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

Posted on January 2, 2014January 10, 2018 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

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.

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:

Feeling unsure about why a career does not sound perfect even though it should
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?

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.
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

Posted on January 1, 2014January 10, 2018 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

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:

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.
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!
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
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

The Hidden Reason Employees Quit

Posted on December 3, 2013April 23, 2017 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

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 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!

Know your Aptitudes for Career Success and Happiness

Posted on December 3, 2013August 3, 2017 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

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.

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.

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!

Career Satisfaction Tests

Posted on July 26, 2013April 23, 2017 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

Career Satisfaction Tests

Are you feeling dissatisfied with your job? Can’t seem to get along with your coworkers or boss? Unhappy with the kind of work you’re doing? Don’t want to fall into a boring job again? There’s a way to know what kind of job will make you happy – with certainty! A career satisfaction test is a test that provides a list of careers based on different elements of you. You can take a test that measures your interests (what you like), your personality (how you generally operate), or your abilities (what you can do). You can also take a test that combines these elements. All of these different types of tests are geared towards helping you find a job in which you are satisfied.

Found satisfying career with career satisfaction test

Find a satisfying career with a career satisfaction test!

Interests Tests

The most common career test is an interest test. Interest tests assess how much you like certain aspects of work and match you with jobs that most closely fit with those patterns. I recommend the Strong Interest Test, the best interest test on the market today.

Personality Tests

Another important way to find a satisfying career is to use a personality test. However, few personality tests offer career-specific information. But the Myers Briggs Test does. It supplies you with a list of careers that suit your personality based on the personalities of professionals in those fields. It is likely that a career that fits your personality will result in career satisfaction.

Abilities Tests

The last type of test is an ability test. The two most common ability tests are CAPS and THAB. When you’re looking for career satisfaction, the THAB is by far the most superior career ability test. The unique thing it does is show which of your abilities demand expression. This is critical for career satisfaction. If you’re dissatisfied with your job right now, you might want to think, “What am I good at doing? What do I love doing? Am I able to do those things in my job right now?” If the answer is no, these may be abilities that demand expression. This means happiness is hard to find if your job doesn’t require you to use those abilities. Check out THAB Ability Assessment for Adult General Work Ability Test.

After taking one or more of these tests, it is a smart idea to make an appointment with The Career Profiler. I can help you understand and apply your results. Together we can make a plan to prepare for a job that will make you happy, then land that job and get promoted! With my help you can find the job that makes you most satisfied. Fill out the form at the bottom of the page if you want help finding the best job for you.

Career Satisfaction Tests: Combination

Probably the best approach to take when seeking a satisfying career is to purchase a career testing package. This combination of tests assesses all three of the critical internal components of career satisfaction: interests, abilities, and personality. For this I recommend the following package: OPTIM’s Best Suited Career Fit / Career Match Tests

I wish there were less exensive options, but none of them could achieve what this package can. If you truly need a less expensive package, I’d recommend one that assesses interests and abilities such as SII ADULT GENERAL Expanded Career Profile and Summary plus THAB Adult Ability Battery

If you’re concerned about your or your employee’s career satisfaction, check out these two blogs:

Know if Its Career Satisfaction or Job Satisfaction And Why It Matters

Is it Career Satisfaction or Job Satisfaction?

Find a Career that Achieves Career Satisfaction

Posted on July 26, 2013April 23, 2017 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

How to find a Satisfying Career

You’re probably here because you feel dissatisfied in your career! Or maybe you’ve had a bad career experience and don’t want to make the same mistake twice. Did you know that career satisfaction comes from a job that fits with your personality, interest, and abilities. Why? The more a career or occupation fits with who you are, the more satisfied you will be with it.

Career satisfaction tests are the single most efficient way to find a list of careers that would be satisfying to you. You simply need to choose what you want your test to focus on. There are four options that stress different parts of yourself. Taking an interest test will measures what you like and enjoy and find satisfying careers based on that. A personality-satisfaction test takes into account how you operate in the world. An abilities-satisfaction test measures what you can (and must) do (aka career abilities) and then determines what careers would satisfy you. Or you can take a satisfaction test that combines information from those three categories! Click directly on the links above to access the tests, or read this post on career satisfaction first for more information.

You can find more information about career satisfaction and how to avoid it in many places on this site. Here’s another blog post about the not-so-secret reason why employees quit their jobs. This information is pertinent not only for employees but also for employers. The Career Profiler recognizes that when employees are happy and successful in the best job for them, everyone in the company benefits!

Career Dissatisfaction or Job Dissatisfaction?

Posted on July 26, 2013May 2, 2017 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

Is it Career Satisfaction or Job Satisfaction? Does it Matter?

