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

Posted on January 2, 2014October 26, 2026 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

Historical article. The dates, pay figures and employment projections below reflect the article’s original sources. For current occupational information, consult the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook.

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.

Best Careers for Women in Satisfaction and Pay

Posted on February 24, 2012October 26, 2026 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 profile 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!

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Career Personality and Career Personality Tests: part 5

Posted on January 3, 2012October 26, 2026 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

Part 5: Career Personality Test Types – The Right Career Test for You

All career personality tests fall into three categories: occupation generating, occupation matching, and neither occupation generating nor matching. Each type of career personality test has unique features and addresses different career needs. This blog should help you find the right career test for your situation.

Occupation Generating Career Tests

Some career personality tests are paper tests that generate jobs lists

These are inexpensive, simple to use, and quick tests. They are most appropriate for persons wanting many career options, needing an inexpensive test, wanting a paper test (as opposed to online), and for lower level jobs in corporations, trades, or front-line service. Among the most common and best on the market are: COPS system tests and SDS tests.

Occupation Matching Career Tests

Next, occupation matching tests are meant to align personality traits and jobs that require those traits for success and satisfaction. That means that after taking this test, your personality traits will be matched with a career that will most likely result in your success and happiness. These are, therefore, especially useful for persons seeking to discover their first career, a new career, a career direction, an ideal career, getting clues to define a career niche, and changing careers because of career dissatisfaction. The best tests of this kind include Strong Interest Inventory and Myers Briggs Type Test.

Non-occupation Generating or Matching Career Tests

Lastly, non-generating or matching tests do not produce a list or a set of occupations matching your personality. Instead, they give descriptions of how the test-taker would likely behave on the job. For example, the FIRO-B test describes how one relates to others on the job such as a boss, co-workers, teams, and colleagues. Another such test, the DISC test, measures one’s natural and adapted ways of communicating, contributing, leading, interacting, and performing at work. These tests, therefore, are usually used for job performance improvements, employment screening, and career development.

The test you choose depends on your life context. What is your current career? Do you know your purpose (career change, satisfaction improvement, etc.)? What is your income or desired income? Choosing the right career test might be tricky. Fill out the form below to ask The Career Profiler for help if you need it.

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How Career Assessments Approach Career Fit

Posted on December 15, 2011October 28, 2026 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

Reviewed October 28, 2026

Career Personality and Career Personality Tests — Part 3

Career assessments examine different parts of the career decision. Personality preferences, interests, natural abilities and interpersonal needs are related, but they are not the same thing. Understanding what an assessment measures helps you choose it for the question you need answered.

It is misleading to divide all career assessments into two simple categories called “type” and “trait” and then place interests, abilities and values beneath them. An assessment’s framework, method and purpose each matter.

MBTI: personality preferences

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator draws on Jung’s theory of psychological types. MBTI Step I describes four preference pairs concerning how you direct attention, take in information, make decisions and approach the outer world. Their combinations produce the familiar four-letter types. Step II adds detail through 20 facets within those pairs.

For career direction, the appropriate MBTI career report connects personality preferences with fields, work environments and occupations to explore. Other reports support communication, teamwork and leadership development. A personality preference is not a measure of ability, competence or experience. The publisher explains what MBTI does and does not measure.

Holland’s RIASEC: interests and work environments

John Holland’s framework describes six vocational themes: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional—often shortened to RIASEC. It considers the relationship between a person’s interests and corresponding work environments.

The Strong Interest Inventory and Self-Directed Search both use Holland’s framework, but their reports organize and develop the information differently. SDS provides a code and resources for exploring occupations and education. Strong provides broader themes, more specific interest areas, occupation comparisons and additional report-dependent guidance. Both have research behind them; report depth and interpretation services are important distinctions when choosing.

Holland’s work uses the language of vocational personality. That terminology does not mean that Strong or SDS measures the same personal-style preferences as MBTI. In this series, I distinguish an interest assessment from a personality-style assessment so you can see what each contributes. See the SDS publisher’s description and the Strong publisher’s explanation of combining Strong with MBTI.

Highlands: performance-based ability assessment

The Highlands Ability Battery uses work-sample tasks to assess natural abilities. Rather than relying only on your opinion of what you do well, its performance-based exercises provide another perspective on how you solve problems and work with information.

Highlands distinguishes personal style, driving abilities, specialized abilities and vocabulary. Its vocabulary component reflects acquired knowledge rather than a natural ability. Its personal-style information does not turn the whole battery into an MBTI-style personality assessment.

Driving abilities help explain the work functions that need expression. Combinations of findings can illuminate problem solving, communication and ways of contributing. High, middle and low results all have meaning; a profile is not a contest to score highly on every measure. Read the Highlands explanation of driving abilities.

An ability profile also differs from a record of learned skills. You may have natural potential for particular tasks and still need training and experience to perform a specific job. Your interests and preferred work style must be considered too.

Behavior, relationships and career development

DISC-style instruments examine behavioral tendencies and can support conversations about communication, teamwork and leadership. Different publishers offer different products, so the specific model, graphs and report must be checked. A development report need not supply occupation lists to be useful.

FIRO examines interpersonal needs and behavior, adding a different perspective on relationships at work. Values assessments and tools such as Career Anchors help clarify what matters in career choices and development. These tools can inform a career profile without being treated as interchangeable personality or aptitude tests. See the FIRO publisher’s explanation.

How are the findings combined?

