Career Assessment Tests: What are you good at?
Career assessment is not just about “pursuing what you do best”. Rather it is a critical step in helping individuals discovering the careers that best fit their unique personalities, talents, skills and abilities. These assessments measure such attributes as individual skills, personal preferences, personalities, and lifestyle interests, in order to identify career opportunities which not only utilize these skills and competencies, but also provide the right personality fit. A variety of testing methodologies exist, but, generally, all career assessments attempt to determine the following:
- Individual interests
- Individual strengths, weaknesses, skills, talents and competencies
- Personal preferences regarding the nature of the work
- The particular fields that would be the best fit for individual skills, competencies, preferences and personalities
- An outline of the possible education pathway for the particular job
The result of the career assessment process is the identification of specific jobs tailored to your individual personality, which will not only utilize your skills and competencies in your chosen field but will also provide personal satisfaction. The results of the career assessment process provide the input for the next step in the career pathway: job exploration. In this step, individuals investigate particular jobs in order to identify the job that they would like to apply for.
Job exploration includes gathering information regarding the following:
- Required skills and competencies
- Possible education paths for the chosen field
- The work environment prevalent in your chosen field
- Related jobs in the field
- Opportunities for career progression
This information may be acquired from a variety of sources, mainly employers as well as people currently working in the field. The exploration process assists in making informed decisions about the job you wish to perform and how to go about it.
