Have you set goals for your career?

Choosing your career is one of the most important decisions you will ever make, one with far-reaching implications for your happiness, health, and financial status. It can be easier to do when you set career goals and put a plan in place to grow your career.

Many people aren’t sure how to take charge of this process, letting chance factors such as a convenient job offer from a friend determine the focus of their career. As a result, the majority of workers are less than satisfied with their employment. Surveys indicate that as many as two-thirds of all employees are unhappy in their jobs.

Although there are no guarantees, taking a deliberate approach to the career planning process can expose you to more options and increase the probability that you will find sustainable, and enjoyable, employment.

At Career Paths NW we specialize in not just finding you a job but setting you up with a career that will set you up on a proven path to success. The process for setting career goals in a thoughtful manner can be broken down into the following steps.

  1. Begin with a Self Assessment
  2. Brainstorm
  3. Research
  4. Final Steps

List of free career aptitude tests

Free Career Aptitude Tests

The following tests are available for free online and can be a good start to identifying your next career.

123 Career Test: This popular aptitude test can help you gain insight into the careers that best fit your personality. It will help you learn what kind of work environments and occupations suit you best.

CareerOneStop Interest Assessment: Answer 30 quick questions online to get a list of careers that might be a good fit for your interests.

CareerOneStop Work Values Matcher: Answer questions about different aspects of a job or workplace to help you find your ideal work environment.

Color Career Quiz: Did you know color can be an indicator of what jobs are right for you? Color Career Quiz is a two-part quick and easy five-minute test that analyzes your personality based on the colors you select.

Test Color: Similar to Color Career Quiz above, a team of psychologists and human resources experts lead you through a two-part color selection process to determine your personality and aptitude. While the initial results are free, you can pay extra for a more in-depth analysis.

Keirsey Temperament Sorter: This test helps you to understand your personality type and discover what type of temperament you have.

Human Metrics: Using both Jung’s Typology and Myers-Briggs insights , Human Metrics takes you through 64 questions to rate you on both scales. The results explain to you how each piece relates to your personality type.

O*NET Interests Profiler: My Next Move’s O*NET Interest Profiler is administered by the United States Department of Labor. Users take a 60-question interest inventory that yields a profile of interest tendencies, including six areas: Realistic, Investigative, Social, Enterprising, Conventional, and Artistic.

PathSource: This free career exploration solution helps students and job seekers make better career choices with its free mobile app.

16 Personalities: Using the Myers-Briggs Model (hence the name), 16 Personalities is a site designed to help you understand yourself, contribute valuable data to researchers, and take tangible steps in your personal and professional relationships. While the test is completely free, most of the tools require that you join for a fee.

Red Bull Wingfinder: Take a free 35-minute online personality assessment to identify and leverage your strengths in four different areas of your personality, including connections, creativity, thinking, and drive.

Skills Matcher: The Department of Labor has developed this resource to enable users to assess the skills they want to incorporate into their careers.

Truity: Truity offers a variety of tests you can use to explore your personality career interests. There’s a free short report on the results, and there’s a fee to unlock the full report if you want more information.

CareerExplorer: CareerExplorer is a free platform for users to assess their interests, personality types, abilities, career values, and preferred work and social environments in order to find matches that will lead to satisfying careers.

Is your career stuck?

Research the occupations that appeal to you most.

Use online and educational resources to learn more about each profession. Although a quick Google search will most likely give you some basic information, it can be helpful to visit professional organizations’ websites for further insights. In addition, you could find out who the thought leaders are in each field and look for articles, interviews and videos featuring them. Finally, narrow your list down to one occupation you want to pursue.

Determine if you need to retrain. Depending on your transferable skills and experience, you may have to get additional education. If so, work out a plan that will allow you to do so while you’re still working your current job.

Research industries and companies you’re interested in. No matter how much you like a job description, it’s important to be aware that the industry you’re in and the company you work at play a large role in your happiness. Spend some time finding out about various relevant industries, as well as which companies have the kind of projects and ethos you’re looking for.

And Lastly….

Work with a recruiter. A recruiter can help you find jobs that are a good match for your skills and preferences while still taking your experience into account. Moreover, recruiters hear about jobs before they’re posted on job boards and can help get your résumé on the right desks.

Are you aware of opportunities around you?

Look For Active Growing Companies

Keep an eye out for companies in your community that is announcing expansion or increased profitability, like opening a new branch or office, or their profits last year went up dramatically.

These companies are always looking for more good people. Every business owner knows the key to growth is to hire good people. The more good people you can hire, the faster you can grow and the more profits you can make.

Growing companies offer lots of opportunities and will pay well for the right skills, especially if you’re the one who has them.

Find New Product Releases

Whenever a company is expanding its products or services there will be job opportunities to sell, distribute, service, and install the product. Additionally, there will be jobs handling administration and details associated with the product.

My suggestion is to create a “watch list” of popular companies in your area or companies you are personally a fan of their products. If you frequently check these companies LinkedIn, career pages, and set up job alerts on third party sites, you will likely find out about the positions before others on the market.

Then, when it comes time for hiring, you will be one step ahead of the competition.

Looking for a new job

Do Your Homework

When you are looking for the job you want, you engage in the same activities a sales professional would.

Three activities essential to sales success are prospecting, presenting, and following up.

Your job when looking for a job is to prospect thoroughly and develop the greatest number of leads or potential jobs that you possibly can.

Do your homework and find out everything that you possibly can about the individual, the organization, and the industry before you reach out to anyone for the first time.

Conduct An Internet Job Search

Finding a job on the internet is a skill you will learn through practice. Start by visiting the most popular sites, like Linkedin and Indeed, where job postings are most commonly advertised.

Search various versions of job titles you are interested in. Job titles for the same type of position, vary from company to company, so you will want to do your research and apply to the appropriate title.

Gather Information From Multiple Job Sites

Some internet job sites specialize in one kind of employment. It is also important to pay attention if the site is local or national.

If you are looking to buy a house, you don’t buy the first one you see without looking at other properties. Finding a job is very similar. Do industry research on average salaries and take not of the various job responsibilities that may be asked of you at different companies.

Remember the same job title at two different companies could yield different responsibilities. The more information you preliminarily gather will only benefit you in the long run.

Are you building strong connections

You never know when you’ll need someone’s professional help, which is why it’s important to develop an active list of connections. You don’t want the first time someone has heard from you in five years to be when you’re looking for a new job.

Instead, make genuine friendships with those in your circle and try to help them where you can too. Networking is a two-way street, and if you can help someone, why not do so?

Never stop learning

Learning and development are vital in the working world. It doesn’t matter if you’re a CEO or an administrator, you should always continue to grow your knowledge, both in and outside of your field. You can do so by reading current news, books, talking to people within your industry or even listening to podcasts. The options are truly endless; what’s important is to have the right mindset and always absorb new information like a sponge!