Which Job or Career is Best for You? A Personality Assessment Can Tell You.

Knowing which career path is the right one for you can be one of life's greatest challenges.  Particularly in western cultures, we're expected to make critical career choices in our late teens and early twenties, and then invest thousands of dollars in post-secondary education, or not, depending on those choices.  But looking back, how many of us made those decisions with 100% certainty?  How can we truly know what we want to do for a career when we're just entering adulthood and the long journey of getting to know ourselves. 

We're not yet who we're going to become so we make life-impacting decisions based on who we are and who we think we're going to be.   Make sense? 

Career personality assessments (often called "tests" but I don't like that term because you're not being tested - there aren't any right or wrong answers) are a timeless and critical tool for career or job path decision making.  These tests are based on the principle that we each have inherent personality traits that make us inclined to enjoy certain types of work over others.  They usually aren't industry specific so much as task and job title specific.  So, for example, your personality assessment might suggest a list of careers in administration and management while someone else's assessment might recommend work in the trades.  Yet another personality assessment might suggest a suitability for work in the creative technical arts, such as architecture or landscape design.  Any one of these people could find work in the construction, horticulture or retirement living industries.  There would be jobs for each of them in these industries.  But their personalities would determine which jobs they're most suited for.  Of course, ideally, and as I encourage my clients to do, the industry you work in should reflect your own personal interests and values. 

Taking a personality assessment should be one of the very first things you do in your career path planning.  It doesn't take long and it yields critical information to kick-start the planning process.  After all, what will you base your career action plan on if you don't know what you're best suited for in the first place?

Ruth van Vierzen, owner of ReViVe Career Services, is certified to deliver the KTS Personality Assessment.    For more information, click here.