Can a Career Advice Test Help You?

Often the myriad of career options available today can actually work to confuse or even create a sense of fear avoidance in people, causing them to ignore the need for a proper process of career exploration. The consequences of avoiding career exploration however is that people can, often years down the track, find themselves working in occupations which provide little or no job satisfaction.

When this occurs people often find it difficult to understand how and why their career journey has taken them to where they are. It’s easy to miss the sign posts on the road of career exploration, and in deciding not to take a path toward career satisfaction people can find themselves reaching a career deadend and needing a career change.

Taking a career advice test, or assessment while useful at any stage of the career exploration process can be particularly beneficial in those early stages of career exploration process in order to help people actively think about the type of jobs they may be interested in. This may sound simple, and in some respects it is, however you would be surprised how many people work unhappily in a job or career for many years without every having really thought about the types of careers that may be best suited to them.

Career advice tests are often used by career counsellors because although they are unlikely to be the only answer in finding your ideal career, they are often an excellent starting point to help flesh out ideas and provide options that can be narrowed in on and explored in greater detail. From a career counsellors perspective a career advice test can provide a client with an opportunity to explore career interests in a well structured and productive manner.

One cautionary word before you rush out and take a career advice test, or assessment however. While any process that gets people to actively think and explore themselves and career options can be a good thing from a career counselling perspective, it’s important to recognize that many career advice tests or quizzes on the internet are not designed to be valid or reliable tests, but rather just fun tools to explore interests or career options. If such career quizzes are taken with this understanding and with this knowledge then there is no harm in taking a career quiz for a bit of fun, however unfortunately many of these test purport to be something they are not and this can have negative consequences. Although no career advice test is likely to provide “the answer” (as there is never just one answer), there are certainly some career advice tests that are better than others.

One of the ways people can spot a good quality career advice test from an unreliable quiz is to see if the test developer is prepared to make their research data available. Two of the better tests available on the internet that do always for uses to review their research reliability and validity data are the Strong Interest Inventory and Myers Briggs career advice test. These are very popular tests and importantly their validity and reliability data is freely available on the internet and can be access using a quick search engine search. Readers will find that, unlike the career quizzes, these better quality career advice tests are not free but when one c

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Where Career Advice Might Live in Our Life

Most of us have tripped into our careers. Even those who went into professions like law and accountancy tell of taking up the training as nothing else had happened for them.

Why is it that most of us have not experienced career advice? In schools it is usual that the careers teacher is doing that job as one part of a wider portfolio. And that role is often administrative as the expectation is that there is a library of information that students can access. In universities it is not much better. One of the UK’s top universities requires students to pre-book a session where the student then has 15 minutes help with their cv. It is probably useful advice. How useful is it in the context of career advising as we might want it?

In business schools the students invest significantly for their programmes. The full-time MBA is paid for by the student who has also the opportunity cost of not working. The benefit and risk issues is significant to them. The part-time MBAs at business schools are over 2 years and are usually sponsored by the employer of the student. There is less risk to the student; they continue to be paid and their job continues after their MBA has been completed.

In these business schools, careers advice and support is critical to the full-time student. The student needs to understand fully the level of support that they will get throughout their course as the course budget gets squeezed by the costs of all the other components of the programmes. On the part-time MBA, the employers are skeptical (scared?) of any career advice lest the students walk away after the MBA is completed.

The stages above are just 3 examples of where career advice is useful. Some people are fortunate that they have access to good advice. They may have a parent or parents who take an interest and who are able to encourage their offspring down an appropriate channel. Sometimes there is a teacher or a mentor who has specific experience that is helpful. For most, though, the career issue is not prevalent until it lurches into view at key moments – when one leaves school or university or when when has finished that Masters.

These examples are obvious as they are at “rite of passage” points in our lives or where we may have taken a key decision to invest in our career. What would happen if careers were more central to our learning experiences at these key stages?

The best careers advice is achieved by understanding the capabilities of an individual. In a school context this is often well understood by the teaching community as they are working with the students regularly in an academic, pastoral and ex curricula way. They are also measuring regularly to feedback to students and parents and also to relevant external bodies. The wherewithal to undertake good career advice is there. Most schools are not resourced to provide it.

The main issue seems to be that, as a society, we do not value careers as an important subject. Whether it is in schools or with people in work who are careering (rather than controlling) in their careers, the lack of value pertains. Some people do take proactive action and they broadly fall into 2 camps – they are in pain and distress because they have lost their jobs or they are bored and frustrated and know that they have to move out of what they are doing.

Taking care of your career is a lifelong responsibility. The earlier that w

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