Career and Executive Recruiting Advice
Self Assessed, Pt. 2
Home
Articles
Discussions
Polls
Career Center
Library
Downloads
Bulletins : Calendar
Updates
Resource Center
Virus Alerts Center
About Us
Privacy Policy
Contact Us

CERA - career and recruiting success

A look at the older evaluation sites, useful to focusing on the right or best career path.

In the first part of this Question and Answer discussion, we looked at the newest forms of career and self-evaluation sites for getting focused on the right career and career path.

Now, let's look at a short list of some of the old standbys, the ones that existed before June 2000.

These sites are driven psychometrically, that is, the results are based on not just emotional answers but also on the metrics, the numbers that go into answering the questions. This function provides some concrete, quantifiable ways of evaluating what you want to do or how well the candidate will fit in.

As for sites that are the old standards, take a look at:

  • Interest-Finder Quiz
    This is a good starting point for a student. It is a short-version of the test. The site reference recommends talking with your counselor about taking the ASVAB Career Exploration Program and taking the complete test. Once you've taken the full test and discussed it with your counselor, you should be able to discover the better path to follow.

  • Assessing Your Career Vision
    This provides a good look at whether you've given serious thought to your career direction but does not provide a substantial analysis that points in one direction or another.

  • Graduate School of Industrial Administration
    This is probably one of the top-favorite of my evaluation sites. There is a great list of preparatory questions that gets you started on many aspects of preparing for your job search. This has three segments to it and is really worth studying and working through the steps. It offers a battery of evaluation tests. Some of them that would be of more interest to you are:

    Finally, there are numerous links to Self Assessment Tests at Career Builder that are worth checking.

    In addition to all of the preceding, there are also

  • Employment Search Readiness Inventory
    A self-assessment test that asks if you are taking advantage of all career enhancement opportunities.

    It's a quick quiz and not as thorough as that at Graduate School. However, it is more comprehensive than the evaluation at Ozarks Job Search while still being a good instrument for taking stock of what you've been doing to get moving.

  • Interactive Tests
    Good collection of links to personality and career interest tests with commentary and advice from Nelson Bolles, author of What Color is Your Parachute. Consider what is said here and read the entire page. It is more than worth your while.

  • Self Assessment Tests
    When you get through reading through this page, you'll wonder how you could have taken so many things for granted when it comes to planning your career. Good links to information about tests in general and to specific tests.

  • The Keirsey Temperament Sorter II
    Evaluates your temperament and places it in one of 16 types. Results are an interesting analysis of style of work and motivations, but they don't recommend vocational choices.

  • Likes and Dislikes: Hidden Keys to Your Happiness
    A self-assessment exercise for evaluating what makes a job most appealing to you. Less scientific than the other tests, but much more practical. And the questions or motivating directions force you to think about (even evaluate) each step in your career -- past, present and future.

  • Picture The Ideal First Month on Your Next Job
    Follow up to the previous article, William S. Frank suggests idealizing your first days at your dream job to help you realize what is crucial to your career happiness.

This is just the short list of assessment sites. You may want to choose one or two of these to see what results you get and then compare them to see what sort of refinement develops.

Are you getting a sense of which ones are my five favorites? Incidentally, I'm a "Guardian" although my nature is quite "Rational." What's your temperament and style?


Also see Assessments in the CERA Library

Need A New Job Or Higher Salary Level?
Resume Writing Services That Have Increased Salaries 10% to 50% ($5,000 to $50,000)


Post Your Resume for FREE at HotResumes.com



Search jobs now!

Originally published January 6, 2001

123002