Career Assessment

Overview You're not alone if you're unsure of which career path is the right one for you. Luckily, many Web sites provide both free, and commercial career development tools for people looking for career ideas. Among these tools are career assessment tests designed to help you find a career based on personal, and professional information. Other interesting self-tests, such as IQ, and personality tests, can also be accessed online.

Interactive Career Assessment Resources Do career assessment tests serve any useful purpose to the test taker? The usefulness of these tests are a controversial issue among scholars and career counselors. One side maintains that the test results are unreliable and inaccurate, while the other side points out that the results serve to suggest alternatives to the test taker. Despite this controversy, many simple career assessment tests can be accessed free of charge on the Internet. The article “Online Career Assessments: Helpful Tools of Self-Discovery” by Katherine Hanson is a good introduction to online career assessment tests. This article describes the accuracy and usefulness of many of the free online career assessment tests, as well as the procedures for taking them. The author also provides tips for taking these tests in order to gain helpful results. Another page at www.acinet.org/, provides resources and links to several well-known online career assessment tests. The article "IBM's Answer to IT Skills Crunch: Woo Students"  provides good insight into understanding the skills requirements for a major corporation. An excellent source of career  preparation information can be found at www.careerperfect.com/.  Also check out www.jobhuntersbible.com, a Web site published by Richard N. Bolles, author of the popular job-hunting book What Color Is Your Parachute? (Ten Speed Press, 2001). Web sites with both free, and commercial career assessment tools, can be found by following this link.

Additional Links Career assessment is not the only topic for which there are self-testing tools available on the Internet. In fact, you can find a test for many different behavior patterns. Visit this Open Directory Web page to find several links to Web sites with psychology tests and surveys. You also can find a wide variety of IQ and personality tests at www.allthetests.com/. On the lighter side, visit the Web page home.rochester.rr.com/jbennett/nerd/ to take the “Official Nerdity Test.” This test will  help you to find out whether or not you are a true “nerd.”