Bharat SainiLast Updated on December 16, 2015 by Bharat Saini
Career is the most important investments of your life. Choosing a career is difficult but having a right path helps in making a right choice. As there are endless options and competition, the need for the career tests came into picture. Career tests are also referred to as psychometric career assessments which have been developed to enhance your inborn abilities and utilizing your skills to develop mental and behavioral capability. The ultimate purpose of these tests is to help you better understand yourself and your relationship with the working world. This test involves questions relating to the skills such as logical reasoning, management, people, mechanical, communication, judgment, attention, thinking and much more and their result can give you some idea of careers one want to explore.The use of tests is increasing. Whether you like tests or not, it is becoming difficult to avoid them. Many employers use them routinely because they find them more reliable indicators of what people can contribute than examination results or even than someone’s experience. For the individual, they can often help establish where opportunities might be available, even though an individual has no previous knowledge or experience of that area.
Unpacking career tests
Are Career tests useful? Do they really help in understanding your career potential? Are they easily available? The answer is Yes and there are a lot of them, they are on the internet, are fun and interactive. Different career tests work differently, and so when looking to take one, consider what it is that you want to learn about yourself. The test will help you:
• To obtain some independent advice;
• To become familiar with tests in order to be less apprehensive about them in future situations where you may be ‘tested’ professionally;
• To gain practice in order that you ensure that you can present your qualities in the best possible light;
• To have a means of comparing your own talents in order to see where you might obtain the most satisfaction in the long term;
• To compare yourself with others in order to make full use of your advantages;
• To better understand that others might have different strengths that could complement your own;
• To understand why you ‘get on with’ some people better than others;
• To understand why a person may become discouraged or frustrated with what they are doing or who they are working with:
• To better appreciate what examiners or possible employers may be looking for when they use tests?
Make yourself familiar with all the above before taking a test. Also there are few tips/rules about career tests:
(1) There is no one test that everyone loves.
(2) There is no one test that always gives better results than others.
(3) No test should necessarily be assumed to be accurate.
(4) You should take several tests, rather than just one.
(5) Always let your intuition be your guide.
(6) Don’t let tests make you forget that you are absolutely unique.
(7) You are never finished with a test until you’ve done some good hard thinking about yourself, etc.
Make sure to remind yourself of these points above when seeing the results. These tests are just offering guidance – at the end of the day, you get to decide whether you take this on board or decide that it isn’t the right move for you. No one is in control of your career except you.
When can tests be taken?
Career test/assessment can be taken at various stages in your life, e.g. Students planning their college/university major or post-secondary education; new graduates who are weighing different career options and job alternatives; career changers who are interested in changing careers, either because they are dissatisfied or want a change for many other reasons; person returning to the workforce after an extended absence due to sickness or raising a family etc. and early retirees who are interested in finding rewarding ways of spending their time or are simply too young to retire.
It is never too late to find the career that you want, and these tests can help you uncover it. Although it might not reveal the specific job role that is perfect for you, it can help you uncover the industry and your passions.
When you know you want to find your ideal career, whether it is your first, second, or third (or more than this), the career tests can provide the guidance you need to help navigate you in the right direction.
What tests are there?
A few of such tests are given below:
(a)Test that measures how well you really match your ongoing career (study or job).
(b) Test that tells you what occupations fit your personality type.
(c) Test that tells you what occupations fit your interest patterns.
(d) Test that recommends careers for you based on all major domains (skills, interests and values) combined etc.
It is important to understand that a career what one person chooses is not the ultimate one and in the due course needs to grow and achieve success. That is why it is important for every person to take the career test to identify their strength and weakness.
You may take a test that tells you what occupations fit your personality type and uncover that you have the ideal personality for becoming a nurse. Nurses often have caring and empathetic characteristics, but they also have compassion, dedication, and a willingness to learn. You likely already know that you have some of these traits but were unsure where you could make the most of them. This test can highlight this for you. Upon showing you where your personality will shine, you can then look into what you need to do to reach each career possibility.
You could take another test to narrow it down. For instance, you could take one that then recommends some careers for you based on your skills, interests, and values. Having great communication skills, for example, is another key element that nurses possess. If you already have this skill, it can make it easier to excel in your studies and your career. This test could again highlight to you that this is a good career option for you.
What to do after the tests
It may be that several career options are best suited to you, so you can’t rely on the tests alone to direct you to the right career. Instead, take this information to carry out more research, this time on your own. Look up what would be required of you, such as qualifications and training, to get to where you want to be. For instance, those who did showcase skills and qualities that nurses have could look into guides that explain how to become a nurse. Click here to learn more about this. Learning about the pathway to becoming a nurse and a few key perks enables a person to make a more informed decision about whether this is right for them.
Then, explore more of what you would be doing on a day-to-day basis. If reading up about this doesn’t fill you with excitement but instead dread, this is a clear indicator that this career is not right for you. If it fills you with excitement and you can’t wait to get started applying to schools and enhancing your skills, this is clearly the right career path for you.
How useful are these tests?
Can we trust these tests and choose our career path based on their results? The problem is not a test itself (it can be very helpful indeed) but how people use and perceive it: most people are waiting for shortcuts, and they want a career test to be a short and EXACT answer to the question “what career should I choose?” Such an approach will lead to nothing but disappointment, as career tests/assessments do not give the information for making a wise career decision.
Career tests are very effective when it comes to giving you an idea of possible careers, the careers that might match your interests and skills and make you think about how well-suited you could be for a particular career.
You then need to put the work into finding your career by carrying out more research, learning more about the career options out there, and identifying your strengths and weaknesses. Only you will know whether this is the right move for you.
Taking a test
No longer do you have to pick a career at the age of 16 and let it decide your entire future. These tests are here to ensure that you always are doing what you love. As people change over time and come to identify what they are good at and what they are passionate about, careers should change with them. So even if you are ten years or twenty years into your current job role and are not feeling fulfilled by it or are looking to get more out of it, take a test and see what it comes out as. It will only take a few minutes out of your day but could change your entire life for the better.
