Avoid the Career Pendulum: Leave A Job Sooner

Don’t Wait! Get out of a job you hate faster and escape the career pendulum

Waiting too long to leave a job is the primary act that kicks the career pendulum into effect.

The Career Pendulum Effect is a reactionary decision made in direct response to detesting your job. This means you choose a new job that is completely opposite to the current job you hate. Relief sweeps over you when you are finally free from the burdens of that horrible job. But they are often short-lived. That is the first swing of the pendulum.

Get out of the career pendulum; make a smart new career choice

Swinging from one bad job to another

Choosing the radically different job is usually no more enjoyable than the one you quit. The problems with the new job are simply different from the old one. Choosing a job that is radically different from the one you hate is almost always another bad career choice.

Surprisingly, the job, the one you detested, actually had some elements in it that you liked.  That’s why you chose it in the first place! So when you choose an opposite career, you choose a job that doesn’t have elements you liked in the first job. Inevitably, you choose yet another job you hate. That’s the second swing of the pendulum.

When you don’t get it right, you build a career history of swings between a series of jobs you don’t like, each for different reasons. This is a series of bad job choices which leads to years of fluctuating misery. It must be avoided at all costs!

The decision to change to an opposite job is the result of excessive internal stressors. Internal stressors are a host of factors that determine your feelings about a job. Personality or ability needs, work interests, management style, and corporate culture are the main factors.

Here’s an example. Harry hated his job in information technology. It required him to work in isolation for hours on end, and demand that he constantly learn and integrate new trending processes, techniques, applications and programs with existing software.  What made it even worse was that he detested the competitive, cutthroat culture. One day, he just walked off the job without giving notice. Nobody really was surprised; he hated his job that much. The longer Harry stuck with this job, the longer the internal stressors built up. When these stressors reach a certain level, a person simply can’t handle the pain of it any longer.

Harry didn’t like his work or his environment. His personality demanded people contact because he was an extrovert. Like most men, he possessed the talent to see in three dimensions when given a two dimensional object. This talent requires some kind of hands-on work. However, his IT work was completely abstract. This particular talent only gains strength with age. Furthermore, Harry liked to be available and helpful to people, while the competitive culture overran his cooperative personality. Oftentimes, people don’t analyze their internal landscape like this to figure out why they hate a job. Career testing could have identified all of these factors that drive many people to hate their job. But Harry had never taken a career test, so he stayed in the job so long that these misalignments grew to debilitating stress levels. His performance was now suffering, creating additional stress that compounded the issue.

The reactionary response, like walking off the job, is typically set into motion by a single event. This is what I call the ignitor. It catalyzes all the built-up internal stressor. Like a match that ignites a gas soaked, wood-filled fire pit, a single, often-times innocuous event sparks the reactionary response. On the day that Harry quit, his boss criticized his work in front of colleagues. In a competitive environment, performance is paramount. But Harry’s need to own his work made it incredibly difficult for him to handle criticism, especially criticism and in front of colleagues.

Faced with a mortgage, children with private school payments, and a spouse who had just re-entered the job market in a lower level job, he knew he needed to find a new job–quickly. What is fresh in his mind is the things he hates: the constant learning, competitive culture, and isolation. With the levels of stress in his life, he couldn’t see anything but these problems.

Career Tunnel Vision

Combat career pinpoint vision

He had what Malcolm Gladwell describes in his book Blink as “pinpoint vision.” Under extreme stress, such as when their lives are in perceived imminent danger, police officers will only see the gun. They won’t see the hand, person, room, or anything else. They won’t see that it is a toy gun, or that the person holding it is showing signs of distress on his face instead of anger. They will simply see the gun and only the gun. If that gun happens to swing in their direction, they will fire theirs before “the gun” shoots them.

This is what happens in stress career-decision making as well. Under extremely high stress a person is more likely to make “tunnel vision career decisions” that often lead to a career pendulum swing.

