Use these 10 tools to figure out your ideal career

Use these 10 tools to figure out your ideal careerIf youre one of those people who always knew what you were destined to do for your career, from fresh-faced recent grad to wise retiree, thats amazing You are already killing it, plan-wise. But chances are youre mora like the rest of us, and are less than 100% sure of what you want to do with your career. At that point, it takes a little more thinking, prodding, and questioning before you can move on to the career plan. Or maybe youve already gone down one path, and either dont like it or need a change. Whatever the case may be, there are lots of great tools out there you can use to figure out what you should be doing with your career. googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display(div-gpt-ad-1467144145037-0) ) Youve probably seen those Buzzfeed-style quizzes all over the place, promising to tell you your age, weight, and best life choices based on the pizza toppings you choose. Im not here to say those arent accurate, but if you tr uly want to figure out what you want to do with your life, it pays to dig a little deeper. Luckily, there are some easy, accessible (and dare I say fun?) online tests and surveys that help you channel your personality and your strengths into a job that matches your greatness.Why do personality and aptitude tests work?Personality tests arent always career-related, but they can help you get a baseline handle on who you are, what you like, and what circumstances can help you thrive (or, alternatively, what your biggest challenges might be). All of these things are crucial for helping you figure out a long-term path. They also beistand a fundamental truth about professional life you can have all the education and skills necessary to do a job, but whether you do it welland whether it is fulfilling for youis largely due to your personality. Your personality is often the forgotten partee of the job hunt, lost in the shuffle with resume, cover letter, and interview prep. Yet its a major com ponent of who you are, and who youd be on the job.Similarly, aptitude tests may help you define skill sets you didnt realize you had, or didnt know that you should emphasize. A little self-knowledge can go a long way, especially when it comes to finding a career path that works for you in the long run.Lets look at a few of the assessments out there.The Color QuizBelieve it or not, your favorite colors can show what careers might be right for you. In this simple, five-minute quiz, your answers are analyzed and returned as kompetenzprofil career matches.Cost Free to use and get your results.The Myers Briggs schriftart Indicator (MBTI) AssessmentThis is the classic personality test, used in many different professional and personal contexts to help people become more self-aware and make decisions based on their personal strength areas. Its a questionnaire (which you can fill out either online or on paper) designed to assess how you see the world in four different areas directing and rec eiving energy (extroverted vs. introverted) taking in information (sensing vs. intuitive) making decisions (thinking vs. feeling) and approaching the outside world (judging vs. perceiving). It reveals insights about how you form and approach relationships, as well as how you communicateboth factors that can help determine whether you become, say, a lab technician versus a stand-up comedian.Cost Insights dont always come for free. The official test is $49.95, but there are also free versions available online as well. As part of the cost, you receive a detailed report analyzing your personality type and communication styles.Truity TypeFinder TestsTruity bases their personality assessments on the 16 different types originally outlined by Isabel Briggs Myers (whose name should sound familiar if you just read about the MBTI). They offer a general personality test (the TypeFinder Personality Test), but also a professionally-focused one (the TypeFinder for the Workplace). There are also sm aller, targeted personality quizzes available on the site.Cost The general TypeFinder assessments (both personality and professional) are $29 apiece, but you can take the shorter personality quizzes on the site for free.PymetricsIf games are more your speed than filling out straight-up questionnaires, then Pymetrics might be a more fun way for you to learn more about your personal and professional styles. The Pymetrics method uses game design to help limit anxiety and biases that might be present in more traditional quizzes and surveys, allowing people to relax and make honest choices instead of overthinking or trying to figure out how to score high on a standardized test. At the end of the process, the Pymetrics reports match job seekers with a subset of profil careers based on neuroscience and their algorithms. This new wave of personality assessment is used by schools and many different kinds of companies to assess potential applicants and recruits.Cost Its free to sign up and st art playing the games, but there may be costs for detailed reporting and career matchmaking.The MAPP Career AssessmentThis assessment is a 22-minute test (flashback to those No. 2 pencils and scantron sheets) that asks you 71 questions about your likes and dislikes to gauge your potential career interests. The focus is less on the right answer than on the instinctive one. This test bills itself as the mapp to your true calling. And unlike those old-school pencil-and-paper affairs, this can be done entirely online.Cost Its free to get started and take the test, but it costs $89.95-$149.95 to get detailed reports and potential job analysesSokanuSokanu takes your answers from a 20-minute quiz, and compares your interests, personality, and preferences to 100 different traits. At the end of the test, youre matched to a subset of 800 different jobs. Rather than make general recommendations like astronaut or ballet dancer, this test prides itself on using deeper data metrics to make specif ic career recommendations.Cost Totally freeMy Next MoveThis is a very career-focused assessment put out by the U.S. Department of Labor. Also called the O*Net Interest Profiler, this test allows you to take your results and use them to search the U.S. governments vast database of career information.Cost This tool is free to use (well, probably funded by your tax dollarsbut no additional cost in the meantime).Skills ProfilerIf youre looking for something more solidly skills-based than personality-based, the U.S. Department of Labors other career assessment, the Skills Profiler tool, might be a better fit for you. Instead of taking a personality type and matching it with a job, it lets you input either your current skills to find a matching career, or a job type to see what kind of skills youll need for it. This can be a good way to see if that job you want to apply for is a good fit for the skills you already have, or if youll need to do some building in the meantime.Cost This assess ment is free to use.PathSourcePathSource is a little differentinstead of telling you which jobs you should pursue based on your personality or interests, it helps you figure out what kind of job youll need to support your lifestyle. Its an app that assesses your personality and career interests, and also lets you know whether that job in library science is likely to support your caviar dreams. Or, more importantly, whether youll be able to pay back the student loans you accumulated in pursuit of your goals.Cost The app is free to download from the Apple or Google app stores.So how do I use these results in my job hunt?Think of this test-taking as pre-work. You wont be rattling off your MBTI results on your resume or dropping hints in the interview that your love of the color forest green makes you perfect for this job as a firefighter. These are merely in the interest of understanding yourself better, and giving you potential starting points (or eventual goals) that you can use to t arget your job search or align your goals.If you end up in a job or career that just doesnt fit who you are, its likely that youll end up right back at this same placetrying to figure out what does make you tick, and how you can turn that into a more fulfilling job and career. Knowing what types of environments you thrive in, how you work with others, and how you approach the world in general can be invaluable information as you figure out which opportunities to pursue, and its an area that you can only access if you make the commitment to understand yourself better.Dont forget, your resume is the next important step You can also download free templates from our Resume Library to get started on your resume creation.