Are you ready to fix your career dissatisfaction? First you need to identify what type of satisfaction issue you are dealing with. A career satisfaction problem must be handled differently than a job satisfaction issue.

Career Dissatisfaction

To resolve a career dissatisfaction issue, you will probably need to find a career that suits you better than the one you are currently in. The most efficient way to do this is to take a career test.

Career tests offer you matches or lists of careers based on your different personal factors. Some career satisfaction-based tests measure abilities, while others measure your interests. Still others use personality information to find careers most satisfying for you. Click here for more on career satisfaction tests.

Job Dissatisfaction

On the other hand, a job satisfaction issue is resolved by either adjusting aspects of your current job or within your current company, or finding a job at a different company doing roughly the same work as in your current career.

The first step to improving your job satisfaction level is to determine what aspects of it are most dissatisfying for you. Dissatisfaction with a job comes from four places:

Extrinsic factors such as pay raises, favorable job evaluations, and bonuses.
Intrinsic factors such as meaningfulness, choice, competence, and progress
Work values such as serving society, competition, and autonomy
Working conditions such as interpersonal relations and stress. Click here for more on Job Satisfaction Tests that can help you isolate your specific job satisfaction issue.

The second step to improve your job satisfaction is determining if changes can be made to your current job or within the company. If you think this is possible, meet with the appropriate people within your company. Together you can make improvements that directly and significantly improve your job satisfaction. Sometimes it is helpful to partner with a career coach to identify the best strategy to do this. Get in touch with The Career Profiler if you would like some guidance in approaching the right people.

If it is not possible to improve your current company, you will need to find a different job. Finding a new job helps you make sure you won’t run into dissatisfaction again. Two key strategies to achieve job satisfaction in a future job are:

Writing a power resume. This articulates your strengths, assets, and talents in a concise, clear, and easy to read manner. It also must communicate your job satisfaction factors as part of the profile statement so you won’t end up dissatisfied again.
Engaging a job search strategy that identifies the right companies to work for. You will also need to secure the right job vacancies within those companies. A career coach with job search and employment strategy experience can help you get this done quickly and effectively.

Improve Satisfaction

Finally, I hope these tips will help you get out of your dissatisfaction and into a happier place. Get in touch with The Career Profiler if you need help, motivation, or have questions. Another great step you can take is to continue researching this subject by reading the blogs below.,

Achieve Career Satisfaction

Career Satisfaction Tests

Job Satisfaction Tests to Identify Your Personal Job Satisfaction Needs

How to Land a Job that Offers Job Satisfaction

Job Satisfaction Tests

Is It a Career Satisfaction or Job Satisfaction Issue?

Posted on July 26, 2013May 2, 2017 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

Career Satisfaction vs. Job Satisfaction

Most people look for career advice when they are dissatisfied with something about their career or job. But it is just as important to understand the positive aspects about a career or job. After all, how can you achieve career or job satisfaction if you don’t know what it is?

Career Satisfaction is an overall satisfaction with your current career. It relates to the level of happiness you feel in your chosen occupation and with the work you perform as part of the responsibilities of that occupation.

If you feel dissatisfaction with either with the kind of work you are performing, or with the overall responsibilities and duties of the occupation, you are most likely experiencing career dissatisfaction. Click here to start process of finding more satisfying careers.

Job satisfaction relates to the level of satisfaction you feel towards specific aspects of your job and its environment. In other words, job satisfaction is a function of your feelings of contentment with your working conditions, environment, job benefits, work location, work relationships, and the like.

If you feel dissatisfaction with your job – the environment, the people at work, the location, benefits, conditions and so on – you are experiencing job dissatisfaction. Click here to review job satisfaction tests.

Improve Satisfaction

Below you can find helpful links in getting you on the path to career or job satisfaction.

Achieve Career Satisfaction

Why It Matters to Know the Difference between Career Satisfaction and Job Satisfaction

Career Satisfaction Tests

Job Satisfaction Tests

Is it Career Satisfaction or Job Satisfaction?

Best Careers for Women in Satisfaction and Pay

Posted on February 24, 2012May 2, 2017 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

Most Satisfying, Top Paying, and Best Careers for Women

What is the best career for women? Which is the most satisfying career for women? What career pays women the most?

According to Forbes, teaching is the most satisfying job for women. As a chief executive or a medical professional, a woman can earn the highest pay – up to $165,000 and $130,00 respectively. Currently, almost half of all business are started by women. There is even more data that you can find at Best Careers for Women. These are all good questions and interesting facts… but what about the best career for you?

What about you? If you had to choose a new career for yourself, which one would you choose? What is the best career for you as one of many women?

