What Are Challenge Cards, and How Could They Benefit You?

In a time where every question can be answered with a Google search, chances are you’ve never heard of challenge cards.

This is a tool that’s reshaped how career counselors approach helping students. The SparkPath Challenge cards make students think about real-world problems they care about solving, the challenges that exist in the world that they want to work on.

Challenge cards are one of the newest resources we use at True Compass, and it’s helped us aid our students in finding fulfilling paths.

What are challenge cards?

The SparkPath Challenge Cards are a unique resource released in 2017. Where most career exploration tools typically focus on interests and job titles, this one challenges students to consider problems they’d like to solve.

It’s not a long test – the cards usually take about 5-10 minutes. Despite this, they quickly get to things students care about. There’s a total of 56 cards, and each one has a title on the front with a description on the back.

The card titles are broad, and the descriptions are written in plain language, rather than using industry jargon or job titles. Some examples of the titles are:

• Promote healthy living

• Drive sports performance

• Improve mental health

• Connect data-driven healthcare

• Engineer better medicine

Students go through the cards one at a time. If the title of the card isn’t interesting, you can sort it into an “uninterested” pile. If the title seems interesting but you want more information on what it means, you can flip the card over and read the description. If you’re interested in the card’s title or description, you can sort it in an “interested” or “very interested” pile.

After the first round where students pick out every challenge they’re interested in solving, they’re forced to choose their top three. This process gets students using the cards to really think through what’s most important to them.

Many of our students find this tool more approachable than other resources. Because they aren’t presented with traditional lists and the cards use plain language, it feels less overwhelming to sort through.

If you’re planning to work through challenge cards, you don’t need to prepare beforehand. Go with your gut feeling during the first round, then be more thoughtful when you pick your top three.

Why use challenge cards?

The primary benefit challenge cards offer students is that it forces you to look at your career options through a new perspective.

Students can fall into a pattern of doing things just to check a box. The process we use for the challenge cards push people to really consider what they want to do, not answer with what they think will make us or their parents happy. 

When our students realize we actually read and ask them about their answers, they start to take ownership over what they want. They’re called to consider what they want and to dig into the why behind that desire. We’ve found this helps students truly own their future.

This process also shows students what they care enough about to pursue as a career. It allows them to sort through what they like to do, what they want to do for work, and what impact they want to have on the world.

Because the challenge cards have students narrow their options down to their top three, it makes prioritizing their interests easier. Whether you feel like you have too many interests or you’re not sure what you like, there will be cards you’ll end up gravitating toward. That pull and the conversations we have will spark curiosity in your options and help you feel confident in your choice.

Finally, these cards are a highly accessible resource for students. The titles on each card are broad but straightforward. If you’re not sure what the title means, the back of the card has a clear description. That description uses everyday language that’s easy to understand, rather than using industry terms. It makes it so students can look at the cards and go, “Oh, I am interested in this.”

How we use challenge cards at True Compass

We added the SparkPath Challenge Cards to our assessment process about 6-8 months ago. More recently, we’ve added them to our group sessions as well.

When we meet with our students to interpret the results of the quizzes we assign, we start with their interest and personality results. This gives us a framework for who you are. Then we review the challenge card results and discuss values, which helps us find what you care about. Finally, we review the aptitude results which help us determine roles and responsibilities within those areas of interests that you'll find fulfilling.

Since adding the challenge cards to our process, it’s become easier for our students to vocalize what they care about. This gives us a great capacity to really understand and suggest better career options for them. We’re finding issues that our students can be truly passionate about solving rather than ending up in jobs they enjoy more as a hobby.

We offer access to challenge cards to our adult clients as well. There are many reasons someone could be dissatisfied in their career, and the cards help us get to the root of why. 

Maybe you feel like you’re not doing something impactful enough, or you lack a sense of purpose. Maybe you don’t care about the problems you’re solving at work. Maybe there are interpersonal conflicts. Maybe you’re in the right industry, but you’re in the wrong position.

We worked with a young adult who enjoyed art and writing but was working in cybersecurity. Although she was feeling restless in her career and considering other options, her Challenge Cards revealed something important: she was energized by solving complex problems and by work that allowed her to protect and serve others. Her aptitude results reinforced this, showing a strong need to analyze information and solve problems.

As we talked through her results, she began to see the distinction between the things she enjoyed doing and the kind of work that gave her the greatest sense of purpose. Art and writing were meaningful creative outlets, but she realized she was more motivated by using her analytical and problem-solving abilities to help people.

That insight also helped her recognize that some aspects of her current cybersecurity career were already a good fit. Rather than leaving the field altogether, she decided to pursue a cybersecurity role focused on protecting medical and health data—work that allowed her to combine her analytical strengths with her desire to make a meaningful difference.

To wrap things up

The SparkPath Challenge Cards are a unique tool that push students to reconsider how they approach their career options. They help people find careers and roles that they’re passionate about serving in, and we’ve seen the benefits with our own students since adding the cards to our programs.

If you’ve felt stuck in your career search, the challenge cards may be the resource you need to find the right role. Taking the things you want to change and combining them with your interests and strengths will help you choose a career path that you truly care about.

Book a free consultation at truecompassllc.com to see if our assessments are a good fit for your career exploration journey. 

For more advice about how to choose your career and the services available to you, check out our other blogs.