The CareerPlanner Blog

Good and Truly Bad Career Tests on the Internet

I am so pissed (not drunk for you English Folks, but really angry).

I just wasted about 1 hour taking a competitor's (LiveCareer.com) online career test and trying to read the report.

This was supposed to be a free test designed by a psychologist, but when I got to the end they wanted $24.95 to $39.95 to actually get a copy of the report. 

This whole web site exists for the purpose of advertising.

I only took this test because Google has them ranked #4 for the term "career test."  Plus Google gives them a page rank of 7 (PR7).  And this is a crap career test. Let me tell you...

There was 100 questions to answer.

In between every 10 questions there was at least one full page advertisement, and one not so subtle advert designed as a bonus question.  Bonus Question in a career test?  Who are you fooling?

Worse than the ads, they forced me to choose between answers that I did not want to select.  Each question has 3 answers and you have to mark which activity you like the most and which you like the least.

Well what if you hate all three choices.   Here is an example.

Which do you prefer to do the most and which do you like the least:
A) Running a boarding house for students.
B) Illustrating children's books
C) Teaching needy children overseas

Well I don't want to do any of those.  Nor am I any good at any of those things.  Yet they forced me to pick one that I want to do.  That's absurd.

I could not concentrate with all these ads flying around.  I was sure I would accidentally click on one and be bombarded with their email the rest of my life.

Then to read my report, I had to look at and find my way through  about 15 more full page ads.  They stuffed one advertisement between every page of my career test report.  That is total bullsh...

I have taken many career tests and this by far is the most intrusive and annoying career assesment test I have seen on our 10 years on the internet.

They said their career test was created by  Dr. Douglas N. Jackson.  Well Dr Jackson, you sold out to advertising.  Guess you don't really care whether people use your tool to find a better career.

So here is my sales pitch.  The career test at www.CareerPlanner.com has no advertising.  Plus it does not force you to choose answers you don't like which will throw off your results.

It does cost $19.95 to $29.95 and they tell you that right up front.  When you read your test report it won't be full of advertising.  Plus it's accurate and reliable and they have a full money back guarantee.  Also, they know what they are doing at CareerPlanner.com.

And here is my disclaimer.  I own CareerPlanner.com.  We have been helping people find better more rewarding and more fulfilling careers for over 10 years.

About Working on Vacations

I wonder how many people enjoy doing their work while they are on vacation?

This must sound crazy, but when I'm relaxing on a vacation, or a few days away from the office, I usually find myself inspired to do some work.

But I'm lucky because the work I do, or at least most of it, I love.  It's not the work I did when I was a Vice President or CEO in high tech.  I did enjoy much of that, but only small portions of that work was interesting enough to do on a vacation.  Usually the only high tech work I did on vacation was reading and learning more about strategic marketing and long term planning.  The rest of that work was best left for when I was back in the office.

No, the work I love to do is to build up the CareerPlanner.com web site with good content and innovative career tools that can help people achieve better careers.  Now that work gets me motivated and that is what I find myself doing on a holiday such as today.

So one could say it's not work if I enjoy it so much that when I wake up on a holiday it's the first thing I do after getting a cup of coffee.

If you enjoy it so much can you legitimately call it work?  There has to be a better name for it when you are able to do the work you love.  When it adds real value to the world.  When it helps people.  And especially when the work you do is productive and not wasted. 

So much of the work one does when one is managed by a less than capable boss is a waste of everyones time.

I remember being on a board of directors where one of the investors was just plain stupid.  We all wasted more time trying to explain the basics of the business to this person.  Meeting after meeting we had to answer the same questions.  Well no he wasn't stupid.  He had just stopped learning years ago and was cruising by on his reputation.  People that have stopped learning are not very useful to have around.  Well more on that at another time.

My only point here is that when you do the work that you love, it is so rewarding that you might find yourself waking up and doing some work one morning when you are on holiday.  That will be a true test of whether it's the right work for you.