Barriers to Employment Success Inventory (BESI)

Abstract

The Barriers to Employment Success Inventory (BESI) is a self-administered and self-interpreted psychological assessment tool designed primarily to assist individuals in identifying critical obstacles that impede their ability to secure or maintain employment. Developed to address problems encountered by job-seeking adults, particularly those who may be less educated, the BESI serves as an efficient intake or structured interview tool for vocational counselors. The inventory consists of 50 items distributed across five key domains of potential barriers, facilitating immediate feedback and focused discussion regarding potential impediments to career progress. While the scale demonstrates high internal consistency, published evidence for its predictive validation and construct validity remains minimal.

Keywords

Barriers to Employment Success Inventory, BESI, employment barriers, vocational assessment, career counseling, job seeking, psychometric scale, adult assessment

Authors

The specific author of the BESI is not named in the available source content. The development process refers only to “The BESI author.”

Purpose

The primary purpose of the BESI is to provide individuals with a structured method for identifying their major barriers to employment success, including both job acquisition and retention. The inventory is highly beneficial for individuals preparing to enter the workforce, those currently unemployed, or those who struggle to maintain a stable job. By highlighting areas of concern—such as deficits in training, financial constraints, or emotional challenges—the BESI allows both the test taker and vocational counselors to prioritize intervention strategies. The publisher emphasizes the utility of the BESI in assessing the special needs of diverse groups, including women, immigrants, and racial and ethnic minorities, as the dynamics of the modern workplace evolve.

Furthermore, the BESI is utilized by employment and career development professionals as a quick, efficient intake instrument. It provides foundational information about a client’s self-perceived obstacles before commencing formal training or counseling services. Although the instrument offers simplistic suggestions for overcoming barriers, its main utility lies in initiating the self-reflection necessary for addressing employment challenges.

Construct

The BESI measures an individual’s self-reported level of concern across five distinct dimensions of potential employment barriers. These dimensions collectively represent the psychological and environmental obstacles that adults commonly face when seeking and maintaining work. The 50 items are evenly distributed, with 10 items dedicated to each of the following five core scales:

• Training and Education
• Job Seeking
• Personal and Financial
• Emotional and Physical
• Career Decision-Making and Planning

The inventory is constructed on the premise that identifying and quantifying perceived barriers is the first step toward effective career intervention. High scores on any scale indicate a greater degree of concern regarding those specific barriers.

Validity

Evidence supporting the validity of the BESI is notably limited. Despite the instrument’s utility as a structured self-assessment tool, published documentation reports no evidence of predictive validation, meaning its ability to accurately forecast future employment success or failure has not been empirically established. Minimal construct-related evidence is reported, which raises concerns about whether the instrument truly measures the intended underlying constructs (the five barrier types) consistently and accurately.

Reviewers suggest that evidence of criterion-related validity would significantly enhance the inventory’s practical utility. While the instrument possesses strong face and content validity—meaning the items appear relevant to employment barriers—the lack of rigorous empirical validation limits its use for definitive diagnostic or normative purposes. The reliance on only one small-scale study to assess its psychometric quality, even when additional data were reportedly available at publication, remains a significant limitation.

Reliability

The BESI generally reports high reliability, suggesting a strong degree of internal consistency and stability in the scores it produces. However, the data supporting this claim are derived from a restricted sample. Specifically, reliability and consistency scores were attained from a sample of adults participating in a single government-sponsored training program. This limitation means that while the instrument may be consistent within that specific group, the generalizability of these high reliability estimates across diverse unemployed populations (e.g., those with varying educational backgrounds or career histories) has not been demonstrated.

Factor Analysis

The structure of the BESI is based on five distinct categories or scales. Although the inventory provides five separate category scores, there is no documented empirical evidence, such as results from a formal factor analysis, to support this five-factor structure. The initial development process involved professional counselors sorting the original item pool into these five categories, but the structural integrity of these factors has not been statistically confirmed. This absence of factor analysis evidence suggests that while the categories are conceptually sound, the scores may not represent five truly independent dimensions of employment barriers.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-scored and self-interpreted inventory; vocational assessment tool.

Format: 50 items. Available in paper-and-pencil format and online assessment.

Language Available: Not specified in the source content (Presumed English primary).

Population Group: Adults seeking or maintaining employment, including those with lower educational attainment.

Age Group: Teenagers and adults.

Population Details: Appropriate for individuals with at least an eighth-grade reading level. Designed to be especially useful for groups facing systemic barriers, such as immigrants and minorities.

Test Methodology: Items are rated on a 4-point Likert-type scale ranging from “no concern” to “of great concern.” The assessment is designed for individual or group administration and typically takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

Keywords

Vocational assessment, career barriers, employment retention, counseling tool, psychometrics, job success, psychological scale, self-assessment

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not Specified

Affiliation Email addresses: Not Specified

Correspondence Address: Not Specified

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions & Fee: The BESI is commercially available, typically requiring purchase from the publisher. Fees are variable based on format (paper or online) and volume. Specific permission requirements for research use should be sought from the publisher.

Test Year: The review cited (1999) refers to the Second Edition. The original test year is not specified in the source content.

Reference’s

• Camara, W. (1999). Review of the Barrier to Employment Success Inventory, Second Edition. In J. C. Impara & B. S. Plake (Eds.), The Sixteenth Mental Measurements Yearbook.
• Green, K. (1999). Review of the Barrier to Employment Success Inventory, Second Edition. In J. C. Impara & B. S. Plake (Eds.), The Sixteenth Mental Measurements Yearbook.
• Miller, C. D., & Oetting, E. R. (1977). Barriers to the employment of disadvantaged youth. The work of Miller and Oetting (1977) was used in the development of the BESI item pool.

Items of the Barriers to Employment Success Inventory (BESI)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

The specific 50 items comprising the Barriers to Employment Success Inventory (BESI) are not provided in the source content.