When I was in high school I thought everyone got to take a career aptitude test. That one day I would get to sit down, answer some questions and then (as if by magic) find out my true calling. When I didn’t get the opportunity to take one, I felt cheated. There are so many careers out there, so many fields, how was I supposed to pick one?
If you’re looking for a little career inspiration head to your local library and take a career aptitude test! Now, which one should you take? Well, that depends on what you’re looking for!
Give me a big, general list of careers…

If you’re just looking to get inspired from a broad list of options, check out the Princeton review – guide to your career. This book uses the Birkman Career Style Summary to determine your interest and style colours. Which don’t really mean much except for the fact you can then match your colours with careers. With an interest colour of blue and a style colour of yellow, I ended up with a list of 73 careers... 53 of which I had actually considered.
All in all, this is a quick test to take and the results are general but accurate. Part of this book I definitely skipped (like the whole section on memories and the “inner journey”). It does include some fun top 10 lists (Top ten jobs for people who can’t stand ties or panty hose). If your local library doesn’t have it, you can also take the test free online at princetonreview.com.
Can you narrow it down for me…?

Want a more specific list of careers? If you’ve got the time, check out Career, Aptitude and Selection Tests by Jim Barrett. This book is made up of three tests: motivation, aptitude/IQ and personality. After completing all the tests you can match your results to careers. For me, there were a number of careers that matched my results for 2 out of the 3 tests, but only one that matched my results for all three (drum roll please... coroner!).
What if I’m more interested in learning about myself than about specific careers?

Take a personality test! There are tons of these on the internet, but I highly recommend the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). You don’t need to get your hands on the real thing, just check out Do what you are by Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger. This book uses the MBTI to give you insight into careers that are a good fit with your personality. Once you determine your type and verify it’s correct you can check out popular occupations for your type and your work related strengths and weaknesses. I found the most fascinating part of this book to be the list of things that influence job satisfaction for each of the personality types, mine was spot on.
So are career aptitude tests as magical as I once thought?
Um, no, not really. After taking the three tests above, there was no single career that jumped out and said “Me! Pick me! I’m the one!” But I did find a few careers showed up repeatedly in my results for each test (anthropologist, book publisher and actor).
Taking career aptitude tests can be fun and can introduce you to career options you may not have know about, but they will not tell you what to do with your life. On the other hand, maybe I should listen to my test results and go audition to be a medical examiner on C.S.I...