Suppose you enjoy healthcare, show abilities suited to organizing complex information, and prefer work with substantial interaction. The combination gives us more to investigate than any one finding. We still need to examine the actual duties, training, work setting and practical requirements of the roles you are considering.

Sometimes the assessments point in different directions. That is useful information to discuss. Consultation helps us understand the differences, identify suitable work functions and examine ways to meet your needs within a career and your wider life.

Through your completed profile and consultations, you will know the careers in which you can achieve success and satisfaction—and what those careers need to offer you.

Choose your profile package

You begin by buying and completing your chosen package. Each assessment includes consultation, with video interpretation followed by consultation or consultations alone as specified by the package. Marjorie Wall Hofer is your consultant when you come through The Career Profiler.

Decide your next step at the final profile consultation. Targeting or Landing, if you choose either afterward, involves further coaching sessions with Marjorie.

Find My Profile Package, or book a free 30-minute consultation to clarify the process before purchasing.

The Career Profiler owns TestEts, where assessment and package purchases take place.

Success Story: Career Purpose and Mission

Posted on November 29, 2011October 26, 2026 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

Career Success Story #2

This is a story from a former client who came to me for help. He is a smart, capable businessman who just made one mistake. But with a little bit of help, a few career tests and exercises, we got to the bottom of his career purpose and mission. This is a huge step! Knowing the end helps you act in the now. Send me an email if you want this kind of career success and self-knowledge!

“I finally gave in to trying out TheCareerProfiler. I had always thought that career coaching services were “airy fairy” and certainly not for me. In a moment of desperation, though, I had taken a position well below my career potential and previous experiences. Now I needed help to turn around my career in a large Fortune 100 bureaucratic company.

Knowing your career purpose and mission are stepping stones to your success

I completed a series of career tests that pointed out my talents and strengths. Then I began to realize what I was really meant to do. Together, The Careeer Profiler and I developed a resume based on my talents, strengths, and mission. The Career Profiler had a phenomenal way to quickly and accurately determine my career purpose and mission. It only took an exercise and a couple of career coaching sessions to nail these down. Only two months after our first meeting, I became the vice-president of a venture capital company – such a perfect fit for me! I learned this career secret: know your career purpose and mission.” –Bob V.

15 In-Demand Careers

Posted on August 4, 2011October 26, 2026 by Marjorie Wall Hofer, M.Ed., PCC, PCM

To be in demand means that a job’s wages and the growth rate are both increasing. A career that needs more people and is willing to pay them more is a good field to get into! Each of these in-demand careers pays at least $40,000 a year. A full description of each career can be found at the Bureau of Labor Statistic or affiliated website. If one of these sounds interesting but you’re not sure if you’d be happy and successful in it, visit TestEts.com. This is a career test website that will help you find out which of these jobs is best for you. These tests help you decide what careers are compatible with your abilities, personality, and interests.

Each job listed below shows the median pay (MP). This tells you the yearly wage of the average job. You can also find the growth rate (GR) that is, how much the job is growing year to year. The average (not much change) growth rate of all industries is 6%, so you will see that all of these jobs have a growth rate of 10% and higher. Further information about each of these jobs can be found at the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook site. Simply search for the job title you are interested in. All of this information is valid through 2024.

Most In-Demand Careers through 2024:

Wind turbine service technicians:

Install, maintain, and repair wind turbines. MP: $52,000 GR: 108%

Web Developer:

Design and create websites. Handles both technical and aesthetic properties of a website. MP: $63,000 GR: 27%

Speech Language Pathologist:
Assess, diagnose, treat, and help to prevent communication and swallowing issues in patients. MP: $74,600 GR: 21%

HVAC Technician:

Install and repair heating, ventilation, cooling, and
refrigeration systems that control temperature and
air quality. MP: $45,900 GR: 14%

Meeting Planner:

Great job for people with organizational abilities: coordinate all aspects of events and meetings, arrange locations, transportation, etc. MP: $47,000 GR: 10%

Statistician:

Collect and analyze data to help solve problems in business, engineering, healthcare, or other fields. MP: $85,000 GR: 34%

Occupational Therapist:
Treat injured, ill, or disabled patients through the therapeutic use of everyday activities. MP: $81,900 GR: 27%

Actuary:

Analyze financial risks and help businesses minimize risk consequences. MP: $100,600 GR: 18%

Financial Analyst or Personal Financial Advisor:

Help people or companies make investment decisions. MP: $81,760 GR: 12%

Commercial Diver:
Work below surface of water, using scuba gear to inspect, repair, remove, or install equipment and structures. MP: $53,900 GR: 10%

Physician Assistant:
Practice medicine on teams with physicians, surgeons, and other healthcare workers – examine, diagnose, and treat patients. MP: $100,00 GR: 30%

Biomedical Engineer:

Design and create equipment, devices, computer systems,
and software used in healthcare. MP: $85,600 GR: 23%

Lab Technician:

Collect samples and perform tests to analyze body fluids, tissue, and other substances.
MP: $59,000 GR: 16%

Technical Writer:
Write instruction manuals, how-to guides, journal articles, etc..
MP: $69,800 GR: 10%

Network Architect:
Design and build data communication and/or computer networks. MP: $100,000 GR: 9%

These in-demand careers are just a starting point to find the perfect job for you. If you’re not sure how to take the next step, fill out the form below. You can ask The Career Profiler what kind of career test you should take. In-demand careers tell you what’s out there. A career test tells you what’s inside. Therefore, you can make a smart decision about a job that will make you most happy!