My impression is that job/career counseling advisors mostly offer advice based on your interests and past experience. And that so called “career counseling” means taking an very expensive test that, basically, gives you as a result what you filled in in the first place, and in very general terms. “working with people”.
But are there any kinds of career counselors that figure out what kind of job would suit me, based on my psychological profile?
For instance, take traits like the following:
-starts to procrastinate when things get too complex, too abstract and when nobody is hurt when the report comes out some months later.
-can take up surprising amounts of information in interactive conversation, but only an average amount when reading reports or attending lectures.
-very good in linking seemingly unrelated info to the problem at hand, and finding interesting links and metaphors which turn out to be of great practical use.
-calm when everybody around her freaks out, but only if she isn’t to blame for what freaks everybody out.
-hates having to “sell herself”.
Are there any job counselors that can look at a list like this and say: Okay…you’d be perfect as an undertaker, and here’s how to become one" or: " you’re a born teacher. Go find a subject you like and here’s a fast educational track so you can be in front of a class in two years".
How are such advisors called and how can I hire one?
You’re probably looking at someone with formal Occupational or Organisational Psychology training, as opposed to a generalist career advisor. There are plenty of psychological instruments which have been tested and validated in this area, certainly, and part of my training (I’m an OccPsych in training) is about using these appropriately. Getting hold of such a person would depend on location of course - registration and regulation of this stuff is VERY country specific. Maybe start with the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology if you’re in the US: www.siop.org . They have a consultant locator function which does allow you to search for career counselling.
Oh, on rereading the OP, actually for **Maastricht ** particularly, as you’re in the Netherlands - professionally speaking you’re probably in the right location. There’s a lot of occpsych work done by Dutch universities. I’m sorry I don’t know the professional organisation for Industrial/Organizational Psych in the Netherlands, but there will be one, and I’d start there.
It does exist. I went through it as part of my university’s career counseling. They gave me a test that combined my personality type (Meyers-Briggs) with my professed professional interests and preferences for certain activities.
Unfortunately, I don’t know what it was called, but yes… it exists.
I ignored the results and I am miserable in my job.
