Are there online tests or surveys that could help me narrow down a potential major/career?
#career #college-major #career-counseling
3 answers
Lashay’s Answer
Hello Tristan: Yes, there are assessments that can increase your awareness of your interests personality and relate them to majors and careers. Two of the most popular are Myers Briggs Type Indicator and Strong Interest Assessment. Each will ask you a series of questions and produce a report from which you can learn about how you tend to inteact with others (extrovert/introvert) take in information (sense or intuition) and others as well as your top areas of interest (art, social, science, investigative and others). From the outcomes, researchers have related various lines of work that you might naturally be good at without too much effort. There tends to be a cost associated with each but review a few websites or visit your schools guidance or career counselor to see which ones your school offers for free. If you are not a current student, search online for free or low cost career assessments similar to MBTI or Strong Interest. You can also give yourself an informal assessment by listing all of the experiences you have had until and during the current time. Any volunteerism with groups or alone, jobs part-time or full-time, job shadows, internships, or anything that you've learned about work. Create a like and dislike column on paper. List the skills or duties that you liked from each and as well as those that you disliked. Then go to onetonline.org to search job titles by skills listed on your page. Maybe even rank the skills from most to least liked. Good luck!
Lashay recommends the following next steps:
Ken’s Answer
Yes, but your will get better results by having the interest and aptitude test administered by professionally trained staff at your high school or college. The use test that are more sophisticated and are able to interpret them in a more meaningful manner than you might experience by doing it yourself from less sophisticated testing online, which you need to interpret yourself. However, testing and the interpretation of the testing is only one part of several which would allow you to learn which career area would be best for you to pursue.
Getting to know yourself and how your personality traits relate to people involved in various career opportunities is very important in your decision making process. During my many years in Human Resources and College Recruiting, I ran across too many students who had skipped this very important step and ended up in a job situation which for which they were not well suited. Selecting a career area is like buying a pair of shoes. First you have to be properly fitted for the correct size, and then you need to try on and walk in the various shoe options to determine which is fits the best and is most comfortable for you to wear. Following are some important steps which I developed during my career which have been helpful to many .
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Hope’s Answer
Hi, Tristan.
Here is a pretty cool one to check out: https://www.pymetrics.com
Good luck and have fun!
Hope LeNoir