Finding your vocational strengths can be a little bit of a challenge. I remember years ago we were getting ready to choose our final subjects for the last three years of school and I still hadn't worked out what on earth I was going to pursue after school. In much excitement I did an aptitude test and went to find my results out at the guidance councillor who turned around and said the results basically stated I could do anything I wanted. Well that did not help me any.
I was therefore quite intrigued recently when I was given the opportunity by
CashCrunch Games to do an aptitude test via their new on line aptitude test over at
CashCrunch Careers.
What does CashCrunch Careers do?
- Matches your personality attributes to specific jobs.
- Presents careers and possibilities that would best suit you.
- Gives a list of possible careers you would enjoy
- Provides a list of careers you would probably excel in.
- Provides insights in what paths need to be taken in order to achieve your career stream.
- Possible roles to explore within career interests.
What is the process?
Once you have signed up and logged into CashCrunch Careers you will be taken to the Dashboard area where you can update your profile information and access the participant survey.
The survey consists of 75 pairs of words. The participant needs to select the word that best describes them and who they REALLY are. It's important to not select words describing who you want to be or who you think others want you to be.
I confess I got stuck on a couple of the pairs of words because they were similar in nature. I discovered that if you hover over the words with your mouse a mini pop up box appears with synonyms. This was a tremendously helpful feature and helped me choose the appropriate word.
To the right of the list of survey questions is a tracking box. Each of the numbers fills in green when you answer the question. This make it easy to see if you have missed any questions, as in this case we had missed question 21 and were able to go back and select an appropriate answer.
The survey is not time consuming and is easy to complete. It took each of us between ten and fifteen minutes to complete.
Careers Report
This report is automatically generated upon submitting your completed survey and can be accessed anytime you log in.
On page one there are five informative paragraphs sharing different aspects of your aptitude results:
- Career Work Style - Knowing what you can do, what you would like to do and how you are able to do it.
- Motivators and De-Motivators - Something the provides a reason or stimulates to do or don't do something.
- Career Attributes - The qualities or features regarded as a characteristic or inherent part of you.
- Career Match - Jobs that are most suitable for your career.
- Matching Jobs - a list of possible careers/jobs ranked in suitability based upon your test results.
Jane, Nathaniel and I all took the same aptitude test and I loved reading each of our individualised reports. The best way for you to see how these work is to show you a few screen shots. I will show you
randomised samples of our results.
Here are our
Career Work Style reports. I will be showing you all three so you can see how different each of us are. (To read them full screen please click on the graphic)
Motivators & De-motivators is a mini report helping you to define those things that stimulate you and provide a reason to do something along with a list of things that de-motivate you.
Career Attributes is a list and description of the top attributes which are considered to by your strengths in the workplace .
At the bottom of the page you will come across the
matching Jobs area. There are twenty job areas which are ranked in order of suitability to you. You will need to click on a career category to more fully explore the possibilities for you.
As mentioned above I had done one of these when I was in high school which proved to be a very disappointing experience however I was quite astounded reading through my jobs list because I had had various employment experiences in many of the areas that had been listed for me.
Career Drill Down pages
If you click on an area of interest for example General and Operations Managers it takes you to a summary page for that field. On this page you will find a summary of the tasks for that position, activities performed in that role and personal attributes, abilities, work values and skills needed.
At the top there are three tabs: Course, Colleges and Video.
Under the
Colleges tab there is a Google Map with pins to different campuses which provide eduction covering the particular field of employment. Each campus is listed in alphabetical order with an address, hyperlinked website and institution type as well as degree's offered.
Under the
Video tab there is an embedded video showing a short introduction to the career and differing functions and daily tasks expected of the person in that role giving the student some insight into the future activities needed to be done within that specific career role. The videos are all close captioned.
I was a little perplexed when comparing my list with Jane and Nathaniel as the jobs listed were the same but in a different order. Upon contacting CashCrunch Careers Paul was able to provide some valuable insights.
In each of the careers listed, the jobs can vary quite considerably. For example, in the publishing world you will need editors, writers and graphic designers. In the police force there are a number of different personalities required depending on their roles. Some will rise to the ranks in leadership, be detectives, others will follow a more scientific route into CSI and so on.
The purpose of the job list is to show that within career categories, there are a number of different roles for different personalities. The ranking is based purely on your inherent traits. You could work in the same career field but just do different jobs. This value in the individualised report is to create awareness and therefore unlock possibilities that you may have not even considered, which in turn allows you to research and possibly choose a new career path.
Careers Tab
At the top of the page is one of my favourite features of the site the Careers tab. The objective is to provide a place to explore and learn about careers and give you further insight and direction in your career journey.
The careers area is divided into sixteen different generalised career areas
- Agricultural, Food and Natural Resources - 38 Careers
- Architecture and Construction - 39 Careers
- Arts, Audio/Video Technology and Communications - 23 Careers
- Business, Management and Administration - 29 Careers
- Education and Training - 13 Careers
- Finance - 18 Careers
- Government and Public Administration - 12 Careers
- Health Science - 49 Careers
- Hospitality and Tourism - 39 Careers
- Human Services - 25 Careers
- Information Technology - 7 Careers
- Law, Public Safety, Corrections and Security - 17 Careers
- Manufacturing - 38 Careers
- Marketing, Sales and Service - 19 Careers
- Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics - 30 Careers
- Transportation, Distribution and Logistics - 31 careers
Transportation, Distribution and Logistics Career List Sample
When clicking on a career takes you to a full page with the three tabs: Course, Colleges and Video. Each tab gives you the same information as listed above in the Career Drill Down explanation above.
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Closing Thoughts
Since we work an average of 50 years it makes sense to find out what we have an aptitude for and do something we enjoy! Using
CashCrunch Careers has been a positive experience for all three of us. We have found new career paths to explore and are looking forward to seeing where each of us will end up.
We enjoyed using it to discover our own personal strengths and weaknesses and to discover new career opportunities that we had not thought about pursuing before.
I am one of 70 families who are
reviewing CashCrunch Careers be sure to click on the banner below to read what the crew members thought.
