The
title of this post may seem strange to non-Artistic types.
So be it.
In my work, over the last 20+ years, I’ve noticed that creative professionals
often struggle with a question of identity.
Why does this happen?
Here are my reasons (feel free to supply your own):
- You have many talents/gifts — at least 3!
- Your gifts weren’t encouraged (by parents,
teachers, and so on) - Your gifts were criticized (by parents,
siblings, and others) - You ‘sensed’ you were different and
suppressed your gifts to fit in (to your family, your school, or your
church) - Your gifts/talents didn’t fit with the
place you lived, e.g. an artistic type growing up on the farm
Whatever the reason, you
wound up feeling confused about who you were and what you could do for a
living.
So, here you are 30+
years old and totally unsure what the hell to do with your life.
What ‘career tests’ can
help you?
First a caveat! Career
tests are all based on someone’s theory about the match between some
characteristic and job satisfaction. So, take any results you get “Cum grano salusâ€, i.e. with a grain of
salt.
Following are my two
favourite tests. In the posts which follow I will detail the pros and cons of
each test.
#1 Myers Briggs Type Indicator – This extremely
popular test, based on Jung’s theory of Psychological Type, measures your
personality preferences and suggests careers based on those preferences
#2 Strong Interest Inventory – The Strong, as it is
called, is based on the work of John Holland who developed an occupational
coding system to assist people to choose careers that matched their interest.
There are also any number of exercises you can
use to uncover and rediscover Who You Really Are — I’ll talk about those later.
Next post: A Look at the
MBTI and Careers
