Before taking a long trip, it's a good idea to take inventory of your supplies, including maps on where to go, the best restaurant to eat in, the best places to shop and the most exciting tourist spots to visit. Would directions to a rewarding career be worth your time? Would you find it valuable to know what your natural motivations, interests, and talents are? Are you interested in receiving career information to show which jobs match your natural strengths?

Many people go through life without knowing their strengths and weaknesses, and how this fits with their career direction. Don’t get caught up in a maze, making the wrong decision about your career. Career Assessments are designed to help every job seeker, at every level, make smarter career choices.

The key objective of a career assessment is to identify your own career interests and motivations to build a career profile for you. The assessment consists of a series of questions in which you are asked to rank your preferences against different careers. Your answers in the career assessment are then used to develop your career preferences and then match your preferences to occupational categories. Then a report is generated that will help give you a competitive edge in your career planning. Please remember one thing about your career assessment: there is no wrong answer, as the output is the measure of your own preferences, which you can use to better understand what you really want do in your career.

You can be a new graduate from high school or college. You might be currently working and decide to pursue a new career direction. It is possible that conditions beyond your control dictated a layoff or termination. Maybe you are unsure about the type of school or course of study you should take. Career Assessments can help make sure that you do not end up down the road in a career breakdown. Career Assessments can help identify the right school, the right course work and the right professional career. The more accurately you match yourself to a career that reflects your personality, ability and interests, the greater chance you have of being a successful, productive and fulfilled employee.

Choosing a career is one of the most important decisions that you will make in your life. Don’t flip a coin. Taking a career assessment is like having a personal assistant that can help you identify your strengths and weakness – what you do well and could do better, pinpoint your interests and match them with your strengths, clarify your values and set you in the right track to success. Gaining direction and sharpening your focus are great reasons to submit yourself and your time to a Career Assessment. Investing time up front can pay huge dividends to conducting a job search.

(The Daytona One Stop Employment Center offers a Career Assessment Test:
The Career Scope. The test is free to all. Please call 323-7000 to set up an appointment.)