Harry took a job as an IT trainer with a community college. The new job wasn’t isolated; it had lots of people contact. He didn’t need to learn something new every week, but instead was able to train others about what he already knew. And, best of all, he was working in the cooperative, helping environment of a college. He chose this job in response to everything he hated about the previous job.

A year later, he wondered why he was now hating this one! Thinking back, he thought, “I considered all the elements I hated most about the other job. I steered clear of them and chose this job. I made a good career choice!” What had he failed to do? He didn’t consider all the other aspects of work he needed to be happy. For example, he had a driving need to work with his hands. This need, like many others, are not so evident. When you compound high stress into a decision situation, the weight of dislikes overshadows everything making it virtually impossible to see even obvious aspects needed for a happy career. The pendulum was about to swing back again.

If you’ve been wondering about leaving a job you don’t like, it is most important to leave a job sooner rather than later. It is equally important to explore positive and negative aspects of a job. What makes you happy and what makes you stressed? Career testing and an excellent career coach can help you do just that.

When the career pendulum hangs balanced in the middle, it no longer swings between one bad job choice and another. It is at rest when all, or almost all, aspects of work that make you happy are met by a job.

 

 

 

Find your ideal career for 2015

Finding Your Ideal Career for 2015: 5 Things you Shouldn’t Do

Find your Ideal Career: don’t make a mistake!

You’re fed up with the status quo of your career! You are finally ready to find a new career. Not just a new job, but a new career. A brand spanking new, love-my-job career! Your ideal career for 2015.

But don’t make the mistakes many people do every year searching for their perfect career.

Here’s the top 5 things you shouldn’t do when seeking your ideal career.  Some maybe obvious, but others might surprise you.

5 things you shouldn't do when looking for your new career

Don’t make these mistakes when looking for your ideal career in 2015

  1. Don’t fish around looking through job ads trying to find your career. Job titles are not careers. They are company labels for a salary slots. Moreover, they just might make you more confused about what you like because you may find so many. You could become more discouraged because none of them sound appealing at all. Searching for a career like this is a waste of your time!
  1. Don’t waste your time taking free career tests. They are scams to hook you into buying their product or getting your email. And they cannot produce valid, reliable, or accurate results because they haven’t been researched and tested.
  1. Don’t employ the services of a touchy-feely, dreams-based counselor who uses fun, free form exercises. A career expert who can’t nail down your strengths, talents, abilities, values, and interest with research-based testing in within a month is only testing your patience. You need ideas or clues to launch your imagination in the right direction and pique your interest in areas your mind hasn’t yet found. Don’t waste your time fishing for the right pond of careers. Get the clues as to which pond your career lies in.
  2. Oh, and don’t just rely on career tests! Even the best tests have great clues but don’t have everything. Sadly, most people who just take career tests (1) Can’t see past their former expectations and re-frame their understanding of themselves and success. (2) Not only that, but they can’t possibly see a path to that career from where they are or (3) see how they can make the money they need and want. Career testing without the expert advice of a seasoned career counselor sets you up for disappointment.
  3. Don’t just take one type of career test. You  might find a test that gives you a good lead on your perfect career in this new year. But can you pick out your perfect career from a list? Or which job utilizes the abilities in you that scream for expression? Always remember: one type of career test only gives one perspective.

And, for the young adults. . .

  1. Don’t rely on an interest test if you are a young adult. I used to say that the Strong test was all you needed. But the information and recreational overload available to us today, in addition to increased authoritarian structures, suck the creativity out of young people. They no longer really know what they like – they haven’t had or taken the time to find out. Maybe you do understand yourself and your interests. Or maybe you, like many young adults, have allowed pitiful engagements instead of personal passions determine your interests. To be safe, you need more than an interest test to point the way.

Next, “What 3 Things to Do to Find your Ideal Career . . . With Clarity and Certainty”

High pay low education

10 high paying jobs for 2018 – no degree required

You can find a high paying job without earning a college degree. Apple founder Steve Jobs didn’t have one. Neither does Microsoft founder Bill Gates, or entertainment mogul David Geffen. None of these self-made billionaires needed a college degree. While you may not achieve their status, you can prepare for a great job in less than four years.

