This is Interesting

[BarryBobPosthole]

I went to see my Financial Advisor today to work on some stuff we've been talking about. Over the course of the several years we've done business we've become friends. Not hang out buddies, but friends who really respect one another and enjoy doing business. Hard to describe. Drives my wife crazy because we'll talk for two hours when we go to see him. Some of it even about our financial condition. Sorry. That's just me.

Anyway, today he was telling me about a testing service he took one of his sons (age 20) to that measures your aptitude for various career fields. He said it cost him about $800 for his son's test. Said it was the best money he'd ever spent. The results were very detailed. The whole conversation started when I mentioned that my kids had a much tougher time deciding on a career path than I ever had. Ifyou look at my senior profile in my high school year book under Ambition it says electronic communication. 42 years later......

Anyway, I found the testing service process interesting, but what I found more interesting is the fact that it is apparently a big enough problem these days that there's a market for 'professional testers', and I have my own questions about what qualifies one to dispense that knowledge. I'm not pissing on my friend's effort to help his kid, but I am of a dubious nature.

Anybody ever used these kinds of services?

BKB

[Thumper]

Sounds like persactly the same thing the Army did when I joined. After the testing, I scored highest in electronics and tied that score in radio code. I should have entered the electronics (maintenance) field, but to be honest, at that point in my life, I was just tired of "school". I went into Morse Intercept School and spent my military career intercepting enemy communications. That didn't exactly lead into a promising career in civilian life. :(

My career paper in h/s stated I wanted to be a Game Warden. I quickly changed my mind after talking to an active Game Warden and hearing the obvious ... he didn't have time to hunt because hunting season was their busiest time of year and the months of deer season were "blacked out" as far as vacations were concerned. I was VERY mechanically inclined and knew deep down inside, I'd end up in the automobile service business. It worked out okay for me ... well, it was a living anyway.

[jb]

We always gave a pretty extensive aptitude test to all our kids that attended our school, it showed some very interesting things for kids that age. Don't know what they did with it years down the road, but it did give them some direction.
Back 50 years ago my HS Counselor would not give me a college application, said it was a waste of her and my time. Told me go out a get a job instead.
Where I went and how I got here is a series of good choices, luck, and great wife.

[BarryBobPosthole]

My friend and I were agreeing yesterday that this sort of testing might be one of the best things a school could do for their students, I guess depending on what age you gave it. As long as we could resist telling them what to do with that information. Of course, it would never work that way. Someone would politicize something like that in a heartbeat nowadays.



BKB

[LJ3]

Divergent.

[Thumper]

Divergent.

Saw the movie. ;)

[Big Skyz]

Thumper, you comment about why you didn't become a game warden was exactly, and I mean exactly, my experience as well. We had a career day at the school my senior year. I was all fired up to be a game warden and had wanted to be one since I was just a little kid in elementary school. I talked to the game warden and he explained that on opening day of every season he was at a game check station. He went on to explain when he had time to hunt inbetween work. I really didn't hear anything past "I'm at a game check station on every season opener." Never gave being a game warden another thought after that conversation. Pretty much forgot about it until you made you post.

[Bwana]

Related story: When I signed up for college I decided to go in Electrical Engineering all because of the electrical circuits portion of a physics class I took in high school. Got to school only to find out nearly all of the professors in that major were likely very smart but they had one whale of a time trying to speak english which made learning a challenge. I got frustrated and was looking to drop out of engineering altogether when my advisor suggested I take an aptitude test to show me where my interests might lie. Took the test which was sent off for analysis and then set up a meeting with a counselor to go over the test results when they came back. During that meeting the counselor flat out told me that though they are not always accurate my test scores told him that it was not likely that i would graduate from college. Great advice to a kid unsure of what he wanted to do but given my ACT score and the fact that I was co-valedictiorian of my class in high school I knew immediately that the counselor was an a$$wipe. :)

Long story short I obtained my engineering degree with a minor in business administration and have to admit the first thing I wanted to do after getting my diploma was to pay the counselor a visit but decided that was probably not a good idea.

Long way of saying I guess I can see where they might be useful in some situations but not sure you need to spend that kind of coin to take one, though obviously not all tests are created equal.

As for the game warden thing, it was the same for me. I was either going to be a game warden or a biologist until I learned about things like pay, amount of schooling needed, and how badly it would cut into my hunting and fishing time.

[BarryBobPosthole]

When I was a soph in high school I had it in my head I wanted to be a veterinarian. So my ag teacher made it a point to 'volunteer' me for any extra credit work I could get to show me what that career was like. I de-nutted about every species of farm animal there was, de-horned cows, immunized, wormed, pulled calves, artificially inseminated, and was in the hog business at age 16. It didn't take long to get those thoughts out of my head. The irony of it is I did most of that stuff at home too. On a nice pretty day none of that stuff sounds too awful bad. That shit usually happens in February though.So I chose a job where I sat on my butt all day instead!

And John, I totally agree. I guess the i thought the good part of the testing idea was to give that information to parents and the kids and let them do with it what they thought was best. After raising four kids I can truthfully say I've met exactly ONE school counselor that I thought was worth their salt. The rest were chair warmers.


BKB

[Sunshine]

Mine said I should be in Law Enforcement. :)