Secrets of a Successful Career Aptitude Test

Career aptitude tests are very important when choosing the right career for your future.

There are different types of career aptitude tests that you can take online, and some are rigged but the majority of them are fairly accurate. These tests will help you with choosing the right career for your life.

You career is something that you will work on you're whole life and many people have a hard time choosing the right career for their future, and some people make the wrong choices for their career and eventually find out in their middle ages or some even after they retire. That's why it's important that you choose the right career for your life the first time before it's too late.

The best choice would be to take a career aptitude test, these tests can help you choose a career that you love and feel confident about. Because if you do not feel confident about you're career choice then there is no point choosing that career because employers want people who feel confident about their career choice and do well in it.

That's where career aptitude tests come in. They help you make these decisions by giving you a select amount of questions for you to answer. There are also various ways to make sure you have a successful career aptitude test.

One way would be to tell the truth. It seems very easy but very few people actually take this into mind and do the exact opposite. Telling the truth online seems like you may sharing your private life but most of these testing sites do not keep you're information, but to be safe you can check out their privacy policies.

The other way would be to list all the careers you are deciding to venture into, when you do this you can vividly see which careers are right for you and which are not. This can help you see clearly what career choices you are interested in and which ones you really aren't interested in.

The last one would be to evaluate each answer with a pros and cons list to get the best results for you're career aptitude test. This will help you know if your answers are truly the answers you would like to use to answer the question.

Learn more about Career Aptitude Test we have plenty more interesting Aptitude Test Information available at our site.

Pros and Cons of Career Academies

Overview:

To address the high school drop out rate and improve the number of students graduating from high school, educators, policymakers and community business leaders are supporting the strategy of career academies in high schools. Career academies are not the latest fad; they have been around for at least forty years. Career academy experts know what works and what doesn't. The Career Academy Toolkit is a book that describes the process of creating and establishing a career academy in great detail.

So what are the pros and cons of these career academies? Pros for career academies are that students have improved high school attendance, additional earned credits, higher grade point averages and graduation rates, and are more career and college ready. Cons include that career academies are more expensive to establish and implement, difficult to schedule, and require partnerships between education and the community. Let's discuss each of these pros and cons in more detail.

Pros of Career Academies:

1. Improved High School Attendance: Because students elect to be in an academy, they are more apt to attend school. The more students stay in class, the more they are motivated to learn. The more motivated students are, they more they are engaged in learning. The more engaged students are, the more they learn. This, them, becomes a circle: the more they learn, the more they are motivated to learn more.

Motivation is one of the major keys to the success of academies. Academies do several motivation strategies, such as integration of the curriculum between both academic and technical courses. Now students not only learn the knowledge, but they have the opportunity to apply it. We, at Bright Futures Press, call this "Sticky Learning." Because academies have partnerships between the academy and the community, students can then go into the "real world" to see how their learning truly fits there. This is exciting for students and reinforces the classroom learning.

2. Additional Earned Credits: Based on pro number one, students who stay in school tend to earn more high school credits and the more high school credits students earn; the more they are apt to graduate.

3. Higher Grade Point Averages: This brings us to pro number three. Students need credits to graduate and students who stay in school earn the credits to graduate. Students on the path to graduation have more self esteem and have improved motivation to learn more, which increases their grade point averages. Students who graduate from high school are generally encouraged to attend college or post-secondary learning.

4. More Career and College Ready: Students that feel they are college ready make an effort to attend college or receive post-secondary learning. Students who immediately go to work are more readily to receive company policy and any additional training that the company supplies.

Now let's discuss the cons of career academies. There are three major cons to career academies. One is that they are more expensive to establish and implement. The second is that they are difficult to schedule, and lastly, they require partnerships between education and the community.

Cons of Career Academies:

1. More expensive to establish and implement: Because academies include a "real world" theme with community partners, this application of the learning process requires more money for student field trips and internships, plus monies to pay for teacher externships. Additional resources does not end there, funding is needed to pay for teacher time to collaborate in the curriculum development and time to collaborate with business partners and post-secondary learning institutions. And, all of this requires more professional development for the educators. True, careers academies are more expensive to operate, but the ROI (Return on Investment) is worth it (i.e. additional revenues from improved student attendance).

2. Difficult to schedule: Due to the curriculum integration, the student field trips and internships, teaching teaming activities, career academies are a nightmare to schedule. However, many career academies have overcome this obstacle and are willing to assist high schools who have decided to establish academies. Additional resources include career academy consultants who are experts in this field and will help schools for a fee. Because these experts save both time and money, they should be considered as a viable option.

