Can you think of any "tests" to determine whether someone has a natural "knack" for (a) sales, (b) marketing, (c) business, (d) law, (e) teaching and/or (f) ______?
Asked by
mirifique (
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September 29th, 2009
I realize I am phrasing this quite ambiguously, but a “test” is akin to when someone at a party offers an offhand caveat about an entire profession/career choice (and usually based on first or second-hand information), suggesting something along the lines of “teaching is great, but you really have to have a knack for instantly commanding respect,” or “being a lawyer is fine, but you really have to love spending weeks and weeks on incredibly mundane legal topics and have an incredibly capacity for retention and recall for everything you read” or “don’t go into business if you hate having to be ‘on’ and all the time, aren’t good at math, and don’t always have your sh*t together,” etc., etc. These are all careers I am considering (yay for a liberal arts degree), but I’m interested in Flutherites’ opinions about what makes certain people truly excel or fail in these particular careers.
I hear time and time again that you should do something that you can do better than everyone else, so I am interested in the more nuanced skill sets, characteristics, tolerances, and affinities that transcend the conventional, surface-level thinking about these careers that permeates even the most analytical and introspective job seekers’ minds.
I would also be interested in any other ‘tests’ you can think of for any other career as well; this is simply a starting point.
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6 Answers
The Strong Interest Inventory assesses your likes and dislikes (relative to activities, etc) and compares them to the likes and dislikes of people who are successful in their field. It’s available online and from most career services offices.
Tests is perhaps a misleading word. Self-identifying with anecdotal attributes of successful people engaged in a particular profession does not constitute a “test” of suitability for a profession.
If you are truly on the fence, testing from a valid vocational testing service, not free online tests or the testing done by the vocational services at a university, is your best bet. It’s pricy, but cheaper than paying for a semester of grad school and deciding you made a mistake.
A popular misconception is that you need to go right from undergrad to grad school. You should take time to work, travel and get to know yourself in a work environment before you decide.
But I digress. To answer your question, But here’s mine: Law schools are full of high achieving but clueless students who ended up there because someone told them, “you like to argue, you should go to law school.” Or because they felt “they could always go to law school.” If those are your motivations, choose something else.
There is a test employers use called the Caliper test that shows whether prospective employees would be good in sales. My husband’s business uses it and finds it quite a good predictor. I’m sure there are also more general career aptitude tests – I took one in high school – but I don’t remember the name. Your local community college may have a career counseling office with such tests available.
a natural knack for (f)_____? teeheehee
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People are usually really good at things that they are really and truly passionate about. A good test is knowing what they like to do, not what they are interested in. If they are only interested in it, it means they were not passionate enough to do it and they don’t have the experience to know if they really like it.
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