To adapt, to grow, to build my professional career, what is your desire? Where do you start, what do you need to discover that field, that profession that simply doesn’t let you get bored, and if it exhausts you, it’s because you’ve worked too much, not because of stress.
Today, we focus on a career test and how to find out if what you think suits you is indeed true. At the end of the article, you can easily download a file with the career test to your computer/phone/tablet. It’s great! Go for it.
How many high school students wonder: Which college should I choose? What is it like to be an accountant? Is it enjoyable to work in advertising? Can you handle job pressure?
To navigate through your professional life like a swan gliding through water, it’s essential to create a CAREER MAP (click on the keyword and go to the free resource) and understand details about career development, self-assessment, and who can guide you. We provide you with a file containing an internationally recognized career orientation test, a guide to various professions, and how they impact your life.
You’ve often heard about hard skills and soft skills, especially from HR professionals, but either they couldn’t explain what they mean, or you weren’t engaged enough to find out.
Let’s break them down with examples.
When you apply for a position, you will be assessed or tested for two types of skills:
Hard skills – skills that you acquire through school, certifications, and practice – the technical aspects of a profession.
Soft skills – skills that are strictly personal, such as how you relate to others, the type of person you are, how you work with a team, personality traits (teamwork, empathy, communication, active listening).
Your career develops alongside your passions, how well you perform in school, what you like and dislike. Because it’s sad to be good at everything, and I’m not speaking figuratively. It is necessary to find the cherry on top, which represents a combination of skills, subjects, and fields in which you can excel.
Growth – takes place from birth to the age of 14 and focuses on building self-image, speech development, relational skills, and the establishment of interests. In the early years of discovering the world with all its pitfalls or wonders, a child is formed through games and activities that rely heavily on imagination. Wooden games, Lego, colours, intelligence games help the child develop self-respect, motor skills, and creativity.
Exploration – is specific to the age range of 15-24 and centers around an unstoppable desire for self-discovery, experimentation, and knowledge of options. How does this self-discovery develop? Well, we’re talking about the plans that most teenagers make regarding their future, what they have to offer, and the trajectory they want to take in the future. Career tests can also come into play, more or less showing you where you excel.
Stabilisation – if you are between 25-44 years old, you fall into this stage of maintaining, consolidating your career, or changing it, as it is commonly known: professional retraining. If you cope well with the chosen profession, you can continue towards a successful career or explore other job options in a different field/industry.
Maintenance – you are directly and actively engaged in the chosen position during the age range of 45-64, during which you can advance to different levels of the job based on effort and objectives.
Decline – when you exceed the age of 65, retire, and are no longer active in the field.
The Holland Career Test is a well-known tool developed by the American psychologist John Holland to psychologically assess professional interests. John brought a unique perspective to the workplace, suggesting that we resonate with the environment/team/institution/company based on our personality.
This simple test can shed more light on your career choices than you might think. It quickly identifies the personality type that characterises you and the career where you could excel the most.
Of course, we are social beings in continuous evolution, and it’s possible that the result might be a hybrid, reflecting multiple typologies that define you.
Read the book “The Self-Directed Search: A Guide to Educational and Vocational Planning” by John L. Holland for a better understanding.
Content: 3 sections – activities, skills, and occupations of interest – to determine if you are realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, or conventional.
Results: Following the Holland test, you will receive a score indicating the activities, skills, or occupations that best suit you.