Just the job! Cordell is confident he can help you raise the bar ...
by Colin O'Connor

The advertisement asked, very directly, "What Career is Right For You?" and Profiles of Bermuda promises that if you take its Career Coach International assessment, either online or in person, you will know, rather than guess, what the right career choices are for you.

This personal assessment shortcuts the career decision process by evaluating your thinking style, occupational interests, and behavioural traits to create a picture of who you are. It then matches your profile to a range of jobs in which you may expect success.

Cordell Riley, speaking in his office at 3, Park Road, Hamilton, was faced with just such a decision when he was invited to consider becoming Profiles International's man in Bermuda some six years ago.

Then a 35 year old, married with three children, Mr. Riley had a solid career as a Government Statistician. He knew it was a big step to take, but he had always intended to be his own boss.

"I received an e-mail in 1997 from a friend in Barbados who worked at Profile International's regional headquarters for the Caribbean," Mr. Riley remembered, "and it said that I had been recommended to them as someone who could be a good candidate for opening a Profile branch in Bermuda.

"They sent someone to meet me and give me a package of information about the company, and it seemed to check out, but I wasn't sure that it was right for me."

With perfect timing, Profile invited Mr. Riley to a conference in the Cayman Islands, which was scheduled for the day after a government business conference that he was attending in Jamaica, and it seemed to be a propitious sign.

"It seemed like divine intervention," said Mr. Riley with a laugh, "so I flew from Kingston to Cayman after the government conference, and met the senior officers of the company."
Unsurprisingly, Profile International would not formally offer the Bermuda franchise to Mr. Riley until he had completed one of its assessments and, unlike the typical hard-sell franchiser, it insisted Mr. Riley be sure that the business was right for him.

Of course, the company had looked at Mr. Riley's backgroundas a researcher and statistician, and concluded that he was the right fit for a job that promoted the use of psychometric, analytical software to produce human resource assessments for individuals and companies.

"They wanted me to be sure that this prospect fitted in with my goals in life, and here was this opportunity to have my own business, so I decided I had to do it. I did six months of research and wrote my business plan, and presented it to the bank, and eventually, in April 1998, I got the support I needed.

"This was not a product that had been in commercial operation in Bermuda, so it was uncharted water. But I understood the science of what Profiles International were doing, and that was key for me.

"One of the major points for me was that my wife be supportive of the decision, and her attitude was 'go for it'! In fact, I had a family meeting, and I sat the children down, and they didn't fully understand what I was doing, but they seemed excited anyway!"

Mr. Riley gave up his post as Senior Research Statistician with Government, where he had worked on the Census and had led the Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey, and joined Profiles International. He was one of about 1,000 dealers world-wide serving a total of some 30,000 clients.

"When an individual calls up, the first thing I do is find out if they have access to the Internet, because they can complete the assessment online or here in the office. If they want to do the assessment online, I give them a password and a code, after they pay the $100 fee, and they go to the web site, and the electronic assessment form takes about an hour to complete.

"When they click to 'submit', almost immediately they receive an e-mail report detailing the career choices that fit their profile. If they choose to come in to the office, we would key it in, and the client can normally come back within 24 hours and get their report."

The software which selects a client's optimum career choices was based on Profile International's research of thousands of people who were successful in a wide range of careers, and the personal traits and abilities which had contributed to their success in a particular field.

"That's where the statistics part comes in," Mr.Riley advised, "and the software looks at the client's traits and characteristics, and compares them to people who have been successful in a particular area. The report doesn't just give one or two career suggestions, it may give 30 or 40, numerically ranked in descending order of apparent compatibility."

The "Career Coach Report" covers 12 pages, and the first section compares the results of the client's evaluation with the researched requirements for a variety of career fields described by O*NET (Occupation Information Network), ranked in order by "Job Match Percentage".

The results are described in three major areas – Thinking Style (covering numerical ability, numerical reasoning, verbal skill and reasoning, and an overall learning index. It is not a test of intelligence, but suggests how a client assimilates and utilises information), Occupational Interests, and Behavioural Traits.

The assessment asks 218 questions relating to personality, asks about occupational interests, poses questions testing mathematical reasoning, and sets word association tests.

"We recommend that you look at a career that has a job match percentage above 70 per cent," advised Mr. Riley, "because you want to be a good fit with that career. That doesn't mean you can just go and start that career, because it may require specialised qualifications, but it does mean that you have the right aptitude and characteristics for that career."

Career Coach is the only product that is marketed directly to the consumer, and Mr. Riley has other human resource products targeted for corporate customers, currently numbering about a dozen.

"The equivalent product for companies allows them to determine what they are looking for in a particular job," said Mr.Riley, "and then assesses the individual to see if they are a good match. Some corporate clients buy the software and do the assessments themselves, but some of my clients, like BAS-Serco, prefer me to go to their offices to do the assessment."

Mr. Riley's office wall describes a man who subscribes to the ideal of lifetime learning. He earned a bachelor's degree cum laude in Hotel and Restaurant Management from the University of New Haven, a master's in Tourism Marketing from the University of Surrey, did graduate work in Econometrics and Social Statistics at the University of Kent, and a certificate from the University of Michigan records his work on Survey Sampling.

Before his years in the Statistics Department, he spent eight years in the Ministry of Tourism as the Market Research Officer, his first job after a spell as a management trainee at the Southampton Princess Hotel.

Married for 14 years to the former Liz Simons, he is the proud father of four daughters, Desirée, 13, Whitney, nine, Azana, seven, and baby Kaela, who arrived last September 9, and went home to a house without power, courtesy of a certain hurricane called Fabian.

Mr. Riley describes himself as an optimist, and he sees considerable scope for expanding his business. Not being an enthusiastic 'cold caller', he plans to hold seminars on "Strategic Life Planning" and "Career Skills for the New Economy". He believes that career assessment can be of broad help to Bermuda.

"I do feel that these tools are needed in Bermuda. One of the things that we have not been able to do in Bermuda is to sufficiently raise standards, and by using some sort of assessment tool, you are 'raising the bar' for potential employees.

"You hear a lot of people in corporate human resources say that they can't find good people. Once we start 'raising the bar', we will find that people will raise their standards.

Mr. Riley is a fan of Malcolm Gladwell's best-seller The Tipping Point, and he believes that his company can help Bermuda pass the 'tipping point' in human resource standards.

"You have to do whatever it takes until you get to the point of success," he concluded, "and I also teach at Westgate, at Bermuda College, and at Webster. I fit in everything I can."

Those who would like to know what career is right for them, can call Profiles of Bermuda at 292-6997, e-mail profilesbda@cwbda.bm or visit online at www.profilesofbermuda.bm

- reprinted courtesy of The Mid-Ocean News : Friday, September 3, 2004