include reviews of packages. If you are currently using a package, you can review it using the guidelines, or your own review process, and forward it to me. We would like feedback from practitioners in different sectors using a variety of packages.