The five rules about taking career tests

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The five rules about taking career tests

When you're puzzled about what to do next with your life, the idea of taking some kind of career test may strike you as a really great idea. There are a lot of such tests out there.
They're not really "tests" – you can't flunk them; more accurately, they're called "questionnaires" or "assessment instruments." But most people still call them "tests."
They come in many forms and flavors – skills tests, interests tests, values tests, psychological tests, etc. – and their names form a veritable alphabet soup: SDS, MBTI, SII, CISS, RHETI, and the like.

Trouble is, they take time and energy. You have to get dressed and get yourself down to a community college counseling center, or career counselor's office, or State unemployment office, or one-stop career center, or a Johnson O'Connor Human Engineering Laboratory – where the tests and the test administrators can be found. You have to leave your house.
That's been true for years.

But now there's a new wrinkle: now you don't have to leave your home, to take some career tests. If you have access to the Internet (as you do, dear reader, because you're reading this here on my site) career tests can now be plucked off the Internet, and taken in the privacy of your own home. Our eyes light up! Now you're talking!

Here's the best of what's available in your home, by title (most sites explain what their particular test or instrument is trying to measure). All are free, or cost less than $10 (payable online):

John Holland's Self-Directed Search is available online at http://www.self-directed-search.com/. The best of the career tests (in my opinion), as of January 1, 1999 it has been taken by more than 24 million people. $8.95.

The Career Key at http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/l/lkj/. Related to Holland. Free.

The Birkman Method(r) Career Style Summary at http://www.review.com/career/careerquizhome.cfm?menuID=0&careers=6 with intriguing career suggestions at http://www.review.com/career/article.cfm?id=career\car_job_top_ten&jobs=0&menuID=2&resources=1. Related to the Birkman Method. Free.

The Personality Questionnaire at http://meyers-briggs.com/info.html (Yes, "meyers" is deliberately misspelled here.) Related to the Myers-Briggs. $3.00.

Keirsey Character Sorter at http://www.keirsey.com/. Related to the Myers-Briggs. Free.

The RHETI Test at http://www.9types.com/. Related to the Enneagram. Free.

Psychological Testing Tools. Eleven tests, to be found at http://www.metadevelopment.com/ $75.00 each.

(More tests can be found at http://dir.yahoo.com/Social_Science/
Psychology/Branches/Personality/Online_Tests/)

Now, before you reach for your modem, there are five rules to keep in mind when approaching career tests in general, and online tests in particular:

1. Treat all tests as suggestive, only.
Tests have one great mission and purpose: to give you ideas you hadn't thought of, and suggestions worth following up. But if you ask more of them – if you ask them to absolutely tell you what to do with your life – you're asking too much. On many online (and offline) tests, if you answer even two questions inaccurately, you will get completely wrong results and recommendations. You should therefore take all test results not with just a grain of salt, but with a barrel.

2. Take several tests, rather than just one.
You will get a much better picture of your preferences and profile, not to mention career ideas, from three or more tests, rather than just one.

3. Don't let tests make you forget that you are absolutely unique.
All tests tend to deal in categories, so they end up saying "you are an ENFP" or "you are an AES," or you are a "Blue." You are lumped with a lot of other people, as in a tribe – and sometimes it is the wrong tribe. Just remember, you are "a unique job seeker seeking to conduct a unique job hunt, by identifying a unique career and then connecting with a unique company or organization, that you can uniquely help or serve." (Thanks, Clara Horvath) Without some hard thinking about how you are unique, tests become just "a flytrap for the lazy," as job expert Mary Ellen Mort puts it.

4. An online test isn't likely to be as useful as one administered by a qualified professional in your community.
If you don't like the results you get from any of the online tests (or if you don't have access to the Internet) go out and look for tests in the kinds of places I listed above.

5. Don't force online tests on your friends.
If online tests do help you, don't for Heaven's sake become "A Career Test Evangelist" and try to force all your friends and family to take such tests. People are very skittish about tests. For example, some people dislike "forced choice questions," where they must pick between two choices that are equally bad, in their view. Others don't like questions about how they would behave in certain situations, because they tend to pick how they wish they behaved, rather than how in fact they actually do. And some people hate all tests. Period. End of story. So, trying to force these tests on your family or best friends could lead to your premature demise. Be gentle: the life you save may be your own.
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