Career Guidance Test

Career Guidance Test: I found that getting good career guidance really was a test! The psychometrics of my school days left me cold. Psychometric tests even have left others I know disorientated and distressed with their career predictions.  The tests are binary and their conclusions fail to include information regarding cultural beliefs and values. The careers office in the city centre aided me little more for they too came to the conclusion that I already had. That conclusion was that I could do anything. like me however, even with all their experience, they could give me no clearer definition of what that ‘thing’ was. So I spent my 20s and 30s ping-ponging about in my professional world. From training and development to advertising, from providing network hardware to universities to my own decorating company. Iit seemed that I could indeed do anything I turned my hand to….. but…. most of it left me unfulfilled and unhappy. I had a strong sense that there could be more but I had now idea how to find ‘it’?

I watched others flourish, gaining pleasure from their professional development and I wanted some of that too. It took me a couple of decades to work out why I couldn’t work out what it ‘My Thing’ was. It was because every career guidance test I took, or person I consulted, was outside of me. I can be very good at reading what is needed. I can turn my hand to most things. These abilities were a distraction.  Just because i can do a thing does not mean that I want to do that thing. I over-ruled that fact in my belief that if i could do it then I should, especially if someone else needed it.  I couldn’t find my thing, my niche, because I was listening the ‘them’ and not listening to me.

Eventually my body began to tell me that this was not working. Our bodies are very wise and we would do well to listen to them more. I was exhausted having put so much into so many things and only gained money (and if you think you work purely for money I suggest listening to this talk by Daniel Pink regarding what really motivates us). I got so chronically fatigued that I couldn’t work. When I couldn’t work I was left only with myself. When I was left only with myself I began to ask what I needed, and, I was finally able to hear the answer.

So my career guidance to you is to quiet yourself. Be with yourself in the quiet moments and to ask you self what it is that gives you joy. Now comes the really difficult bit: now you must await the answer.  Be still and await the answer for it will come. You must stay still for the voice will be very quiet. If you stay still and listen you will just hear it, just. it you stay still and listen often enough then your inner vice will strengthen and you will hear it more easily. This is the way you will find your own way through the labyrinth of your own CPD.  A career guidance test can certainly help you to identity your skills. A career guidance test will not enable you to identity what give you joy in your professional world.  You must turn inward and hear the quiet voice within if you want to identify ‘your thing’.

Explore here to learn more of career coaching with Rebecca and here for a glimpse of her coaching world.