Where To Get Career Advice
Even though career quizzes and aptitude tests are helpful, getting professional assistance is one of the best ways to get help planning your career. A career counselor or coach can help you explore options, plan your career, and achieve your employment goals.
Many colleges and universities offer free career counseling for both students and alumni. If youre a college graduate, check to see what services are available.
You may also be able to find free or low-cost career coaching services to help you with the career planning process.
Assess Your Values Interests And Skills
Self-assessment is the process of identifying:
- What matters most to you.
- What you enjoy doing.
- What you are good at.
It is important to take a step back, get to know yourself, and understand your wants and needs for the next step in your career. This process is also worth repeating throughout your life as your values, interests, and skills change and grow.
Resource:ImaginePhD, a free career exploration tool designed for humanities and social science students but used by students from all disciplines, has built-in assessments for each of these categories as well.
Adopt A Professional Tone
In your self-assessment document, use a professional tone. This is an opportunity for you to highlight your competence, efficiency and professionalism and to impress your boss, so take the exercise seriously. Complete the form with care and attention and set aside adequate time for this task. Ensure to defend your statements with data. Be authentic and sound fair and objective.
Example:My supervisors communicate with me regularly and offer me constructive feedback, which I find very helpful. Their advice, guidance and coaching over the last year helped me achieve my goals and develop both personally and professionally. Additionally, I’m grateful for the cooperation and support I receive daily from my colleagues at the helpdesk.
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How To Write A Self
Learning how to write a self-performance review can help you bring attention to your best work, biggest wins and top personal traits. These documents require you to analyse yourself objectively and think critically about your work performance to date. Some self-review forms provide space for open-ended responses under various headings while others may ask specific questions about particular aspects of your job. Whatever the format, you can follow these steps to help you complete a self-review form successfully:
How To Use Self Assessment Tools To Choose A Career
Individuals who are trying to choose a career often wonder if they can take a test that can tell them what occupation is right for them. Unfortunately, there isn’t a single test that will magically tell you what to do with the rest of your life. A combination of self-assessment tools, however, will help with the decision.
During the self-assessment phase of the career planning process, gather information about yourself to make an informed decision. A self-assessment should include thoroughly examining your values, interests, personality, and aptitude.
- Values: the things that are important, like achievement, status, and autonomy
- Interests: what you enjoy doing, i.e., playing golf, taking long walks, and hanging out with friends
- Personality: a person’s traits, motivational drives, needs, and attitudes
- Aptitude: the activities you are good at, such as writing, computer programming, and teaching. They may be natural skills or ones acquired through training and education.
Many people hire a career counselor to help them with this process and administer a variety of self-assessment inventories. What follows is a discussion of the different types of tools, as well as some other things to consider when using your results to choose a career.
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Bringing It All Together
Now that you have developed a list of your values, interests, and skills, bring them together and think about how you could apply these in different careers.
Start by summarizing the main themes that came out of your self-assessment. Then read it aloud and start thinking of careers that incorporate these themes. Share the list with a friend or family member to get additional ideas about careers. At this point, its just brainstorming, so write down everything that comes to mind.
Keep your mind open to possible careers. As you learn of something, consider how that career connects to your values, interests, and skills. A few suggestions for learning about different careers:
- Keep a journal of any career related ideas, such as jobs mentioned in books, on TV, or by a friend.
- Read online profiles of people in different careers. Do any of these interest you?
- Talk to your friends and family about their career paths.
- Use the Skills Search feature at O*NET to identify careers that use some of the skills you identified.
What Is Performance Measurement
The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed’s data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.
Performance measurement is an essential tool in the workplace that allows supervisors and managers to assess employee performance to decide whether they’re reaching the company’s expectations. The measurement technique differs depending on the work environment, the type of company, and, to some extent, the employee’s occupation. Learning more about how to assess performance can help you enhance the operations of the company you work for. In this article, we define performance measurement, outline its benefits, highlight its various methods of operation and list the steps to implementing it in the workplace.
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Not Sure What Kind Of Job Is Right For You A Career Test Can Give You Some Answers
Take a career test to help you find the right job.
We get it: Figuring out what you want to be when you grow up is hard, but a career test can make it easier to find your path.
