Midlife Career Change
Preparing for Midlife Career Change It is never too late to change your career. Do…
Taking career quizzes helps you make decisions about changing your career. Taking career change test will not solve your problems but they help you think in the right direction. The most important thing to start with is to work out how you prefer to work. There is no point starting with a particular career until you understand how you work. There are many job functions within all career fields, so to find out your working preferences ask yourself questions like:
• Do you prefer hands-on action or analysis as part of your career?
• Do you prefer to work with groups of people or individually?
• Do you want to work indoors or outside?
• Do you want to work for yourself or for an employer?
An example of how one career can call for two different working approaches is a teacher who works with college students requires a high level of intellectual ability to teach complex concepts logically. Whereas, a teacher that works in a nursery school requires a lot of patience and an affinity with young children. A gym teacher will have completely different skill sets to an art teacher.
Taking a career change test gives you an understanding of who you are, and what you need to make you happy. There are all sorts of career tests easily accessible on the Internet; everything from tests to measure your aptitude and personality, to the ones that give you new ways of looking at and thinking about yourself and your future.
Remember, it may not be your job that is the problem but the way you see it. If this is the case, then changing your job is not going to make a lot of difference to your life if you do not change your thinking. Career change tests can help you see whether it is your attitude or the work itself that makes you unhappy.
There are many types of career change tests designed to measure all parts of your personality and skills. Here are some samples of questions.
1. You are part of the team launching a new product. Which of the following would you prefer to do?
a. product sales
b. product design
c. product testing
d. come up with the idea for the product
2. What is it that you dislike about your career the most?
a. too much administrative work
b. it is boring
c. too much responsibility
d. it is uninspiring
3. What is it that you like about your career the most?
a. the creativity
b. my work colleagues
c. the freedom to try out new ideas
d. it is intellectually stimulating
4:. Which of the following are you most comfortable performing as part of your job function?
a. coming up with new ideas
b. research and development
c. motivating staff
d. hands-on creativity
5. How do you react when your plans do not work out?
a. ask for help
b. look at the plan and analyze why it is not working
c. change the plan so it does work
d. check with colleagues
6. Your team has to make a team presentation to the management team. What role do you take on?
a. research
b. analyze the data
c. give the presentation
d. create the presentation
7. Which of the following do you find to be the easiest for you to complete?
a. write poetry
b. learn a new language
c. do mathematical sums in your head
d. pick out the perfect presents for everyone
8. Your car has broken down, and you are on your own. Which of the following describes how you handle the situation?
a. keep trying to get it going so you can get it to someone to fix it
b. kick it and swear you wish you had never bought it
c. look under the bonnet, find the problem and fix it
d. call a tow truck and end up getting advice about a good mechanic
Career change test gives you an insight into how you see the world, so take a few to give yourself a new perspective.