Career Assessments and Coaches - A Powerful Combination For a Midlife Career Transition

Assessment is essential. Gathering solid, dependable data about your midlife career client is the most efficient road to career coaching success. Midlife is said to commence when one ceases to measure one's life in terms of time that has elapsed since birth, and gradually switches to a more interior evaluation of how much time is left. This gigantic shift generally occurs somewhere in one's 40s (the actual advent of midlife is naturally influenced by many factors). Midlife can send psychological 'shock waves' through the client; some clients enter what we blithely call 'mid-career crisis' a frightening period of uncertainty.

Midlife is said to end when one commences retirement (although this maker is also open to contest as well). In any event, midlife opens with a flush of self-life confusion, evidenced by an avalanche of the "big" questions of life: "Where am I going?" How have I done so far in my life?" "Is my life on track?" "Is this what I genuinely want from life?" "Am I in an authentic career for me?" These, and other questions swirl in an almost unending vortex in the hearts and minds of the midlife career seeker.

The midlife career client presents to the career coach carrying all this internal confusion that screams for clarification and reason, direction and priority, as well as organization and the need to "make meaning" of it all. What's a good career coach to do?

The Need for Good Career Assessment

There exists compelling evidence that assessments produce better insights, better decisions, and better outcomes for both career clients and career coaches. Everyday, we career coaches help our clients make life-changing decisions; decisions that we hope will lead to positive outcomes. Quality assessments can immeasurably help support our coaching evaluations and shape the direction of our coaching efforts. The overall benefits of career assessments are no more compelling than in coaching the midlife career client.

Quality assessments, ones that are valid, reliable, cost effective, efficient of time, and where training in their use is readily available, are indispensable for the midlife career client. Assessments have immense benefits because they can produce dramatic results.

Benefits of Assessment

o Allows clients to understand themselves better

o Promotes a more 'scientific' coaching orientation

o Lends clarity to confusion

o Provides hard data evidence

o Enhances deeper self-exploration

o Promotes quality outcomes

o Offers data to help make accurate and more reliable decisions

o Identifies personal strengths

o Enhances client motivation

o Activates time efficiency

o Jumpstarts changing client deficit behaviors

o Gives structure and order without stricture

o Increases coach confidence

Career Assessment: Development Across the Lifespan

The primary goal of career assessments is not to discover deficits, rather it's to identify internal strengths, to deepen the conversation between you and your client, and to help you formulate more powerful questions that can not only motivate your clients but even inspire them. Career assessments motivate your clients in the most personal, practical, and relevant ways possible, to advance their ongoing career/life search across the lifespan.

Quality career assessments have helped literally thousands of individuals grow toward a much clearer understanding of the meaning and purpose of their life. The results give you clear directions for continued growth toward appreciating your client's authentic 'work.' Quality assessments give you added relevance to your coaching profession when they are coupled with educational experiences designed to further personalize and extend the learning that occurred with the assessment itself.

The results of quality assessments give you the coach invaluable information about your client; information you could gain nowhere else. Quality assessments generate a personal report that allows you to dramatically advance on your path toward helping your midlife career clients in ways unavailable to you without them. The information given in assessments enables you to move forward in your work with vastly increased confidence and motivation.

Dr. Johnson is the co-founder of ReCareer, Inc., a coach training organization dedicated to helping midlife career changers find meaningful and purpose-driven careers in the second half of life. He is a nationally recognized spokesperson in the field of retirement, career transition and adult development, having written and lectured extensively in those fields. His fresh ideas and enthusiasm for the wholistic aspects of adult development and maturation have inspired scores of maturing adults to follow their hearts and live more abundant lives. He is a dynamic, engaging, and compassionate teacher who delights in seeing his students grow in body, mind, and spirit. Dr. Johnson is the former president of the American Association for Adult Development and Aging. He is the creator of the ReCareer Success Inventory©, the Retirement Success Profile©, the LifeOptions Profile ©, and the Retirement Options © program, developed from over 20 years of retirement research and dedicated to helping people lead enriched and fulfilling lives in their second half of life.

Career Test for adolescents-as more recent assessments reveal the perfect career path of your child

Most of us remember a day in our adolescence when our guidance counselor school has called us for career advice. Examined and assessed to us, gave us trials with cryptic questions and eventually proclaimed with certainty that our destiny was to become a firefighter-or a stonemason or a teacher of mathematics or something equally mysterious. As disconcerting as this process was, if you are the parent adolescents, you probably find yourself wishing that you could give this career advice.

With so many career options of modern work, it can be difficult for parents and teens limit choices. The good news is that such tests, career guidance counselor gave you have come a long way. Career assessments can help today's children to discover their career aptitude so accurate, sophisticated and time-effective. Test the child's personality, preferences, interests and talents providing you and your teen with essential information as you make choices for college and beyond.

Do you know if your child is a structured or a traditionalist, sensitive artist? They do their best work in solitude or on teams? One of the most widely used career assessments for teens, the indicator of the kind of Myers-Briggs (MBTI ®), evaluates the type of your child's personality on four scales: extraversion/introversion, Sensing/intuition, feeling and thinking and Judging/Perceiving. According to these measures, the test results provide information about careers, industries and work environments that are good choices for the type of your child's personality. Knowing that the type of your child's personality is crucial to choosing a career path that will motivate, challenge and fulfill them.

Extensive research was carried out using the MBTI to correlate the personality type with a successful career, so that once your child knows their type, can benefit from career experience of thousands of similar types. The test results will help you understand the key factors for their job satisfaction, stress factors crucial to avoid when choosing a career and some common problems you may encounter as they start their career path. Although your child's interests may change over time, their personality type will remain constant and preparing the child with the knowledge of their personality type benefit them for the rest of their lives.

To find the best career for your child, it is important to understand how their interests, hobbies, and favorite activities can inform their career choice. The strong interest inventory®, a test career well-researched and widely used to assess the level of interest of your teen into six main categories: career, realistic, Investigative, artistic, and social Enterprising. Then, match test scores your teenager with profiles of the interests of successful professionals for careers that are the best match for their vote. The results of the strong interest inventory can help the child to understand the daily activities that require certain jobs, and how their interests match up with possible careers.

The strong interest inventory is the indicator of the Myers Briggs type can be taken with the assistance of a qualified consultant. You can choose to visit a consultant in your area, or you can have your teen take these tests online. If you feel that your teen may need ongoing coaching, it may be best to visit a counselor in person. However, many families find that is more convenient to access these career tests for kids online.

However you decide to do the test, you can ensure that you get the highest evaluation by review and verify the results with a qualified counselor or coach. Both the strong and MBTI are designed to be interpreted and explained by a professional with training in the use of assessments. Your counselor or coach will help you make sense of the results and apply them to your child's individual situation and help you plan the next steps for the exploration of your child's career.

The sheer variety of career options, today, is amazing. Your teen has a dazzling array and sometimes overwhelming, of choices. With so many options, teenagers and parents will benefit from using career tests that have been developed to help students choose a rewarding career and personality. Not only can these evaluations provide much-needed direction, but can help guide your child toward a career that will challenge and fulfill them for many years to come.

© 2007 by Molly Owens

Molly Owens holds a BA in psychology and has completed post-graduate work in psychological assessment and counselling. After working in education, mental health and business administration, he founded PersonalityDesk to provide Myers Briggs personality tests and strong interest inventory on-line test career. Learn how your teen can take the MBTI and strong interest inventory on-line at PersonalityDesk.com.