A career test isn’t like a test you take in school think of it as more like a career quiz that you might find in a magazine. You answer some multiple choice questions and come to a conclusion that is meant to analyze what your answers reveal about you.
What Is Self Assessment
A self-assessment tool is actually a series of tools and tests, a toolkit if you will. This toolkit can help you dive deeper into your personality to see what most interests you and what your skills are. These tools thoroughly evaluate your values, interests, personality, and aptitude . The best part is these tests arent graded. Theyre just a way to collect information and organize it.
Companies often use these tools to discover if they have the right candidates for their open positions. They might use them to learn more about the employees they already have. And they might use them to help determine who gets a promotion or who should be placed in a different role within the company.
Just because companies use them, it doesnt mean that an individual cant. In fact, using them for yourself can be incredibly illuminating.
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Truity Career Personality Profiler
Truitys Career Personality Profiler evaluates your interests and your personality traits to help you find the best career options. Youll learn about college majors, careers, and industries that match your results. The test also reports on activities, projects, and tasks that you would enjoy working on.
The test has 94 questions and takes about 10-15 minutes to complete. A summary of your results and career suggestions is free, but there is a fee to receive a comprehensive report.
What Is An Assessment
Assessment is a process or informal technique that is used to collect data and information from an individual and help them to get a better understanding of their interests and skills. These types of tools are generally used by career counselors, educators, and placement officers to evaluate and measure the skills, academic readiness, personal traits, and more.
The main reason behind assessment results is to prepare a report that showcases an individuals skills and interest so that he/she is able to make wiser decisions in identifying the right educational or career choice for career development.
Undoubtedly career planning is quite different when it comes to creating a researched-based plan, however, career assessment can tell an individual what they can do.
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Tools For Career Self
An essential step in the process of awakening career aspirations and career research and planning is that of self-exploration. This is the term for a process of identifying ones skills, interests, values, and aptitudes as they pertain to work and career decisions, using a variety of formal and informal assessment tools. This process has the potential to foster the type of self-awareness and self-reflection that are invaluable to college and career readiness.
Career counselors use a variety of tools and activities, including informal inventories and formal assessment instruments to help people identify their skills, abilities, work values, preferences, and interests. Having a wide array of tools on hand enables one to tap into diverse learning styles, language abilities, and preferred modes of expression to help people gain greater self-awareness integral to an authentic career planning process.
Mina Mathews is a transitions advisor at Lewiston Adult Education in Maine. She describes here how she has used writing activities to tap into students hopes and dreams by asking students to write an end of life essay and where they saw themselves in the future.
Watch the video of Mina describing the activity:
Here Mina Mathews discusses the limits of formal assessments and the importance of helping adults make connections between their transferable skills, career interests and passions:
List Your Positive Attributes
Before you complete the form, think about the positive attributes, unique qualities and professional skills you possess. Focus on three or four in total. Write them down and beside each one, state how you show it at work. These key points form the cornerstones of your review. Aim to weave them into your self-evaluation at points.
Example:
-
Strong work ethic: process work in a timely manner while also taking on additional projects and assisting teammates with work tasks
-
Good problem-solver: work diligently to accomplish tasks when problems arise
-
Innovative: create efficient methods for handling workflow
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When To Use It
This is great for people of all ages and career paths. The test will make you think about your core values, including what your career means to you. This will help you think if your current career is in line with your values or if youd like to do something to change it.
Perhaps youre in a progression-oriented role right now but youre actually not that into progressing in your career or vice versa. The test will help you understand what your career means to you and therefore, make it easier to find the right career to fit your goals.
How Can You Use A Self
Individuals, who want themselves to land in the right occupation or in the right career often wonder how they can select the right occupation? What career option can be right for them?
Well, there isnt a single process that can help you to identify the best career option. However using a self-assessment tool, you can get a brief idea about your interest and other hidden skills which can result in determining the best career option for your future.
While going through a self-assessment process for your career planning, you collect all the useful data about yourself to create a detailed profile that describes your values, interest, personality, and aptitude. Once you have a profile then you can easily set priorities to make your job easier.
When we say values then it displays things that are important for you like status, sense of achievement, independence, and more. Interest talks about what you enjoy the most like talking to people, solving their problems, hanging out with friends, and more.
