When you’re 10 years old, it’s easy to spout that you want to be a train driver or a vet and somehow it’s just the easiest thing in the world to believe. Then, as you grow up, you become aware of many more types of jobs and you start to discover your skills and aptitudes. By the time you leave school, university and beyond, you may have very little idea about what career you want to do.
In the digital age, it makes sense to turn to digital tools to help you. And that’s what you get with career aptitude tests. In return for answering a few multiple choice questions, the test spews out with confidence what career you should do. But do these tests actually help you decide? Are they accurate? When and how should you get in-person career advice as an adult?
What are career aptitude tests and do they work?
There are many different career aptitude tests and so it’s very difficult to broadly compare them. However, they are generally multiple choice quizzes which aim to determine the types of career that you might enjoy and be suited for.
Generally, the best of these tests should measure your aptitude. This means your suitability. They aren’t determining if you can do the maths involved in being a payroll administrator, but they do determine if the thought of working with numbers all day brings you out in a cold sweat.
We would say that these tests have their limitations for actually determining a career for an individual with accuracy. However, they can be extremely useful for learning more about yourself so that you can narrow down your decisions and work out what roles may suit you best. Many of these tests are helpful for working out your passions, motivation, strengths, work values and core skills as well as important personality traits. Knowing yourself better can help you match yourself to suitable careers.
A career aptitude test has a huge advantage over asking a trusted friend or family member, or even career coach for ideas. It’s completely objective. It doesn’t know you and it doesn’t have any bias. It’s not coming up with recommendations influenced by your sex or your proclivity for designing outfits for your dolls age 6.
Career aptitude tests are a support not a shortcut
Career aptitude tests, like other psychometric testing, definitely have their place, both in recruitment and in finding out what you want to do in your career. However, it is a blunt instrument. These tests work best when you take the useful information from them to learn more about yourself. You can then seek further support to turn this into a workable plan.
For example, if through career aptitude testing or online psychometric tests you determine that you’d like a career in office support, then your next step is to narrow down which roles within this broad sector would play to your strengths, match your values, and keep you interested in order to build a worthwhile career. That’s where an experienced human comes in!
If you are considering a new career or just starting out then a recruitment agency can be invaluable. Not only may they offer some professional psychometric testing for free, as we do at Love Success, they should also be able to offer support shaping your career and pinning down what you are looking for. They may even be able to support you with temporary jobs in London as a way to learn more about the type of roles that suit you and help you shape the career you really want.
Let us help you beyond career aptitude tests. Call us now on 020 7870 7177.
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