Stop Taking Career Tests…

I think career tests serve a purpose-ish in our world, but actually, I think a lot of times they leave people more confused.

Stop Taking Career Tests!!

Hello, people of the world. I need you to do me a favour. Stop taking career tests. What? Hi, my name is Christopher Lawrence, and I’m with ChangeMyLifeCoaching.ca. You can check me out there. Listen. I think career tests serve a purpose-ish in our world, but actually, I think a lot of times they leave people more confused. A lot of my clients come to me, and they’ve done career test after career test after career test, and you know what they get? A list of jobs that they don’t know what to do with. They don’t know how to make the decision on those lists of jobs. So look, if you need to narrow it down, go ahead and do a career-based test or a test that gives you a list of careers, but then what do you do with it, right?

Career Tests Can be Helpful, But…

I think you need to take a more holistic approach. I don’t think that career tests are actually well-researched enough to be robust. There are over 40,000 jobs listed in the National Occupation Registry, and what I do for a living isn’t listed on any of these career tests, and I love what I do, by the way. So I just don’t think it’s well-researched enough, and… that doesn’t mean they’re not helpful. Like there are lots of subjective things that we do and use, they can be really helpful with getting movement. So you might do the career test kind of as your first starting place, but that’s not your finishing place. You know, and by the way, you know what’s weird? Like, I get weird things on mine, like clergy. Clergy came up on mine. I am never gonna be a religious leader, and I’m not commenting on my spiritual choices or any religions, I just know that that’s not the right career for me. It’s so strange like there’s… And some of the stuff that’s on it, I’ve done it and hated. So I don’t get it. Like, it’s such a weird thing. But here’s what I would do instead. So if you need your career list, go get your career list, but then how do you start to narrow it down?

Look At The Tasks of a Job

Well, you’ve probably heard me say this in other videos before, but this is how you start to narrow it down. The first thing you look at is what are the tasks of that job. I don’t care what the job title is. If you don’t like 60, 70, 80% of the tasks in that job, then why are you doing it? You might choose to account, but if you don’t like crunching numbers and following accounting rules, that’s not the right job for you. You might become a, you know, a, a life coach, but here’s the thing that people misunderstand about life coaching. They think they’re just in it to help people and all this, let me tell you where a good chunk of my time goes. A good chunk of my time goes into meeting with people to have conversations to build my business. It’s about practice building, it’s very entrepreneurial, and it requires a lot of sales. Right? Ooh, scary word, sales, right? Now I’ve found a way to do it where they get the most benefit, and then they don’t feel like they’re being sold to and I don’t feel like I’m selling, because I actually hate selling. That’s a part of my job that I hate. You know, but I have to do it, or I’ll starve, right?

Look at your Value System

So, so… You know, so the first step is what are the tasks that you spend 80% of your time doing, right? And, you know, do you like those 60, 70, 80% of the time, right? So that’s the first step. The second step is to look at your value systems. So based on the career that you might choose, can you express your value system, both personal and professional values? Don’t look for an alignment with your values with the company, that very rarely ever happens. It might to some degree, but mostly I’m looking at what are your personal and professional values, and whether are you able to express them regardless of what the company does or does not do. Okay?

What is Your Purpose for Doing What You Want To?

The third thing you’re gonna look at is your purpose. What’s your reason for wanting to be in a career and do it? Right, so everybody says, I want to help people, and it’s like okay, well, let’s get more specific because, you know, to the person who’s building an oil pipeline, like that somebody’s dream somewhere, right? And, you know, so, you know what, the person who needs to build a house, so you can help people in every industry. Or you look at it in a literal way, like me, who does what I do. Or you look at it more, you know, in a different way like I used to be a professional admin. And it’s like I took so much pride in that work because I was helping people every single day almost the same amount that I’m helping people now. But it was the spin that I put on it, it was my perception of that. So what’s your purpose for doing what you want to do, and having enough specificity that you can make a choice around the career on that list if you choose to do career testing?

Look at Your Willingness

The fourth thing is to look at your willingness. What are you actually willing to do to make a change? Right? Or to do the career discovery, even. So always look at your willingness. What are you willing to do to get what you want? And lots of people say everything, anything, but based on past experience, they’re not really, right? And that’s not a criticism. Look, we all have the capacity, and I think we can all increase that capacity. This is where career coaching comes in, and life coaching or motivational coaching comes in.

So I hope that’s really helpful for you. If you didn’t take notes, we do have this transcribed on our website, ChangeMyLifeCoaching.ca. Looking forward to hearing from you below, doo, doo, doo, doo, about your interesting career tests.

Why I Hate Career Tests

By the way, I’m gonna go off for a minute. Let me tell you why I hate this. I had a young girl come in. She was 17 years old, she was looking at her future career, and we put way too much pressure on young people, and figuring out their career and their university path by the time they’re like, you know, 15, 16, 17 years old. That’s like, who do you know that’s 40 that has the same job that they did when they were that age? Like, I understand why we have to provide guidance and help them make a choice. But like, it’s like, I’ve met 13-year-olds, and I don’t work with youth a lot, okay, like most I work with those that are 18 plus, but I work with them enough to know that we’re adding way too much pressure to have it all figured out, have their whole life figured out by the time they’re a teenager. It is crazy. I had this 17-year-old come in. She had done the, you know, the typical testing that they give you in schools, which is just garbage, and she was in tears because you know what they said that she should be? They said that she should be a maid, and this was in 2018. Okay, it’s 2020 now. This was in 2018. She should be a maid or a house cleaner, or an administrator. Those were the two key choices that they gave her at the top of her list. Do you know that she is in advanced sciences and math? Advanced sciences and math.

The Research Isn’t Good Enough!!

So we hear this story about a young person, and I know some of you are sitting there like me, getting goosebumps with anger right now. And we hear this story about her, and we say that’s. That’s it. They’re crushing her dreams. It’s. And the research isn’t good enough. Okay, like what the hell did they base that off of? So if that’s not okay for her, why is it okay for you to go into traditional testing and come out with a list of careers with no other direction? So I’m not criticizing other practitioners who use those tests. Go ahead and use them. But let’s get people through the rest of it using a holistic-based system that allows them to make a choice based on who they are because we do live in a world right now, if you’re in North America or western-based countries, you have the luxury of choice. Right? Again, if you’re not working, your first job is to get working. Once you’re working, your next job is to get a good job. Something that it’s like, okay, look, I have enough to pay my bills and enjoy my life, and then the third thing is to have the luxury of looking at a fulfilling career, you know, which can take some time. Now you can skip some of those steps, and sometimes we jump right into a fulfilling career, and that’s great. The practicality of our world is not lost on me, and I’m not just a dreamer. But there is something here about the fact that the systems that we’re using are charging people money, but it’s not taking a deep enough holistic look, you know, at who the person is and how they want to be in the world, right? And we’re so focused on psychometric testing that does nothing for people. I hope I didn’t say the F-word. I’m just kidding. Okay, folks, that’s enough for me. Hopefully, you’re still following. Listen, ChangeMyLifeCoaching.ca, my name is Christopher Lawrence.

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