More and more, it’s accepted that a college degree isn’t required to earn good money and have a successful career. Eight out of ten of the fastest-growing occupations don’t require a bachelor’s degree, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you’re switching to a new career, wouldn’t you rather spend a shorter time at vocational training or getting an associate degree than going into debt for a four-year diploma?

Here are the 25 top-paying jobs and their average salaries, based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Indeed.com.

Place your cursor over each image to see top paying job title, salary and ranking!

Remember that location will heavily influence the salary earned for any job. Metropolitan areas are likely to pay more than smaller towns.

“The thing to keep in mind is that there are something like 50 million jobs out there that don’t require a bachelor’s degree and pay upwards of $40,000 a year,” says Harlow Unger, author of But What If I Don’t Want to Go to College? A Guide to Success Through Alternative Education. Unger reminds readers that according to the U.S. Department of Labor, nearly two-thirds of all projected job openings require only on-the-job training.

Even though this information is tantalizing, it’s not wise to just leap into one of these jobs.  Find out which one you will enjoy most and which you have the aptitudes for. I recommend using the COPS3 System from www.TestEts to find out which one of these jobs will make you most happy. This test is inexpensive, yet a thorough assessment of career decision factors.

Equal pay for women

10 Best Jobs for Women in 2014 and Beyond

Career consultants Alexandra Levit and Laurence Shatkin took a looked at the hottest career trends and came up with a list of the top 10 careers for women in 2014 and beyond.

Thumbs Up for The Career Profiler who helped me find one of my best jobs

Find the best paying job for women!

Why are these the best jobs specifically for women?

As a group, women are still underpaid in relation to their male counterparts doing the same job. This is particularly true of those holding college degrees. This list includes both professions where females dominate, such as interior design, and jobs where the wage gap is particularly large.

Know what the best jobs for women are before you land your next job

Whether you’re plotting out your college major or considering a job change, you don’t want to pay for an education and then find yourself unemployed. It’s crucial to pick up on market shifts and unfilled needs in order to have multiple job offers after graduation. You may even read this list of best jobs for women in 2014 and come up with your own career twist!

Choose a job that fits who you are

It’s wisest to choose a job that not only fits your gender but also works best for your personality, abilities, interests, values and life stage. To do this, you might want to look over the best testing packages offered at http://www.testets.com/pages/Tests_by_BEST_COMBOs.html

or its updated offerings at http://careertestswork.com/mycareer/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=73_291&zenid=d3b0acbea23ac60ad703585993c186c2.

Choose the best career tests to find best job for you

The Career Profiler uses these best career tests for her clients because they catapult her clients toward their career goal. Instead of taking the typical 4–6 months of career exploration, with these tests it usually takes just ONE month (surprising, but true) for clients to find their best career direction. Few career consultants can claim the same! Get in touch with The Career Profiler today to start on your journey towards the best pay, greatest successful, and most happiness in your career!

2018 fast-growing jobs

New Year, New Career 2018: 10 Fastest Growing Jobs – no degree required

So you’re getting ready for a new year and are looking for a new job! You probably have some ideas already. On many people’s wish list when they think about getting a new job is a high salary. Another is low requirements like jobs that contain on-the-job-training with no degree. A third might be a secure job – one that will not become obsolete anytime soon, or one that is becoming more and more in demand.

That’s why in this blog we will be talking about the fastest growing jobs with the lowest education requirements. If you’re changing careers, entering into a fast growing job is a smart choice. The following are the top 10 fastest growing jobs which require little education or training at the entry level. 

All of these jobs require only a high school diploma at the entry level. The median average income of these jobs is below $30,000 with the exceptions of #5, #8, and #10, which are all apprenticed construction trades. Apprenticed trade jobs require on the job training plus some classroom education. If you want more information on any of these careers, just look them up on the Occupational Outlook Handbook.