Post your answer at my Facebook page and LIKE the page to receive a 33% discount coupon to use at www.TestEts on any career test or career test package for yourself. If you have no idea what your dream career is, I’m still here to help! Fill out the form below to get into touch with me and we can work on finding the career that will make you most happy and successful!

Career Personality and Career Personality Tests: part 6A

Posted on January 6, 2012May 2, 2017 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

Part 6a: Career Personality Tests use Subjective Assessments

All true career personality tests use subjective measures to assess the relevant factors. But when choosing such a test, it’s important to keep these things in mind.

Career Personality Test Limitations

Career Personality Tests have Limitations to Know About

Career Personality Tests use Subjective Measurements to Extrapolate Career Test Results

Of course, there is no perfect career personality test. But there are an awful lot of great ones, and taking a few can give you the best idea of what career fits you. When taking a career personality test, keep these limitations in mind so that you can get the most accurate results.

Gut Response

First of all, for a career tests to be based on subjective measurements means that results are based on what you “think” or deem to be the correct answer. Your response could be a guess, but it should be more like a “gut” response. In other words, the answer to a question on the test should result from your first impression to it. You’ll probably get the best result if you just allow your automatic gut reaction to take control.

Language

Secondly, career personality tests provide word-based options from which to select your answer. In other words, the subjective test is based solely on words or language. This means the confines of our language will shape your results. It’s best to think of the answer you choose according to its common meaning in order to get the most accurate results.

Another way to understand the impact of language in subjective measurements is to consider the following example. If I say the word “black,” what pops up in your head immediately? This may seem like a simple question to you. Well, over the past 15 years, I have received 39 different responses to this word including Halloween, blue collar worker, night, and white. The most common answer is white. Therefore, if a career personality test includes a question about “black” as part of their career test, the answer “white” would be one of the multiple choices answers. If you don’t think of “black” in terms of “white” you might have either a difficult time selecting from the answer options or you might attribute a different understanding to the word altogether. As you can see, your personal understanding of a word is, therefore, critical to producing accurate results on any career personality test.

Career Test Confustion occurs when you have not had enough opportunities to discover who you are

Opportunities

Thirdly, career tests are impacted by the opportunities you have had to know yourself. For instance, if you are a young adult who grew up in a household where your parents determined your activities, you watched a lot of TV, held no prior jobs, and engaged in no volunteer activities, you likely will not have had enough opportunities to know your personal responses to various situation. You probably don’t know your interests in a variety of categories that would determine accurate test results. This makes it very difficult to know how to respond to a question. An inaccurate answer could yield inaccurate results. While this is an extreme example, it is relevant for our society today. Many young adults have their lives so programmed by their parents, lack of self-knowledge is one of the unintended consequences of their good intentions.

There are more subtle examples of the lack of opportunities to know oneself. Most, if not all, career test takers are “stumped” by at least a couple of questions. Rather than react to it as they should, these test takers then ponder the question for to long, which can lead to inaccuracies. Bottom-line, the greater your personal self-knowledge,
the better and more accurate your career personality test results.

Purposeful Manipulation

Fourthly, tests can be manipulated. In other words, you might be taking a career personality test as part of work team and know that the result of your career test will be shared with the group. In this situation it might be tempting to answer according to what you want your coworkers to think of you. You have thereby skewed the results of your career tests and the career test results are not accurate.

Chance

Finally, the factor of chance plays a role in every career test. For instance, if you take a career personality test on a “bad hair day,” subsequently you will likely receive “bad hair day” results. The way you feel one day might change the results slightly compared to another day.

But don’t worry! Even though these limitations are part of every test, this does not mean your results will be dangerously inaccurate. The most well-researched tests have these limitations factored into the results.

Another Thing to Remember

Which career personality tests are the most susceptible to these limitations? The Myers Briggs is probably the most susceptible, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a useful, reliable, or valid tool. Because it is! The publishers have recognized its susceptibilities and published a “test the test” process that I’ve been using with clients for years.

If ever you have taken a career personality test and questioned the accuracy of your results, please contact me or another career test expert to review the results with you. I can help you determine the inaccuracy and come up with an alternative solution to taking the test again. Or, you can simply retake the test at www.testets.com. Always remember, after taking a career test, get a career test consultation. This helps you understand your results, applications in real-life working situations, and brief descriptions and examples of your occupational matches. I can walk through your results with you and start on a plan to grab your career by the horns.

Still Have Questions…?

Given all of these limitations . . . Why would you want to take a career personality test at all? Starting to second guess your old Myers Briggs results? Wondering which career personality tests produce the most accurate results? These questions, the limitations, and reasons to take a test anyway, will be presented in the next blog (part 6b). Stay tuned.