It stands to reason that often times the people who have a natural liking or interest towards a certain career path may perform much better when they are working in this area. It also stands to reason that if it is this natural interest in the role that lead them to the career in the first place will also mean that they will be much happier in their work and probably achieve much greater career satisfaction over their lifetime.
Once a person's career interests are identified the task of locating their ideal profession or career often becomes easy. The difficulty however often presents in trying to locate or identify a persons interests that could translate into a realistic career path. There are many ways to do this and often the best approach is to use not just one, but a combination of methods, in conjunction with each other to arrive at the best options or solutions for you.
One of these methods that can be extremely useful in the career counseling process is the use of career counselling or career interest test. Using a career counselling test should not be seen as the be all and end all, but rather as a starting point for ideas and exploration of your career interests. There are many online career counselling tests that can be used, however it is important to stick to or use only tests that are valid and reliable and not simply fun "quizzes" which are found on the internet. One example of a good online career test or questionnaire is the Strong Interest Inventory. The benefit of taking such a test online is that it is used widely all around the world by career counsellors and for this reason, once you have your results you should not have too much trouble in obtaining follow up career advice from a professional career counsellor if you feel like you need more support and career advice.
Another useful tool used commonly by career counsellors around the world is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality test or MBTI for short. This can also be taken online and as with the Strong Interest Inventory, the fact it is used so widely around the globe in career counselling means you can easily obtain follow up career advice based on your results at any point in the future if you wish.
Both the Strong Interest Inventory career test and MBTI personality test should taken by people looking for a simple answer. Career tests are an integral part of the career counselling process and are an excellent starting point for people looking to find their ideal career. Such career and personality test should give the person many different career ideas and open their minds to many possibilities which will need to be explored after the career test has been taken. A person may feel comfortable and confident in exploring these many possibilities on their own, or it is at this point that people often feel they would like some additional support from a career professional so they can be guided through this process.
There are many online career counselling tests, including those above, which are easily located through a search engine such as Google. A good career personality test such as those above will provide the test taker with many career options to explore, and it's at that point that a career counsellor can often provide valuable assistance to assist in maximising the benefit of the career test. This also can be done easily on the internet by using a search engine with a search term such as "registered professional career counsellors list" or something similar. In Australia there is the The Career Development Association of Australia (CDAA) which can be used to locate an appropriate career counseling services close to you.
So in summary, if there is one piece of advice I can give to those looking to find the right career path for them, it would be to take a quality career counselling test and use this to get ideas to work from. From their the many options raised can be explored and examined, either by yourself alone, or with the assistance of a career counsellor or professional.
Nathan Jones is a registered psychologist and has many years working within career counselling related fields. He is the director of CareerSense.com.au which is a business providing quality online career counselling tests and career personality tests to help people work towards finding their ideal career.
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