#10: Brick Masonsnew year new career

By 2020: approximately 36,000 jobs to be added for total of 125,000 jobs

Percentage Change: about 41% job growth

Median Wage: $47,000 annually

 

#9: Medical Secretaries

By 2020: about 210,000 jobs for total of roughly 720,000 jobs

Percentage Change: about 41% job growth rate

Median Wage: $30,500 annually

 

#8: Glaziersnew year new career glazier

By 2020: almost 18,000 jobs to be added for a total of about 60,000

Percentage Change: approximately 42% job growth

Median Wage: about 37,000 annually

 

# 7: Physical Therapy Aides

By 2020: about 20,000 jobs to be added for a total of just over 67,000 jobs

Percentage Change: about 43% job growth

Median Wage: almost $24,000 annually

 

#6: Plumbing and Pipefitting Helpers

By 2020: just over 26,000 jobs to be added for a total of roughly 84,500 jobs

Percentage Change: more than 45% job growth

Median Wage: almost $27,000 annually

 

#5: Iron Workers

By 2020: just over 9,000 jobs to be added for a total of about 28,000 jobs

Percentage Change: almost 49% job growth

Median Wage: approximately $38,500 annually

 

#4: Carpenter Helpers

new career for carpentersBy 2020: 26,000 jobs to be added for a total of over 72,000 jobs

Percentage Change: approximately 56% job growth

Median Wage: almost $26,000 annually

 

#3: Masonry Helpers

By 2020: almost 18,000 jobs to be added for total of about 47,000 jobs

Percentage Change: about a 60% job growth rate

Median Wage: almost $28,000 annually

 

#2: Home Health Aides

By 2020: just over 700,000 jobs added for a total of about 1.7 million jobs

Percentage Change: almost 70% job growth

Median Wage: about $21,000 annually

 

#1: Personal Care Aides

By 2020: about 610,000 jobs added for total of 1.5 millions jobs

Percentage Change: almost 71% job growth

Median Wage: just under $20,000 annually

 

Careers no degree required

Don’t have a degree? Don’t worry

If you’re not sure where to start or which of these careers might fit you, take this Career Preferences Test. It can help you find a suitable career based on your personality and likes. There are many other tests you can take to find out if one of these careers is right for you. Get in touch with The Career Profiler to find out more options.

 

New Career New Year 2014: Top 5 Industries with the Fastest Growing New Jobs

If you’re looking for a new career or job, it’s easiest to find them in “growth industries.” An industry is a classification of work based on the company’s primary business activity. For example, an accounting company might have a consulting or litigation support practice, but their primary activity and source of revenue is from accounting practices. Therefore, “accounting practices” are their industry or sector.

A growth industry is an industry that meets a certain percentage of growth criteria. This is based on percent of growth from one year to the next. In this list, the industries with the highest growth projections until 2020 are listed. This blog presents a summary of industry-level employment percentile forecasts provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its most recent document.

 

The information presented here has been interpreted not by a journalist or newspaper editor, but by a career expert. Those seeking new careers in 2017 can use these employment forecast statistics as a guide in their new career exploration and decision-making. There’s also a Part 2 of this blog with more information on factors impacting new career choices.

Based on Employment by Major Industry Sectors, overall job growth rate projections to 2020 is expected to be a modest 1.3% growth creating some 20,468,000 jobs as industries recover from the impacts of the past recession. This ranking is based on the percentage of job growth; keep in mind that the percentage of growth is different than the number of new jobs. Some industries with greater percentage growth have less new jobs than industries with less percentage growth. You can expect to find the most jobs for your new career in the following sectors:

#1 Health Care and Social Services

Number of New Jobs ~5.6 million jobs
Percentage Job Growth* 3.0%
Examples of Jobs in Industry

#2 Construction

Number of New Jobs ~1.8 million jobs (#3)
Percentage Job Growth* 2.9%
Examples of Jobs in Industry

#3 Educational Services

Number of New Jobs ~820 thousand jobs (#8)
Percentage Job Growth* 2.3%
Examples of Jobs in Industry

#4 Professional and Business Services

Number of New Jobs ~3.8 million jobs (#2)
Percentage Job Growth* 2.1%
Examples of Jobs in Industry

#5 Transportation and Warehousing

Number of New Jobs ~852 thousand jobs (#7)
Percentage Job Growth* 1.9%
Examples of Jobs in Industry

How can I use this information?

