How To Get Good Career Advice and Direction
By Michael T. Robinson
There comes a time in everyone's life when they find themselves looking for good career advice and direction.
In the next few minutes we will show you three amazing ways to get good career direction and good career advice.
Whether you are struggling with a big career decision or just need some quick advice to handle a tough situation at work, one of these three ways will help.
If you already know you want the "Career Interest Test" click here
We are all constantly making career decisions that affect our lives, the money we are able to earn and our job satisfaction. These include the small, minute to minute, decisions as well as the big life changing decisions. Sadly, most of these decisions are made without good, objective, expert advice.
Why is that?
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When was the last time you heard of someone being trained to make good career decisions? They don't teach that in school.
Whether you are flipping burgers for minimum wage at McDonalds, making coffee drinks at Starbucks for $9/hour, working in marketing for $150K/year, or being a CEO making $300K/ year and up, you are doing so because of all those little career decisions you made along the way.
Your earning power and job satisfaction today is the direct result of career decisions you have made so far. Scary huh?
Here is the real scary part. Most of us have the capacity to work at least 10 hours per day and 6 days per week. But would you prefer to spend your 60 hours per week, earning $9 per hour at StarBucks or $200 per hour which is what many high paid managers in successful companies are earning in bonuses and salary.
You can earn a lot of money and you can do it honestly and with integrity once you put your career on track.
Of course it's not all about money. Putting your career on track has all sorts of other benefits.
When your Career is on the Right Track you will:
- Have more time to spend with your family
- Be able to do the work you love and get paid for it
- Be able to travel and vacation around the world
- Be able to save enough for retirement
- Have more time for exercise and self improvement
- Have time to help in your community
How do you know if your career is NOT on the Right Track and if you have NOT been making the best career decisions?
- You may be burned out from doing the same work day after day
- Your once fast moving career has somehow slowed to a standstill
- Opportunities seem to pass you by
- You have more financial problems than before
- You are frustrated or totally bored out of your mind
- You are not as motivated as you used to be
- Your boss and coworkers are causing you more stress than usual
- You are looking for a good career but not sure about what direction to take
Now you can begin to see that making good career decisions is critical. So here is how can you find good Career Advice and Career Direction...
We Are Not Your High School Guidance Counselor
When it comes to finding good career advice, the problem has always been:
- Who can you turn to?
- Who can you talk to?
- Who can you trust?
- Who has the knowledge and experience to advise you?
I remember my high school guidance counselor. You probably had one too. What an idiot this guy was. Sorry for being so blunt, but had I listened to him it would have ruined my career before it ever got started.
He was the physical education teacher. Not exactly my favorite subject at the time. Sure he went to college but what did he know outside of the education and sports fields. Nada, zip, nothing.
He told me my math was not good enough to make it through engineering school so I should aim my sites a bit lower. His negativity caused enough self doubt that when I went to college, I almost studied to be a technician instead of an electronic engineer because there was less math. Sure, I absolutely hated the seven semesters of college calculus I had to struggle through, but that did not stop me from becoming an engineer, then a Director of Manufacturing, then a Vice President of Marketing and R&D and finally a CEO.
Had I listened to my high school guidance counselor I would have never been in a position to create and market high tech products throughout the world. Had I set my sites lower like he wanted me to do, I would have never had the opportunity to work in Germany, Italy, the UK, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Mexico etc.
Fortunately I had gotten some really good Career Direction from a Career Test I took in the 8th grade.
It is so easy to start down the wrong path and waste an entire lifetime doing the wrong type of work. It happens to people every day.
So getting really good career advice and direction can affect an lifetime of happiness and well being. Wouldn't you say?
However, up until now, really good career advice has been very hard, if not impossible to find.
So Where Do You Get Your Career Advice and Direction From?
You can't ask your co-workers for career advice. Someday one of them could become your boss.
You can't talk to your boss about not being satisfied with your job. You don't dare show any signs of weakness, inconsistency or lack of commitment to the company. Especially in these economic times. The minute you let people at work know something is wrong and you are looking for a change, you become a target. You guarantee two things: that you will see fewer opportunities and that your name moves closer to the top of the lay off list.
