# I took a career test and it said I should be.... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 12, 2007, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121 "2007-11-12T12:10:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Captain\_Socks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a8b319/32.png) [@Captain\_Socks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Socks)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/1 "2007-11-12T12:10:10Z")
A psychiatrist! That would be cool. I either want to do that or go into broadcasting/journalism. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/2 "2007-11-12T12:11:03Z")
Good luck Frasier. ---
**Author:** ![ZebraShaSha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/3 "2007-11-12T12:37:27Z")
I took one of these in high school. The results? Taxi driver. Everything else wasn’t even close, although I believe the next choice was a garbage truck driver. Apparently I smell like shit and am best suited for driving. Wankers. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/4 "2007-11-12T13:03:27Z")
Good luck Travis or is it Kit? ---
**Author:** ![Winston\_Smith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e95f7d/32.png) [@Winston\_Smith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winston_Smith)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/5 "2007-11-12T13:18:05Z")
…a firewatcher. ---
**Author:** ![Dragwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dragwyr/32/2855_2.png) [@Dragwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragwyr)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/6 "2007-11-12T13:51:02Z")
I took one of those in college and it said I should look at being a college professor. I ended up studying education and BOY was THAT a mistake. I do computer networking and web site management now. I’ve been happy for the past 15 years. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/7 "2007-11-12T14:00:45Z")
A chartered public accountant. Or a lion tamer. My choice. ---
**Author:** ![Kuboydal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecb155/32.png) [@Kuboydal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kuboydal)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/8 "2007-11-12T14:25:02Z")
Apparently, I am the marmot. No wait, that was the Lebowski test. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/9 "2007-11-12T14:51:00Z")
When I left the military, I took a test of that sort. It told me I should be a military officer. Not as helpful as it might have been. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/10 "2007-11-12T14:57:48Z")
When I took one in high school, the top three jobs were scientists. While I find science interesting, I don’t think I could stand a career in it. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/11 "2007-11-12T15:07:02Z")
My mother, who is now 77, told me just last year that when she was in high school (which would have been in the 1940s), she took a career test, and it said she should be a tractor mechanic. In the 1940s, nice young ladies didn’t become tractor mechanics, so she went to college, got a teaching degree, got married, got pregnant, raised four kids, and retired. And the eerie thing is, when she told me this, I went, “Yess!!”, because all my life, my mom has been the mechanically-minded one in the family, the one who can fix things, the one who comes up with design solutions that actually work for problems like “how to sleep four kids and two adults in a travel trailer that’s designed for two people” and “How to hang these decorative ivy things from the inside of the sunroom windows”. I once had a portable typewriter that supposedly fit into its case, but no matter how much I wrestled with it, I couldn’t figure out how the damn thing was supposed to GO back in there, yanno? So one day after many years of having the typewriter not fit into its case, after having long since given up on it, when I was a grown woman and my mother had come to stay after the birth of her first grandchild, I happened to mention it to her, offhandedly. And she went into the bedroom, hauled the case out from under the typing table, stood there and…_looked at it_…for a good long couple of minutes. And then she said, “Oh. _This_ goes in here, and then _this_ goes over here”, and stap me if she didn’t pick up the typewriter and slide it into its case, slick as grease. And then, of course, after she went back home again, and I took it out to type, I could never get it back in again. But I was too embarrassed to admit I couldn’t figure it out. Anyway. She’d have made a phenomenal tractor mechanic. Farmers for miles around would have made pilgrimages to her with their ailing machinery. And bad cess to the cultural climate of her day, that wouldn’t even consider allowing a girl to grow up to become a tractor mechanic–the world is the poorer for it, methinks. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/12 "2007-11-12T16:53:34Z")
A librarian. Thank you for the next _five years_ of teasing, standarized test. (At least librarians are automatically sexy, sexy people…) ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/13 "2007-11-12T17:23:52Z")
I took one once and one of the things it suggested I should be was a career counselor. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/14 "2007-11-12T17:26:27Z")
> [@](#): > > A chartered public accountant. > > Or a lion tamer. My choice. I wanted to be a lumberjack. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/15 "2007-11-12T17:29:46Z")
mime. crap. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harriet_the_Spry)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/16 "2007-11-12T17:51:06Z")
Bookstore manager, followed by psychologist and librarian. I think the test was a little biased because I’d just spent a really enjoyable day at the library. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/17 "2007-11-12T17:54:42Z")
Next time you take one of these, don’t think about jobs you’ve had, or even work you might like. Instead, think about a hobby or leisure activity you enjoy. Fill out the test bearing this in mind. Otherwise, if you’re good at being an officer, it will tell you you’d be a good officer, or if your response profile is flat, the tests will tend to put you into a more concrete career. If you enjoy your organic garden, however, and answer with this in your consciousness, you may get a range of careers that are more like your gardening hobby than they are like the dead-end clerical job you want to get out of. A really easy paper-and-pencil test that is then plugged into software to generate a Holland Code (career preference matrix) is called Microskills. Unfortunately there is another paradigm within psychology called microskills, but at a career counseling center they should know what you’re talking about. Ask for the worksheet rather than the card sort version; the worksheet takes a little more time but it’s much better for what you are discussing. Again, choose your hobbies rather than your jobs as the basis for filling it out. [Here’s](http://www.eureka.org/seekers/why_eure_main.html) a California site that seems to use the Microskills worksheet I’m talking describing. ---
**Author:** ![False\_God](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee7513/32.png) [@False\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/False_God)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/18 "2007-11-12T18:00:02Z")
… a meteorologist. I cannot do math in my head, hate cold weather and rain and fart on camera. Apart from that, I know I’m a good officer and look forward to being retired one day. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/19 "2007-11-12T18:44:31Z")
I think mine had said architect. Although I’ve dabbled in genetics, for the most part I’m a graphic designer, which I guess is architecture for slackers 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2007, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121/20 "2007-11-12T19:26:53Z")
[QUOTE=jackdavinci] I think mine had said architect. … [/QUOTE] Well, we did want a block of flats, _nice_ though, the abattoir is. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-took-a-career-test-and-it-said-i-should-be/426121.md?page=2)