It is best to seek a new career in an industry where there is both projected employment growth and a large number of new jobs over the next several years. These are only the top 5 industry sectors. You can use this information as only a part of the equation when seeking a new career. More information can be found here regarding 2020 employment projections.

Even more information, probably more vital than the subject of this blog, can be found by taking career tests. You can click here to find career tests that identify your best new career.  For more blogs, you can read these:

Career Values Tests for New Career: The best Work Values Tests for picking a New Career

3 things to consider when looking for a new career

New Career New Year 2014 – New Career Factors to Consider (part 2)

There are many reasons why someone looks for a new career. But regardless of the reason, one should always consider three main factors when looking for a new career.

Employment Projections

First of all, it is always prudent to consider employment projections for the potential new career. Look for a new career which is forecasted to grow faster than the average. By doing so, you’ll improve your chances of getting hired, given that you have the right skills, experiences, and education or training. Check out the post on fastest growing industries by 2020. There’s also a post on the fastest growing jobs with low education requirements. The information here is a great place to get started to find data on growing industries.

Follow 3 steps to find best new career

Which new career is right for me?

However do not choose a new career based on employment statistics alone. People who choose a new career solely on external factors such as employment projections often find that they are not well suited to their new career. As a result, it’s hard to succeed. They don’t get chosen for promotions, get a small bonus pay, and are often the poorest performers. In addition, when lay-offs come around, these employees are usually the first to go. Therefore, it is equally if not more important to consider personal, internal factors when deciding on a new career.

Career Interests

Secondly, finding out how your career interests (what you like) correlate to occupations is the best way to find a career you will enjoy and commit to in the long run. Most new career tests measure only interests. This is fine if you’re in the early stages of your career.  High school and college students should definitely complete at least one such test before choosing their college major. On the other hand, for working adults, an interest test can give them “clues” about where to begin their search for their new career. It is, however, typically inadequate as a stand-alone new career test. Why? Because no one chooses a new career based on “likes” alone. This is just a helpful starting point.

Internal Factors

Lastly, similar to the second point, your values, personality, and abilities or aptitudes play a large role as well. Let’s look at abilities or aptitudes first. Oftentimes we “like” careers for which we possess a natural ability. In other words, we enjoy work that we are naturally good at doing. Maybe you’ve had a carer that felt like an uphill battle, where you couldn’t master the techniques and nothing came easy. When this happens, it will be very difficult for you to be successful or happy in this carer. Therefore, it is useful to consider your abilities when choosing a new career. To find out more about these, read the blog post on the career abilities test.

Many people have “demanding” abilities. These abilities unconsciously “demand” expression for themselves in a new career. If these abilities not not expressed, the worker will probably feel discontent or dissatisfied. Over time, this can slide into depression. Should you be one of the individuals with “demanding” abilities (and most have at least one), it is absolutely imperative to take one of the two ability career tests that measure these abilities before choosing a new career.

Your personality also plays a significant role in choosing a career. Personality career tests identify suitable careers based on more than your interests. They identify your career preferences. Career preferences account for the tendencies and predispositions of your working style. Therefore, your natural style of operating in a job is a crucial factor to consider when choosing a career.

Values play a subtle but powerful secondary role. What I mean by this is that you only notice how important your values are when you experience a career dilemma. The two most common career dilemmas are:

  1. Feeling unsure about why a career does not sound perfect even though it should
  2. When you can’t decide between two job opportunities.

Clarifying your values is the step that enables you to sort through the career dilemmas to reach a decision.

It’s a new year; I’m ready for a new career. What’s next?  

  1. Get in touch with The Career Profiler to start your journey in understanding yourself. I will help you find the right tests to measure your abilities, personality, and interests. With all of this information we’ll make a career plan guaranteed to get you a job that makes you happy and successful. If you want to get a head start, take a new career test.
  2. Find a career in which you can actually gain employment. Consult any of the blogs I’ve written about finding a career in a growing industry. Don’t forget to combine the results of steps one and two. It is wisest to choose a job you will love and succeed in, as well as one where the likelihood of being hired is highest because it’s a growing industry.