Sorry to say, you probably won't get honest and objective career advice from your family either. First, they can not begin to relate to what you are going through. Second, change is a scary thing and potentially threatening. Most family members, even if they want the best for you, really don't want change.
So who can you turn to? Our Career Tests and Career Coaching Sessions will give you clear, accurate, honest, objective and reliable career advice and direction.
Did you know that in 1998 we were one of the first to offer Career Interest Testing on the web. Such a test had not been available to the general public. Once, I had to pay over $1000 for a relative of mine to get career testing done at UCLA.
After sending her through six Saturdays of testing and counseling I noticed that only one test seemed to give us good, useful information. It was, oddly enough, very similar to the test I had taken in 8th grade. Thus the idea for our Career Interest Test was born. After years of research and development we finally had a Career Interest Test that was even better and lower cost than what UCLA offered.
If you already know you want better career direction, click here to get our Career Interest Test. It will give you powerful insights into the type of work that is right for you. It will help you figure out if you have been in the wrong type of job, and it will help point you in the right direction.
Just recently we added "Personality Testing", which is much different than "Interest" testing. Personality testing has been around for over 50 years in the form of a test developed by Isabel Myers and Katherine Briggs. But it was not easily accessible to the general public nor was it affordable.
Today, CareerPlanner will give you your 4 letter personality type for free. Not bad huh? Up until a few years ago, such testing cost $150 to $200 per person and could only be administered by a trained and certified practitioner. (Yes, we are officially trained and certified to administer such tests). But, after years of research we can offer our own test, and we can do it for free. If you are interested in Career Advice based on your personality, click here.
18 Benefits To Putting Your Career On Track
Once you put your Career on the Right Track and you've identified and fixed the problems that have been holding you back, your entire life will take a dramatic turn for the better. It happens all the time. You just have to get the right direction.
Imagine what it's like when you are doing the work you love...
- You wake up in the morning excited to get to work
- You are more motivated than you have ever been
- Time fly's when you are doing the work you were meant to do
- When you love the work you do, you do it exceptionally well
- Success comes naturally when you are doing the work you were meant to do
- You're now confident you are headed in the right direction
- More opportunities start to come your way
- Big obstacles now look much smaller
- You have much more energy than before
- You enjoy life much more than you thought possible
- Your family and friends now see the difference in you
- You are now saving enough money for the future
- You can afford to travel and vacation around the world
- You can now afford to drive the cars you want
- You are able to live in the home you want
- You are giving to charity and it feels so good
- You have time and energy to volunteer in your community
- You have time for exercise and personal growth
Three Ways To Get Career Advice and Direction
1) Career Interest Test
Our unique Career Interest Test will determine what your true passion in life is and then match that with a list of careers and job titles. It is "Interest" based.
Building your career around the type of work that interests you is very powerful. I am sure you will agree that it is much easier to be successful when you are doing work that you are interested in and passionate about.
Thus our Career Interest Test will reach deep down into your brain and show you what it is you were meant to do.
Your test results may surprise you. Many people have never discovered what they are deeply interested in. Yet others, in their struggle to get an education, find jobs, raise families, pay bills and survive have forgotten what truly interests them.
I'm guessing you are taking the time to read this page because you want a better career. If you are ready to get started on that new career, click here to take our Career Interest Test. It's guaranteed. You will be happy you decided to take action today..
Our Career Interest Test is backed by a 100% money back, no questions asked guarantee.
To see a sample of the Career Interest Report, click here.
To see what other customers say about our Career Interest Test, click here.
To see Career Interest Test success stories, click here.
If you already know that you want to take the Career Interest Test, click here, otherwise read on to find out more...
2) Career Personality Test
The second type of Career Test is our Personality Test which will reveal your 4 letter Personality Type. Yes, you guessed it. It's based on your "Personality" rather than your interests.
Once you know your "Personality Type" you can get a list of careers and job titles that have proven to be a good match for your personality type. This is called our Personality Career Mapper.
