Career Testing
Career Testing means Direction for the Directionless. That means if you feel so lost that you can't imagine how you're going to be able to choose a major. Or you feel so clueless that determining a career path seems next to impossible. Or you feel so iffy about the major or career path you have chosen that the thought of actually pursuing it give you the willies.
In a nutshell, you just don't know what you'd be good at, or what would make you happy when it comes to a major or -- more importantly -- a future career. Sound familiar? If so, then you're a good candidate for career testing.

Tests Of Career Testing
You've probably heard of career tests, and maybe you even took one in high school. Used wisely, though, career tests -- usually called inventories since they generally aren't tests with right or wrong answers -- can help you get a better sense of who you are and where you might best fit in the world of work.
Wisely is the key word, however. It's important to understand that no career test can pinpoint precisely what you should be. Rather, career test results merely give you some idea of careers you might want to explore, given your interests, your skills and abilities and your personality. That's all -- no more, no less.

Different Kinds Of Career Testing
Our innovative career tests (often called "assessments") can help you generate career options based on your interests, skills, values, and personality characteristics. Our unique interpretation format will add clarity to results as well as help you get started with your career exploration. But that alone is a pretty good benefit. So take a trip to any Career Center or Career Exploration Center and see if the counselors there offer any of the following career tests:

1- Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
The MBTI is a measure of your personality -- in essence, what makes you tick. The first of its four scales tells you how you prefer to focus your attention -- whether you're extraverted or introverted. The other scales measure how you look at things (sensing vs. intuitive), how you generally make decisions (thinking vs. feeling) and how you deal with the world around you (judging vs. perceiving). Combined, this information can help you understand what type of work you'd like to do, with whom, how, why, and even where. This personality assessment links your personality type with specifics about careers and work environments.

2- Strong Interest Inventory
The SII is all about your interests, or what you like to do. You answer questions about various activities, and then the test results suggest some general interest areas and specific occupations you may want to consider. You also wind up with a sense of where your interests lie in six broad areas: social (helping, instructing), investigative (researching, analyzing), conventional (accounting, processing data), artistic (creating or enjoying art), enterprising (selling, managing) and realistic (building, repairing). An inventory that compares your interests with professionals in various fields and offers suggestions for majors, courses, activities, and internships.

3- Self-Directed Search
Similar in scope to the Strong Interest Inventory but shorter and quicker, the SDS is another popular tool that measures your interests and points you toward -- or away from -- the six areas listed above. A self-directed search is that generates options for careers and academic majors.

4- College Majors Finder
It is a supplement to the Self Directed Search that matches your interests with academic majors.

5- Career Ability Placement Survey
The CAPS is one of the few career tests that do have right and wrong answers, and it is also timed. Essentially, you attempt to answer questions in eight different areas -- ranging from mechanical reasoning and spatial relations to verbal reasoning and language usage -- all in a predetermined amount of time. When you're done, you have a wonderful idea of where your natural abilities lie. You haven't just guessed about them, you've actually demonstrated them, if only on a test.

6- The Birkman Method
This assessment is for students who already have some career ideas and want to evaluate their chosen direction with an added element of self-awareness.

Rules of Career Testing
In career testing we do many kinds of tests. These tests are different from each other. There are seven rules about taking career tests. Those rules are given below as:

1- There is no one test that everyone loves
To begin with, some people hate all tests. End of story forcing these tests on your best friend (if they feel this way) could lead to your premature demise.
Other people like tests, but hate particular kinds of questions. For example, some people dislike "forced-choice questions," where they must pick between two choices that are equally bad, in their view. Other people dislike "ranking you against others" questions, because, with their low self-esteem, they rank themselves poorly in comparison with "others" in almost everything. Other people don't like "pick occupations you like" questions, because they've learned by experience that all occupations, as commonly practiced, are a mixture of good and bad, and they keep thinking of the bad stuff, when each occupation is mentioned. Other people don't like questions about how they would behave in certain situations, because they tend to pick how they wish they would behave, rather than how in fact they actually do.
Hence, the form of a test has to feel right to the individual who is taking it. With tests, as with so many other things in life, "one man's meat is another man's poison."

2- There is no one test that always gives better results than others
You may take a test that gives wonderful suggestions for future careers, but when your best friend takes the same test, their results may be way off the mark – and you are dismayed. Tests have personality – and with respect to a given test, one person will love its look, feel, taste, and touch, while another person will hate it on sight. And, unfortunately, how one feels about a test will definitely skew your results.

3- No test should necessarily be assumed to be accurate
We turn to tests with the hope that someone can definitely tell us who we are and what we should do; and we think a test will do that. No, no, no. You can't say, "Well this must be who I am; the test says so." Test results are sometimes way off the mark. On many online (and offline) tests, if you answer even two questions inaccurately, you will get completely wrong results and recommendations. I know countless sad stories about people whose lives were sent down a completely wrong path by test 'results' that they believed when they shouldn't have. You should take all test results with not just a grain of salt, but with a barrel.
Tests have one great mission and purpose: To give you ideas you hadn't thought have, and suggestions worth following up. But if you ask them to do more than that, you're asking too much.

4- You should take several tests, rather than just one
You will get a much better picture of your preferences, profile, and good career suggestions from three or more tests, rather than just one. It's the old idea, since at least the time of the Second World War of 'triangulating' the source of a transmission. You need to 'triangulate' your test "profiles," in order to find your true self.

5- Always let your intuition be your guide
You know more about yourself than any test does. Treat no test outcome as 'gospel'; reject the summary the test gives you, if it just seems dead wrong to you. Trust your intuition. On the other hand, if you really like the suggestions a test gives you, don't agonize about whether those suggestions are worth tracking down – just does it. Always listen to your heart.

6- Don’t let tests make you forget that you are absolutely unique on the face of the earth – as your fingerprints attest
There is a sense in which all tests tend toward one unvarying result: Because they deal in categories, they don't really tell you what's unique about you, but rather they tend to end up saying "you are an ENFP," or "you are an AES," or you are a "Blue." It's 'a category they're talking about, but I like to think of it as a 'tribe, – you are lumped with a lot of other people – and sometimes it is even the wrong tribe.
Job expert Clara Horvath puts it well: Career counseling at its best – person to person, face to face – treats you not as a member of some category or 'tribe' but as a unique job seeker, seeking to conduct a unique job hunt, by identifying a unique career and then connecting with a unique company or organization, that you can uniquely help or serve.

7- You are never finished with a test until you’ve done some good hard thinking about yourself
Tests are fun, but just reading the results isn't enough. You're not done until you've thought hard about what distinguishes you from every other member of the human race, and makes you (like your fingerprints) unique. With that knowledge, you can then set out to find the work you were uniquely put here on earth to do, i.e., your unique mission in life. Without that hard thinking, tests become just "a flytrap for the lazy."

Conclusion
Career Testing is critical in career interventions at all stages of your career.  It is often done via interviews and/or testing and helps you gain self-knowledge and awareness. For example, such information about you can help you understand your options, choose a career direction, and identify necessary preparations.
Tests of Career Testing conducted in Career Counseling and Coaching often measure: interests, values, aptitudes, confidence, traits, interpersonal patterns and preferences. The choice of methods and contents depends on each individual's needs, goals, and budget.