New Year, New Career 2018

New Year? New Career!

The New Year is a time for new beginnings, and a new career is one of those very important new beginnings. Every New Year, people like yourself seek a new job. It’s a great time to take advantage of trying new things, changing something you don’t like, and getting into a career that will make you happy and successful.

Looking for a New Career in the New Year

There are a host of reasons why someone looks for a new job. Are you fearful of the eventual demise of your company or career field? Maybe you need more benefits for a growing family, or more flexibility to manage other responsibilities. Send us a tweet to let us know why you are looking.

Whatever your reason may be, there are important factors to consider when seeking a different career. In this New Year, New Career series, we’ll unpack these factors as well as explore two sources of information: career tests and career lists. 

The Four Part Series:

  1. New Year, New Career 2018: Factors to Consider. This covers the 5 things to take into account when trying to find and select a career.
  2. New Year New Career 2018: Top 5 Industries with the Fastest Growing New Jobs.  These industries are projected to grow the fastest this year. That means you have a better chance of getting and keeping your new job!
  3. New Year, New Career 2018: Best Careers for Introverts! We see you introverts! You’re looking for a new job in the new year, too. Here are some great jobs that you can do from home or with minimal human interaction
  4. New Year, New Career: 10 Fastest Growing Jobs with Lowest Education Requirements. If you’re hoping to find a new career but only have a high school diploma, don’t worry! These jobs are not only growing fast, they don’t require college education.
These blogs will help you get a jump start on your new year! You can apply these principles any time you’re looking for a new job. If you want help on your new job search, get in touch with The Career Profiler today!
By Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM.  Learn more at TheCareerProfiler.com
Find a career that exercises your innate abilities

The Hidden Reason Employees Quit

Today’s average employee stays at the job a mere 1.5 years, according to recent Department of Labor statistic. Are managers doing that bad a job of engaging and retaining their people? Is this rate of turnover simply the new norm? Is it due to an increase in carer dissatisfaction?

Job satisfaction is also related to ability-based career profile matching

Job dissatisfaction causes workers to quit job

There are hundreds of books about the causes of career dissatisfaction, yet a whopping 89% of managers still think low pay is the reason most employees quit. The facts are hidden from the people who need them most. In reality, 88% of voluntary employee turnovers are the result of something other than money, according to data from the Saratoga Institute.

There are plenty of suggestions as to why employees feel discontent and then quit. It’s a lack of coaching and feedback. The workplace and job weren’t what the employee expected. There aren’t enough advancement opportunities. Workers don’t feel valued. There’s too much stress. These can all be a part of dissatisfaction, but they do not help us find the solution to the problem.

The Solution

Managers and employees aren’t trained to recognize the real causes of career dissatisfaction or satisfaction. It can be hard to see the simple fact that the reason for turnover is that the wrong people are being hired in the first place. Managers look for people with the skills that make them right for the job, when what is actually most important is finding workers with the innate abilities that make them suitable for the job.

In other words, if the job requires climbing trees, you need to hire a monkey, not a goose. You can train the goose all you want, but the monkey is going to do a better and faster job every time. Not only that, but the monkey will love the job and therefore stay. The goose will definitely have some career dissatisfaction. But how do you find who’s a monkey and who’s a goose? It all comes down to ability-based career profiling.

Everyone has abilities that they were born with. The secret of ability-based career profiling is matching those abilities with the job that makes the most out of them. An abilities test takes the innate abilities of a person and creates a list of most suitable jobs. Oftentimes, these tests find subtle differences that turn into major outcomes.

