Tools for Career Exploration: Use Free Assessment Tests for Guiding Your Child
The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) [1], sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, has a set of self-directed career exploration/assessment tools to help your youngster consider and plan career options, preparation, and transitions more effectively.
O*NET can help youngsters identify their work-related interests, what they consider important for working on the job, and their abilities so they can explore those occupations that relate most closely to those attributes. These career assessment tests, which are based on a “whole-person” concept, include:
- O*NET Ability Profiler
- O*NET Computerized Interest Profiler
- O*NET Work Importance Profiler
These instruments can help your youngster identify their work-related interests, what they consider important for working on the job, and their abilities so they can explore those occupations that relate most closely to those attributes.
There is no charge for completing them and obtaining the results online (or printing them out, completing them and sending them to your state workforce development department for results).
Users of these career assessment tests may link to the more than 950 occupations described by the O*NET database as well as to occupational information on CareerOneStop.org [2], a workforce assistance and information portal site administered by the U.S. Department of Labor and Employment and Training Administration.
As a result, individuals can make a seamless transition from assessing their interests, work values, and abilities to matching their job skills with the requirements of occupations in their local area.
Your youngster has three options in most cases:
- Take these career assessment tests online.
- Work with a career counselor in taking them and evaluating their results.
- Join a group of individuals under the direction of an administrator who helps each person take and evaluate the assessments.
It may be wise to seek professional guidance, especially in matching your youngster’s profile to the needs of the job market in your area. And, of course, since your youngster is still in school, you have some flexibility in choosing the right time for administering these career assessment tests.
Jim Hasse, founder of cerebral-palsy-career-builders.com [3] (the career-coaching guide for parents of CP youngsters) is an Accredited Business Communicator and Global Career Development Facilitator. He has CP. See http://www.cerebral-palsy-career-builders.com/importance-of-motivation.html [4]
Copyright © 2014. Hasse Communication Counseling, LLC. All rights reserved
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This post originally appeared on our March/April 2014 Magazine [29]