Pathfinders career counseling

[footfootfoot]

Has anyone had any experience with this group? My sister is doing it and she seems enthused, I was thinking about sending SWMBO as a gift since she is frequently angsting about what she wants to do when she grows up.

It is expensive up front, but I suppose if you are successful in finding a lovely new career, then you can amortize the cost over your lifetime and it comes to something like a piece of bazooka joe a day.

Curious if anyone has gone this route.

[dar512]

How much are they charging and what do they do? Most junior colleges will give you a Strong interest test and a general knowledge test (similar to an IQ test but for finding out where your strengths are) for a reasonable price $50-$100 I think.

Is it worth it? In at least one case, yes. I took one of these tests back in 1980 and it changed the course of my life (yes really). I was in a job I hated and really wasn't me.

I took one of these things at Washington University. They were very thorough. The tests were hours long. The results came back and the counselor said he had never seen such obvious results before. The interest tests said I scored really strongly with computer programmers and my numeric and logic scores were very good. I had never considered programming as a career before and barely knew what they did. I started taking computer programming courses and started as a programmer less than a year later. I've worked at some very cool companies- Aldus, Spyglass and I've gotten to meet some really cool people.

I still love my job.

YMMV. Not everyone gets something out of these tests. If you are the sort of person who has no interest in anything, I don't think this test will help much.

[dar512]

Ok. I just looked at the web page. The prices look reasonable, but I think it's a not good that there is no skills test. What if you show a strong interest in engineering, but you hate or are bad at math? I think you need both. It's not a bad place to start, though. You might call a local college or junior college to see what they can offer and the prices. I'd guess your local junior college would at least be somewhat subsidized by the county.

[footfootfoot]

My sister said they give you a whopping aptitude test. The other thing she said was interseting was that if you opt for the seven session counseling part they go into a lot of very specific stuff.

For example, the guy she spoke with knew why she had left several of her previous jobs, something along the lines of "Well, I could see why you might have thought teaching would be fun, your profile/test shows that, but I think ultimately you'd be unhappy there because you really loathe bureaucracy" (wtf? why can't I spell?).

She said they guy pretty much nailed the reason she had left every job she's had.

(I'm guessing their equipment could pinpoint a purr at 400 yards.)

Still wondering.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Just remember it's a guide and not binding if interest in another path develops.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by dar512

I took one of these things at Washington University. They were very thorough. The tests were hours long. The results came back and the counselor said he had never seen such obvious results before. The interest tests said I scored really strongly with computer programmers and my numeric and logic scores were very good. I had never considered programming as a career before and barely knew what they did. I started taking computer programming courses and started as a programmer less than a year later. I've worked at some very cool companies- Aldus, Spyglass and I've gotten to meet some really cool people.

I walked into the computer room in my junior year of college, ran some teaching programs for BASIC, and decided to start taking programming courses. I still graduated with a liberal arts degree, but I followed up with a computer trade school.

Including the mandatory training at my first job, I learned COBOL 3 times.

[dar512]

Originally Posted by richlevy

Including the mandatory training at my first job, I learned COBOL 3 times.

Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

[Clodfobble]

My brother-in-law did one of these. Don't know if it was Pathfinders specifically, but he paid a decent amount of money and got a very detailed report.

It did nothing for him, because it told him to go into completely unrealistic careers. Yes, he would LOVE to be a museum curator, and he has the skills to do it. Oh, except he doesn't have the college degrees required to get hired. And he knew when he signed up for this thing that he couldn't/wouldn't be going back to school for any significant period of time.

Bottom line is, I think they're useful when you still have all your college options ahead of you, but as a mid-life crisis it's a waste of money.

[wolf]

The career counselling center at my college let you do this kind of testing for free.

I have long since discarded the report, but I have a vague idea in the back of my head that my results did indeed indicate that I would do very well as a counsellor or perhaps an attorney. At the time I was a Geography Planning major with a heavy concentration in Computer Goofing Around and Programming. Given this, I'm sure that I said something on the order of "Counselling or law? How the hell is that related? What a useless test!"

Gee. Look at me now.