Career counseling is of extreme importance for people living today. According to Arnett and Jensen (2019), people have to make career choices rather early since the knowledge economy requires education beyond high school to earn a living for oneself and family. Today people are forced to choose their career path when they are 16-17 when they are not yet able to make reasonable choices. Therefore, career counseling can have a positive impact on the financial success of people in their lives. However, it should be noted that attitude towards work and career may change during a lifetime. People today tend to spend the most part of emerging adulthood, discovering career paths and things that make them happy (Arnett & Jensen, 2019). Therefore, career tests are of limited use, and they should not always be trusted.
In my childhood, I was forced to believe that making money is the most important matter in life. This implied that the central characteristic of a job is how much it pays and not how much happiness it brings. Therefore, in my childhood, I wanted to become a lawyer or a businessperson, even though I did not have any interest in the professions. In high school, however, my friends valued me for being able to listen and help with advice. They always told me that I should become a therapist since I was good at it, and it brought me joy. I listened to the opinions of my friends and decided to become a therapist. In my emerging adulthood years, I witnessed many of my friends and relatives ruining their lives due to substance and alcohol abuse. I decided that I want to help people with addiction to recover and find their way in life. I realized that being useful for society is people’s duty, and attending to my duties always made me happy. I came to realize that money does not always bring happiness, and I should do everything I can to improve the lives of others.
Today, I believe that I have chosen the correct career path, and the results of the Holland Code Career Test confirm it. According to the test, I am first of all a helper, persuader, and an organizer with the most appropriate job tasks being counseling, assisting, advising, teaching, and providing service. Indeed, my job is associated with meeting patients, listening to their problems, and teaching a healthy way of life. However, I was surprised that the test decided I was an organizer since I always considered my workplace, home, and schedule completely disorganized. Yet, after seeing the results of the test, I have come to realize that I tend to find satisfaction in seeing neat sets of data and organized shelves and bookcases. In other words, my priorities began to shift from a creative disorder to a detail-oriented approach to every aspect of my professional, social, and personal life.
Considering my experience, I believe that it is a good practice to take career inventories during adolescence and emerging adulthood. Athanasou (2011) confirms that such a test can help to reveal personal interests and increase job satisfaction in the future. However, career tests often lack predictive ability, which is confirmed by numerous research (Athanasou, 2011). Most of my friends who have been playing musical instruments do not earn their living with music. The problem is that there not enough job offerings to provide everyone with the job they want. Therefore, one should always keep in mind that the use of career inventories is limited, and the results are not always reliable.
References
Arnett, J. J., & Jensen, L. A. (2019). Human development: A cultural approach (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Athanasou, J. A. (2011). Advantages and disadvantages of the different inventoried approaches to assessing career interests. Australian Journal of Career Development, 20(1), 53–62.