Using "Personality" to discover the work you were meant to do is very powerful because we come into this life with a single, unique Personality Type, and we keep that same type for our entire lives. No kidding. This is really true.
Demonstrated by noted Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, and later by Myers and Briggs, your personality type today is the same type as when you were born. That does not mean you don't grow and develop with age. It just means your basic template remains the same.
By knowing your Personality Type at birth you will gain valuable clues as to the type of career that will satisfy you. See more about using the Personality Test to find your Career Direction.
3) Career Coaching Delivers Both Career Advice and Career Direction
We offer one on one live Career Coaching over the phone. Most Career Coaches want to sell you a 3 or 6 month package, we make personal coaching more affordable by offering it to you in 1 hour sessions.
You would be surprised at how much we can cover in 1 hour.
Whether your session is about a new career direction or about solving career problems such as interpersonal conflicts with the boss or co-worker, we always try to do two things.
1) After asking you questions and listening very closely to your story, we will tell you in very clear terms, exactly where your career is today and what the key issues are. We will give you an entirely new perception about where you stand today. If you were sailing a ship, but you had been blown off course by a storm, this would be like finding out what your current position is. This is critical before you change direction and begin a new journey.
2) After discussing the key issues with you, and after listening to how you respond to certain ideas, we will be able to advise you on the best direction to take. Using the sailing analogy, together we would plot a new course for you. In the first 30 minutes we can usually plot the next few steps so that you can begin to take action.
Our Career Coaching sessions make use of both the Career Interest Test and the Personality Career Mapper, so you should take both tests in preparation for a session. Find out how a 1 hour phone call can put your life and career on track, click here.
By the way, most clients only need one session to get clarity on their most pressing career challenges.
More About Our Career Interest Test...
OK, we've just told you about our 3 main career services. Now I want to tell you more about the Career Interest Test.
How Does Our "Career Interest Test" Work?
There are 180 true - false questions that take less than 18 minutes to complete. There are no advertisements to get in your way like on other online career tests.
You take the test online. There is no paper, no test booklets. Any computer connected to the internet will work just fine.
After completing the test you can pick up your Career Interest Test Report by signing back in on our home page or by following the link we emailed you. We keep your report in a secure location on our servers. You can save it to your hard disk and print it out if you like. But we will always keep a copy for you.
The report is typically 15 pages long. Don't worry, it's very easy reading. It does not contain any advertisements.
The report will reveal your personal "Career Code" also known as your Holland Code or your Career Type.
Your career code is unique to you, however it does change over time. You should re-take the career interest test every seven years or after any major life changing event such as losing a job or a getting a divorce.
Your report will contain a list of specific careers and job titles that match your career code. You can also use your career code to search through our list of over 12,000 careers.
In addition to learning your career type, the report will tell you which careers are a good match for you and which you should avoid.
It will also explain why certain careers are a good match. This knowledge will help you make better career decisions. It will also help you find a career that is both rewarding and satisfying.
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H. G. , 36 year old client from Colorado says:
"The Career Interest Report helped me get clarity on what careers would be a good fit for me. I had already considered some careers mentioned and it was nice to have confirmation that I was on track with looking at those career options."
"The report also recommended some careers I had not considered - so I feel like I have more options than I thought I had going into the test." |
If you are ready to discover a better career direction for yourself, click here to get the Career Interest Test now
The Benefits of Knowing Your Career Type (Your Holland Code)
- Build Confidence in Your New Career Direction
It takes courage and guts to make a career change. The older you are the harder it becomes. Knowing your career code will help you decide on the right career and will give you confidence so you can move forward.
- Validate Your Career Ideas
If you already have an idea for a new career, knowing your career code will help validate your ideas. It's better to know now if your idea for a new career is going to be a bad fit.
- Get Objective Career Direction
Your career interest test report will give you something that is very hard to come by: objective, unbiased, and accurate career advice.
- It's Fast
You can take the Career Interest Test in 18 minutes and have your results within the hour.
- No Risk
We are here to help people. That is our mission. Thus we offer a 100%, no questions asked refund. If our Career Interest Test does not help you, just send us an email or call our toll free number.