Personality showcases your traits, needs, attitude toward your work, life, and more. Where aptitude showcases what you are good at managing people, communication, writing, programming, teaching, and more.
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Grow Your Current Position
Self-assessment not only helps you to identify your soft skills and work values but also offers various options to grow and develop in the current position. If you are already working at some position in an industry and looking to grow in the same field then self-assessment can play a vital role in fulfilling your desire.
Most of the individuals land in a job with high expectations, but after spending some time in the industry they think of switching their career just because they arent aware of their next step. Self-assessment helps you to measure your current situation and offers details about the area you can to develop.
If you feel upset or tense during your working time, think about how you can grow in the competitive marketplace and what you can do to build a more relaxing work schedule? Then self-assessment can be the solution.
In short, it allows you to pick career options that meet your priorities and help you to set a career path that assists you in growth and development. Next, we are going to highlight how you can select the self-assessment to select your career.
Holland Code Career Test
The Holland Code self-assessment examines your suitability with different careers based on six occupational themes: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. The test identifies your top interest area and how it compares to the other areas, and what this means for your career interests. This test clocks in at 20 minutes.
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How A Career Test Can Help
When you’re looking for your first job or considering switching careers, its much easier when you have some ideas about what youd like to do.
There are a variety of free career tests and quizzes available that address interests, values, and skills, but it is not essential to find a test that captures all of the elements.
Do keep in mind that some tests aren’t scientifically validated. However, they are quick and easy to take and can provide insight into what types of jobs you might want to research.
Spend some time taking a few tests and quizzes and see what results you get. Afterward, compare the job options you’re given to decide which of them are worth exploring further.
Additional Things To Consider
While going through the self-assessment process, take into account other factors that will influence your career choice. For example, think about your family responsibilities and your ability to pay for education or training. Don’t forget that self-assessment is the first step in the career planning process, not the last.
After completing this phase, go on to the next one, career exploration. With your self-assessment results in mind, next, evaluate a variety of occupations to see which ones are the best fit. While your self-assessment may indicate a particular career is suitable for someone with your interests, personality, values, and aptitude, it doesn’t mean it is the one that is most right for you. Similarly, don’t discount an occupation just because it doesn’t show up in the results of a self-assessment. Do a lot of research about any profession in which you are interested.
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Free Career Assessment Tools To Help Clients Find Their Fit
Whether your client is just starting out in their career, or ready to make a career change, career assessments can be a helpful tool to spark ideas and identify strengths. While some career professionals may prefer to use only paid assessments, these are not always financially accessible to all service providers. Of course, with any career test, it is important to analyze whether it is the right fit for your client as well as its reliability and validity. Here are 15 free career assessments to help get you started.
This article was originally published in November 2018 and was updated in June 2021. CareerWise has not tested these assessments and encourages practitioners to undertake their own analysis to determine effectiveness.
Career Cluster Interest Survey
This assessment lets clients rate activities they enjoy, personal qualities and school subjects they like to discover career clusters that are a match for their interests. It takes five to 10 minutes to complete. The website contains a disclaimer stating that this survey does not make any claims of statistical reliability and is intended for use as a guidance tool to generate discussion.
Career Quizzes and Tests
Career Quizzes
Charity Village Career Assessment Questionnaire
Holland Code Career Test
InSight Values / Work Characteristics Inventory
Interest Assessment
Keirsey Assessment
Motivational Appraisal Personal Potential Career Assessment
Uncover Your Career Possibilities
Career assessment is a way to learn more about how well a variety of careers might suit you. Different types of assessments focus on specific areas, such as skills, interests, or values. Typically, an assessment asks you to answer questions about what you like, dont like, what is important to you, and what your strengths are.
Since assessment results may relate to as many as 900 different occupations, dont panic if your results include careers that dont interest you. Experts recommend that you take more than one assessment to broaden your ideas before you make a decision. It can also be helpful to talk with a career counselor, family, and friends before making a career decision.
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Truity Photo Career Quiz
This quiz only takes a few minutes, and its fun and easy to take. Simply click on which picture you like best in a series of photographs to take the free . Youll receive a profile of your career interests, and then you can search for careers and review more information based on your interest profile.
