When I was fifteen years old, the school required us to take a career aptitude test that was supposed to determine what career we would be best suited to when we left acadaemia and moved into the real world. I don't remember any of the questions but I do remember the eager anticipation with which I awaited the results. I did not expect Archaeologist to come up as a possible future career but imagine my bitter disappointment as I learned that my destiny appeared to be to work as a sanitation engineer for the municipal Water Board, whilst my peers appeared pre-disposed to careers in high Finance and Politics.
I am pleased to report that, from that day to this, the Water Board has never seen me as anything other than a client of their highly efficient hydration and flushing services.
So to the present, and, given my current unemployed status, I thought it would be useful to run myself through a career assessment test on-line and see whether there were any potential career changes that I should examine. I found a very detailed test at CareerExplorer.net, a US website that appears to help students find out which career path they are most pre-disposed to. The test was pretty standard in the types of questions but detailed in the numbers of questions asked. Still, in the interests of research, I happily waded through the questions, answering as honestly as I could.
Half an hour and 485 questions later, I was rewarded with several reports. The first, the basic Career Area Predicted Preferences (CAPP) report, told me that according to my profile, I would best be suited for a management position. So, no real surprise there. The second, the 305 Job CAPP report, showed the top 3 jobs on my personality profile as well as my suitability for 302 further jobs. According to Career Explorer I have very definitely missed my calling and am best suited to be, in descending order, a Surveyor, Medical and Clinical Lab Technician and Inspector, Tester and Sampler. The 3 jobs most for which I am most unsuitable are Funeral Director (don't like dead bodies), Librarian (don't like dead bodies) and Hotel Clerk (you guessed it, don't like dead bodies).
So does this mean that the test was a bust? Not really. You see, anything that gets you thinking about your likes, dislikes and attitudes when it comes to your career has to be a good thing. In case you are wondering, when it came down to HR manager, I was pleased to see that I scored as having a high predicted skill. Too often people will stay in a job or career because it often appears to be too difficult to find a new one. Be bold, take a check every now and again and see whether anything needs changing. Remember change is possible. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to find out whether there is a Surveying firm in need of an HR Director or maybe even a Dinosaur Hunter.
And Finally...
I leave you with a quote from William Jennings Bryan to contemplate:
“Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: it is not to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
All the best,
Jim
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