You Can Re-discover Your True Passion in Life
Many "Career Changers" tell us that our Career Interest Test reminded them of talents and interests they had forgotten long ago.
In the push to get through school, get a job, raise a family, and pay the mortgage, many people set aside and then forget their true passions in life.
Then, at some point later in life they find themselves not fulfilled, not satisfied, and looking for something else. If you find your job is not meaningful or is not rewarding, this will help.
Our Career Interest Test has the ability to remind you of what you really wanted to do with your life.
Remembering your true interests allows you to change your life so that it is much more satisfying and rewarding.
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D.F. a software engineer in Southern California said:
"Thank you for the insight that your Career Interest Test Report gave me.
By highlighting my interest in Artistic activities (in addition to my interest in Investigative activities which I was already aware of), you prompted me to explore and nurture my creative side, resulting in the production of my first music CD!
You also made me aware of the necessity of ensuring that my career, while primarily technical, still includes a creative element." |
If you are ready to take the Career Interest Test, click here
Did You Know That Lack of Career Satisfaction Is Bad For Your Health?
Today we spend at least 33% of our adult life time working (~ 55 hours per week).
When anything begins to take up 33% of your life it becomes extremely important to your health and your well being. Don't believe me?
Take sleep for example. It also consumes about 33% of your life and you know what happens when you don't get a good nights sleep. The next day you are not quite "all there." Your performance is off a bit. You feel like a 6 cylinder engine that is only firing on 3 cylinders.
Lack of sleep makes everything worse. If you are 25, you may not notice it yet, but of you are over 40, you know what lack of a good nights sleep will do to you. Lack of career satisfaction is much the same.
Quite simply, if your career is not satisfying, it is going to impact the quality of your life, and of those around you.
Don't feel guilty because you want a better career. There is simply no point in wasting your life doing the wrong kind of work. We each have a purpose to fulfill and it's not healthy to deny or ignore the drive to find our true purpose.
If you are ready to discover a more satisfying career, get the Career Interest Test now.
Is this an Aptitude Test?
Our Career Interest Test will indirectly measure your aptitude however this is not an aptitude test.
We won't test your math skills, your hand-eye coordination, nor your ability for spatial visualization.
Why?
Ability is far less important than interest.
If you are passionate about a type of work, you will become very good at it. You will easily find the time to study, practice, learn etc. You will do whatever it takes to succeed.
It's that simple.
The reverse is not true. If you are good at doing something i.e. you have a strong aptitude for something, it does not mean you will enjoy it nor be successful at it.
It's all about discovering what you are truly interest in.
Why Are We So Good At This Career Testing Stuff Anyway?
- We have many years of experience coaching people in real life, on the job situations. So when it comes to managing careers, we know what works and what doesn't.
- We have a tremendous amount of high level management and leadership experience. I'm talking CEO level, Vice President level. How often do you get personal advice from the CEO?
- We are very intuitive and we have a unique ability to listen to you and to "see" or "hear" what is not working. People that know us well are amazed at how fast we can solve their career problems.
- Our Career Interest Test, Personality Career Mapper and other tools have been designed using this intuitive approach and knowledge of careers, personalities and how it all really fits together.
- We research and then develop our own career testing and personality testing products. We don't buy these from someone else. We also have built in software and statistics that actually help us improve the accuracy of our products over time.
- Finally, at CareerPlanner.com, over 3.5 million people visit our site each year. We do that without paying for advertising. Those people come to us for a reason.
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Win a Free Career Interest Test this Month
During this month we will give away 5 of our Career Interest Tests for Free.
Why? Because the economy sucks and we want to do something fun.
Click here to sign up to win.
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How Is Our Career Test Different?
At CareerPlanner, we have a very unique ability to "see" and "visualize" what type of work you will enjoy and be successful at.
We developed this ability while working in real businesses where, in the process of building teams and even entire companies we interviewed thousands of people, hired hundreds, and then worked with those people day in and day out.
We were always working in tough, competitive business situations, either building businesses from scratch or turning around failing businesses. Results counted. Performance mattered. Successful people rose to the top to collect the big pay checks. Unsuccessful people fell to the bottom.