3. Partnerships between education and the community: This is the trickiest of the three cons of career academies. Business and education speak different languages and there needs to be someone who can translate what each is saying. These partnerships require both a igniting and nurturing process. Establishing the partnership is more difficult that it seems. Most schools go for the "affair" over the "marriage." They tend to ask for money (short-range goal) rather that the value the business can bring to the relationship like mentors, real-world site learning, etc., which is the "marriage." Once the partnership has started, teachers need time to keep the relationship progressing, and time is something that more schools are not willing to pay for. The school that thinks the teacher will stop and visit the business on the way home from school (on the teacher's own dime) is dooming the education/business relationship to failure.

Conclusion:

Career academies work! They require more time and resources in order to be successful, but they are well worth the effort. They are a time-tested strategy that results in more students who graduate on time ready both/or for a career or college.

If you are more interested in career academies, contact Sandy Mittelsteadt at sandra.mittelsteadt@gmail.com or 661.900.8922. Sandy had been working with career academies from the local community level to the national level. She knows all aspects of career academy development.

Good luck in your endeavors!

Sandy is known nationally for her expertise in all aspects of career academy development and project-based integrated learning. She also works toward expanding collaborative efforts toward creating and supporting emerging academies in power and energy, engineering, manufacturing, communication, construction, health, and agribusiness. In addition, Sandy is a noted workshop presenter in areas such as brain-based learning, integrated curriculum, project-based learning, assessment (rubric and portfolio), content reading, and technical writing. Sandy can be contacted at sandra.mittelsteadt@gmail.com and 661.900.7822.

Important Tips on Career Retraining

If you're considering career retraining, it's important to understand and acknowledge why you're considering changing careers and what you want in a new career. If you remember back to when you chose your current career, there were certain things about that career that attracted you. Perhaps, you were keeping it "in the family" and following your parent's footsteps, or choosing a career that paid a good salary or you may have taken the career that required the least amount of schooling. Lastly, you may have really wanted that career at that time but have changed your mind as time went by. Whatever your reason, now that you have the desire for career retraining, the sky is the limit.

Before you decide on a specific new career choice, do some research on the job so you know what you're getting into. Career retraining can involve a lot of money, time and training so make sure this is a choice that will be lucrative for your career. In other words, don't choose a career that millions of others are also choosing now or you may be in the unemployment line for a long time waiting for that opportunity to come along. Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself before you begin your career retraining:

- Is your goal to earn more money?

- Do you want to stay with this career until your retirement?

- Do you want to have a variety of choices of work or are you focused on one job?

- Do you want to have the choice of where you live or are you willing to relocate?

Once you have the answers to these questions, you're going to be ready for your career retraining and you'll have a better idea of what your options involve. Many people make the mistake of career retraining for something that doesn't fit into their current lifestyle, which they have no intention of changing. For instance, if you live in a small community and have no intention of moving, keep this in mind when you choose a new career. You don't want to spend a lot of time retraining for a job that will never be available in your hometown.  Keep this in mind when you choose a job career: availability in your location.

Career retraining is something that many individuals are choosing today with the wide choices that are now available in the job market. The internet has made it very easy to find educational institutes to help you earn your degree for your chosen career. Whether it's individual courses you need or a Bachelor's Degree, research will find something for you in your chosen field. Career retraining is something that can be very exciting once you've decided what you're interested in doing. However, if you're going to spend money and time on this new career choice, make sure this is definitely what you want to do for the rest of your life so you don't end up choosing a career as a full-time student.

James Copper is a writer for http://www.trainingindex.co.uk where you can find information on career retraining

How to Change Careers and Avoid Emotional Decision Making Mistakes

What makes a career change so difficult?

For most of us, probably the single biggest challenge in knowing how to change careers is addressing the emotions that are provoked when considering this kind of change.

Emotions can result from both external and internal triggers. External triggers that could stimulate a possible career change include:

Family needs that require a change in where you live or a change in income
A job loss
Approaching retirement
A company or industry downturn
Problems with a boss or coworker
A change in health status
A change in work content or expectations (work overload)
A company direction change that conflicts with your personal core values

Internal triggers that might motivate a career change include:

A change in your personal core values that now conflicts with the company ethics (e.g., you used to be OK with your company's business practices, but have had a recent change of heart)
Routine or boring work that lacks challenge, meaning, or purpose
Lack of opportunity for personal or professional growth
A desire to increase income beyond current career expectations
A desire to create better alignment with personal core values and/or beliefsThese triggers can lead to fear due to lack of knowledge; knowledge of oneself, knowledge of the environment, and knowledge of how to change careers effectively.

Breaking it down using a decision making process

An effective decision making process provides a framework for finding or creating the knowledge needed to make any change, especially one as important as a career change. How to change careers is not an isolated decision. It is part of a set of related decisions that connect in a way that creates the knowledge needed to choose a way forward.

