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Are High School Career Aptitude Tests a Good Predictor of Work Happiness?

 |  4 Min Read

School counselors help students thrive in their current education and future careers. They love to connect with students and make an impact on their lives. Over the years, the demand for school counselors has not only increased, but the demand for additional support has as well. School counselor requirements include having a bevy of resources to help students figure out their career paths. One of the resources counselors use to determine possible career paths is career aptitude tests for high school students.

Career aptitude tests help assess a student’s strengths and skills to translate into their ideal career path.1 School counselors use this in their career as a foundation to work with students. By using career aptitude tests for high school students, school counselors can help determine the extracurricular activities and curricula perfectly tailored for individual learners.

What Kinds of Tests are Available?

School counselors can use multiple career aptitude tests to their benefit. There are skills career tests that evaluate a student’s readily-available skills. Pymetric tests use a series of simple (yet surprisingly challenging) mind games to measure different cognitive and social traits.2 Furthermore, there are personality tests to help determine what industries and roles high school students will find the most fulfilling. For school counselors, it is vital to use more than one aptitude test to achieve a holistic perspective of a high school student’s career path.

Some career aptitude tests for high school students include:

  • Myers-Briggs Personality Test
  • Self-Directed Search
  • MyPlan
  • Pymetrics
  • The MAPP Career Assessment

What Do These Tests Measure?

Career aptitude tests for high school students measure one’s reaction to situations and accomplished tasks in their daily life. A career assessment quiz includes questions about the individual’s hobbies, talents, interests, and overall personality. Most importantly, they also help highlight someone’s strengths and weaknesses. After taking a career assessment quiz, the student will learn more about themselves, and the school counselor should ultimately be able to connect the dots and help design a post-high school roadmap.

Career Aptitude Tests and the Results

Aptitude assessments provide school counselors with the information needed to help high school students make future educational and career path decisions. It presents an opportunity to help students think about career options that were not previously considered and give them a true sense of what they are currently capable of doing. This is another resource or tool that school counselors can use to build customized education and career plans for students. Using these assessments and examining grade point averages, standardized test scores, and extracurricular activities can help identify a student’s true potential.

As the student’s advocate, school counselors must be able to manage students’ expectations of what a career assessment will and won’t do. A career finder quiz may not always lead to a dream job, but it will give students a better understanding of their skills and strengths and how they can apply them.

Starting career aptitude tests at the beginning of high school can help school counselors identify student growth, changes in personality and skills and help with the consistency of building a plan that fits the student. Advantages to using a career test as a school counselor include:

  • Being able to complete a student’s portfolio and strengthen recommendations for a student’s curriculum.
  • Helping staff and administration structure programs and curricula that leverage individual students’ strengths.
  • Encouraging and motivating the student upon learning about their strengths.
  • A new reinvigoration can change the student’s attitude about their path and education and help them explore other coursework they otherwise wouldn’t have considered.

Career assessment tests are just one piece of a puzzle that outlines a high school student’s educational career. They are not conclusive, and significant decisions – such as career – should not solely depend on the results of these tests. Having a solid understanding of your skills can help direct students to the right jobs they will view as fulfilling in a work environment. Ultimately, this fulfillment will help improve work happiness.

Your career as a school counselor gives you an opportunity to work with students throughout various stages of their academic pursuits. Due to the flexibility of the role, school counselors, especially those with a Master’s in School Counseling online, can help early education or high school students be successful in their current pursuits and future endeavors.

References

  1. Career Aptitude Tests: Guidelines or Go-Tos?
  2. The 13 Best Career Tests and Quizzes to Help You Find Your Dream Job

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