We know what it takes to be successful and how to match people with careers they will love.
This is not text book stuff. It's been proven.
The technology, tools and methods we use at CareerPlanner is not something you will find elsewhere.
Personally, I wonder why people hesitate to take the Career Interest Test. After all, it's 100% guaranteed. It costs less than going to the movies and buying popcorn and a soda.
Are You Too Old or Too Young?
Over 3.5 million people a year visit CareerPlanner.com. We have been offering Career advice and direction since 1998 when we were one of the first to offer Career Interest Testing on the internet.
- Our Career Interest Test customers range in age from 13 to over 55
- We even have clients over 70 - yes, no kidding that's a fact
- We see a lot of mid-life crisis folks - no surprise there
- We see people who have worked for 10 years and desperately need a change
- We see a lot of people in their 40's and 50's who are looking for a better career
- With the economy the way it is, we see a lot of people being forced to change careers
- Many people who were expecting to retire are finding they have to work a few more years
- We see high school students from around the world who are deciding on their college major
- About 30% of our clients are from outside the United States.
- About 50% of our clients are male and 50% are female. No kidding. We didn't make that up.
A.H. another Career Interest Test customer says:
"First off, THE TEST. I must say this, finally, there is a test, with results that make sense.
This report actually told me something that I could do something with.
I have taken other online tests, including Dr. Holland's version of the self Assessment. In each of those experiences I noted two things; first, that the information gathered, though valuable in general terms, had little if any application in the year 2008.
What I mean is, technology, modern artistic value, and other newer aged terms and circumstances are allowed for in your Career Interest Test, where in the other versions, nothing relating to the PRESENT DAY work force was addressed, therefore, my assessment in the technical (as it related to general...) fields was absent. Long story short...THANKS. You have a test that truly is a cut above."
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Is Your Career Interest Test Accurate & Reliable?
The fundamental technology behind our Career Interest Test has been in use for over 50 years. However, in 1998 we released a vastly improved version that incorporates our own special technology.
Since then we have helped thousands of clients around the world. Although we are based in the US, we have Career Test clients from the UK, Canada, China, India, Singapore, Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Italy, Germany, Saudi Arabia, etc.
Even with our 100% money back guarantee, we hardly ever see requests for a refund.
Read what customers say about our Career Interest Test and have a look at a few customer success stories.
The Three Biggest Mistakes In Career Testing
1) Most other career tests on the web will force you to answer all the questions. This will distort your test results and send you down the wrong career path. We let you to skip several questions and choices.
Why is this so important?
Let's say they give you a question that asks, "Would you prefer to train elephants, or parachute off tall buildings?"
If neither of these activities sounds interesting to you, you will still be forced to pick one and that will affect your test report. We don't force you to choose.
2) Many online career tests are really poorly designed personality tests in disguise. Personality tests are easier to design than Career Interest Tests. Most other web sites don't have the technology nor the intuitive understanding to do what we do.
We offer a separate Interest Test and Personality Test
3) Finally, many Career Interest Tests on the internet are called free, but they are really not. They let you spend your time taking the test, and then they hit you with a surprise fee to get a copy of your report. We don't do that. With our Career Interest Test you will pay before taking the test and there are no extras or hidden fees. (Note: Our Personality Test is absolutely free, however the Personality Career Reports do have a fee.)
OK, so how do you get started...
Our most satisfied clients use both the Career Interest Test and the Personality Career Mapper.
Step 1: Take the Career Interest Test
Step 2: Get Your Personality Career Mapper Report
Step3: Get Your 1 Hour Career Coaching Session
Click Here For Pricing & Special Deals
Special Bonus Offer
As a Special Bonus, if you demonstrate that you are really serious about starting to improve your career, by taking action NOW, we will include this Special Report:
10 Vital Strategies To Maximize Your Career Success by Ford R. Myers, nationally acclaimed Career Coach.
This offer is only good for the next 2 hours.
It is set to expire at: 11:25 PM 07/02/2009.
120 minutes left for this special bonus offer. |
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