Let's use the list of internal and external triggers above to expose some of the decisions that can be used to help in choosing a career.

Knowledge of oneself could include answers to the following questions:

Do I have a vision for my life?
What gives live meaning?
What are my strengths and talents? What are my weaknesses?
What fits with my personality?
What relationships do I value?Rephrasing these questions as choices would provide the following focusing decisions:

Choose my life vision
Choose my personal core values and beliefs
Choose my talents/strengths
Choose activities and environment that fit my personality
Choose my relationship prioritiesKnowledge of the environment might address the following questions:

What income do I need to meet the needs of my family?
What careers are available that I could consider?
What skills are needed to succeed in a career?
Where would I need to live pursue a career? Using a decision view would suggest these decision success factors for your next career (for each you would consider both your need and desire):

Income
Fits my skills / Aligns with my strengths
Training preparation, time and cost
Required travel / Daily commute time Knowledge of how to change careers effectively is addressed by using a reliable process for identifying and making each of the related decisions that will influence or guide your choice of careers.

Addressing the emotions as you focus on how to change careers

As you start down the path leading to a career change, you will continue to experience emotions that will bring up new questions and concerns. When using a decision-focused approach, each new question becomes an added decision to be made or provides a potential success factor as you progress toward your new career choice.

If you capture the questions and identify the corresponding decisions to be made or career change success factors, you can now use your emotions as a tool to motivate making the choices needed to progress toward a new career. Instead of being overwhelmed and afraid, this high value life choice is broken into smaller choices where emotions can provide the needed motivation to do some of the work.

Emotions now become a positive motivation for change instead of generating the overwhelming fear that leads to indecision. Here are some additional emotional pitfalls that are minimized when following this approach to how to change careers:


Choosing quickly without knowing why, and then creating rational explanations to justify a poor emotional decision
Creating mistakes due to distortions and bias in judgments, sometimes leading to unexpected and reckless action
Making errors that take place because we are subject to systemic inaccuracy about how we will feel in the future
Having tunnel vision with too few alternatives due to the desire to rush to judgment
Experiencing analysis paralysis with too many options that exceed our ability to keep track of them

It is possible to learn how to change careers effectively and with confidence

See how our four-step decision making process is used in changing careers at http://www.decision-making-solutions.com/how-to-change-careers.html.

Keith is Co-Founder of Decision Innovation, Inc.
Our company is focused on moving beyond collecting data and analyzing information to creating knowledge and providing insight. We will explore the decision making process and provide a unique combination of decision tools, decision and information management methods, and expertise that will give you the power over your personal and business decisions.

Visit us at http://www.decision-making-solutions.com/.

Career Change after 50!

Career and job change after age 50: some tips to consider.

Changing a career at any age has its own challenges. Making a career change after age 50 presents a series of tests, which if done right, could bring significant rewards.

Throughout your working career, and by age 50, you may have changed careers several times so this time you want to do it right. There are a number of questions you have to ask yourself in order to get on the right track.

Are you looking to change careers because of physical problems? Maybe the stress of the current career and job are getting you down. Looking for something that is closer to your area of interest or in a more relaxed atmosphere?

First, list your interests and skills. What situations or challenges were you faced with? What actions did you take? What sort of results did you achieve? Be as specific as possible in writing out your achievements. Now what skills were required to achieve these results? Working with a team, managing and supervising others, setting and managing a budget, completing a project are all activities that could be on your list.

In any career change after age 50 you will be bringing a variety of skills to your new career. After researching the new career you will find overlap in a number of areas when you compare both careers. Be sure to highlight this overlap in drafting your resume.

If at first look you do not think you have the required skills for the new career, it would be productive to find someone currently working in the new career field and call them for a short interview. Either on the phone or in person you can inquire about the necessary skills to do the new job, challenges presented or how your work experience fits the new career.

You may find that some training is required to qualify for the new career. Training can take many forms. Starting with self-study, to formal classroom to the internet all are valuable sources of training to help you jump-start your entry into this new career area.

Many employers view maturity in an applicant as a positive factor in hiring. An applicant over 50 can provide them with a dependable worker with a lifetime of practical experience. Work experience that can be a valuable asset to a likely employer.

Even in a new career field, bringing many transferable skills, a high degree of motivation and enthusiasm all translate into a successful career change after age 50. The key is to demonstrate that even after age 50 that you have the skills and abilities to be productive for many years to come.

For a more detailed discussion of career change after 50 go to http://careersafter50.com. For interesting stories about 7 people after 50 who developed career plans and successfully changed careers after 50 you'll find worthwhile information to help you in your career planning.