It stands to reason that often times the people who have a
natural liking or interest towards a certain career path may perform
much better when they are working in this area. It also stands to reason
that if it is this natural interest in the role that lead them to the
career in the first place will also mean that they will be much happier
in their work and probably achieve much greater career satisfaction over
their lifetime.

Once a person’s career interests are identified
the task of locating their ideal profession or career often becomes
easy. The difficulty however often presents in trying to locate or
identify a persons interests that could translate into a realistic
career path. There are many ways to do this and often the best approach
is to use not just one, but a combination of methods, in conjunction
with each other to arrive at the best options or solutions for you.

One
of these methods that can be extremely useful in the career counseling
process is the use of career counselling or career interest test. Using a
career counselling test should not be seen as the be all and end all,
but rather as a starting point for ideas and exploration of your career
interests. There are many online career counselling tests that can be
used, however it is important to stick to or use only tests that are
valid and reliable and not simply fun “quizzes” which are found on the
internet. One example of a good online career test or questionnaire is
the Strong Interest Inventory. The benefit of taking such a test online
is that it is used widely all around the world by career counsellors and
for this reason, once you have your results you should not have too
much trouble in obtaining follow up career advice from a professional
career counsellor if you feel like you need more support and career
advice.

Another useful tool used commonly by career counsellors
around the world is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality test or
MBTI for short. This can also be taken online and as with the Strong
Interest Inventory, the fact it is used so widely around the globe in
career counselling means you can easily obtain follow up career advice
based on your results at any point in the future if you wish.

Both the Strong Interest Inventory career test and
MBTI personality test should taken by people looking for a simple
answer. Career tests are an integral part of the career counselling
process and are an excellent starting point for people looking to find
their ideal career. Such career and personality test should give the
person many different career ideas and open their minds to many
possibilities which will need to be explored after the career test has
been taken. A person may feel comfortable and confident in exploring
these many possibilities on their own, or it is at this point that
people often feel they would like some additional support from a career
professional so they can be guided through this process.

There are
many online career counselling tests, including those above, which are
easily located through a search engine such as Google. A good career
personality test such as those above will provide the test taker with
many career options to explore, and it’s at that point that a career
counsellor can often provide valuable assistance to assist in maximising
the benefit of the career test. This also can be done easily on the
internet by using a search engine with a search term such as “registered
professional career counsellors list” or something similar. In
Australia there is the The Career Development Association of Australia
(CDAA) which can be used to locate an appropriate career counseling
services close to you.

So in summary, if there is one piece of
advice I can give to those looking to find the right career path for
them, it would be to take a quality career counselling test and use this
to get ideas to work from. From their the many options raised can be
explored and examined, either by yourself alone, or with the assistance
of a career counsellor or professional.