For example, two people may have the innate ability to be good engineers, but only one of them is a generalist and extrovert. If you promote the wrong one, you may be removing your best engineer from the job and putting them in a position where they feel uncomfortable and incompetent. Choosing the right candidate, however, can take a merely competent engineer into a career where they really excel. This doesn’t mean one is objectively better than the other; they simply have a different array of natural talents that make them more fit for certain jobs. If a manager (and the employee) understand this, great work will be done efficiently, effectively, and produce career happiness!

Abilities Tests

Ability-based career profiling goes way beyond asking employees what they like to do. That’s simply a survey on which a person could lie or give an inaccurate answer. The great thing about ability-based career profiles is that they don’t lie. Through these tests, an employee’s true talents come out.

Don’t ignore the single most important factor in employee job satisfaction. Good employers want to build a great talent pool, and they know it all begins with selecting the right person in the first place. You can try to train the goose to climb, or you can let ability testing find the monkey.

Are you feeling the affects of career dissatisfaction? If you want to find out which career will allow you to excel and be happy, then check out our ability-based career tests. Finally, for questions or comments, feel free to get in touch with The Career Profiler!

 

 

Knowing aptitudes makes you happier

Know your Aptitudes for Career Success and Happiness

Ever wonder what actually makes you successful and happy in a career? It’s not only the external factors of your job. It’s actually your aptitudes!

In my twenty years of experience as a career coach, I’ve noticed that some of my successful clients, who climbed the ladder to top positions in their company, were still not happy! They hated what they were doing despite the fact that they were successful. The reason they came to me is because they realized that they valued happiness over success. I showed them how they could have both.

This battery of 19 abilities tests is only one to identify driving abilities aka demanding abilities

The Highlands Ability Battery tests for 19 career aptitudes

Let’s start at the beginning. How did you choose your current profession? If you’re like most people, it was some combination of interest and circumstance. You may have floundered at college, looking for a major that seemed right. Finally, you settled on what seemed easiest and most fun because you always heard to choose your passion and the money would follow. Or maybe you picked a business major so you could get a management position right out of school. Maybe you just happened to stumble upon a job ad, or have a friend who recommended you.

Unfortunately, what you didn’t know is that all of these are set-ups for an unhappy career. Picking a career for any of these reasons is like planting a tree upside-down and expecting it to grow. First, you have to know what your innate aptitudes are in order to branch out and find a career that makes you happy.

What are Career Aptitudes?

Aptitudes are not skills that can be taught. They are talents that you are born with. However, most of us have never heard of them and don’t have any idea which ones we have, or how they affect our job performance. But doesn’t everyone know what their talents are? No, in fact, not everyone. We’re not talking about a talent for music or sports. The aptitudes that determine career fit, success, and happiness are underlying abilities and drives that make a person easily and happily achieve success as an athlete, musician, or CEO.

You may say you have a talent for engineering, when in fact it’s a result of your aptitude for spatial organization. Or maybe you’re interested in finance and like paperwork, and thus think you would make a good accountant. However, it’s actually visual dexterity and memory aptitudes that determine if you would be happy and successful in accounting. There is a set of aptitudes that correspond to every job, from receptionist to rocket scientist. The most successful and content professionals in every field have natural aptitudes that make that job suitable for them. Click here to learn more about aptitudes and why they make you happy.

 

Use your abilities at work!

How we use our abilities in the time we have each day

Our aptitudes tell us the  fields in which we can achieve success, and even the jobs within each field that will suit us best. Knowing your abilities can help you develop a career pathway that will give you a lifetime of fulfillment and financial well-being. Isn’t this what you want?

Even though you may not be aware of your aptitudes right now, it’s it’s easy to find out! You can find your abilities by taking an aptitudes test. The Highlands Ability Battery measures 19 different areas where each person has innate talent or a lack thereof. This is the aptitude test that I most strongly recommend. After identifying your career aptitudes, it gives you a list of careers that fit with these aptitudes. This is a great head-start on your new job search.

Finally, it’s also a great idea to make an appointment with The Career Profiler, or even just shoot me a question! Want to know which of your aptitudes are most important? Maybe you’re just not sure what to do with all the information! Fill out the form below and never guess again about whether you’ll love or hate your next job. Know what to do and be… with certainty!