Finding Your Career of Choice Through Assessment

Career Assessments
The best way to find the career of choice is through self-assessment of one's skills. One of the tools to use through this process is career testing. These tests and interest inventories help you see how your personal interests, skills and values fit into the world of work. The following is a description of some of the tests offered to students by Career Services.

Self-Directed Search
John Holland's instrument which measures person/environment match. This assessment tool asks you a series of questions about skills you have, professions you might be interested in, and your career daydreams. Twenty minutes later you have a code to work with which will uncover multiple career areas for you to explore. This is one of the most widely used testing instruments in the field of career development.

Strong Interest Inventory
Thousands of jobs exist in the world of work. Use your interests results, as well as what you know about your values and skills, to help you find information about those occupational areas in which your interests and aptitudes are focused. The inventory can help you identify general areas of interests as well as specific activities and occupations that you might want to explore further.

It is always advisable to discuss the results of your career inventories with professionally trained career counselors. Many times what seems like a random listing of no-good, worthless, waste-of-my-time information, may turn out to be valuable data when interpreted by a professional counselor.