What do you want to be when you grow up? What are you going to do with your life? Those are questions that we begin asking children when they are very small and continue asking through high school and into college. When I look back, I see that my answers changed from
"I want to be a ballerina" (age 4) to
"I want to be the first lady President" (age 14). I started college as a Special Education and Child Psychology double major, thought I'd go to law school and enter politics, and ended with a degree in Political Science and American Studies. I serve as Preschool, Children's, and Middle School Minister at my church. There was a lot of emphasis placed early on about what I thought I wanted to do, yet my career path went an entirely different way. I am of the mindset that we add quite a bit of unnecessary pressure to our kids when we try and force them to decide as teenagers what they want to do for the rest of their life. Instead, I think we need to help them find a career that best fits their personalities. I was interested to try out the
CashCrunch Careers career assessment program from
CashCrunch Games and see what it was all about.
CashCrunch Careers is an online survey designed to help students choose a college and career path that is the best fit for their individual personality. Acknowledging that we work for over half of our life, creator Paul Vasey wanted to find a way to help students find something that they enjoy doing so that they could excel and be happy. Utilizing research from the US Department of Labor in order to provide relevant job selections, he designed this survey in conjunction with recruitment tools often used in the corporate world. For purposes of review, my high school Senior and I both completed the survey.
The survey itself consists of 75 word pairings. You choose which of the two words in each question best describes you right now. (I like that you are reminded to choose the word that describes you NOW and not the word that you hope describes you ONE DAY.) At first glance, the word pairings do not seem to go together. You choose the word/words that best reflect your personality. For example, do you select
Daring or
people-oriented?
Active or
Handle stress well?
Likes People or
Trustworthy?
We found that it was best to answer quickly -- based on your first impression of the word pairings. We were also very intentional to choose words for ourselves without asking for the opinions of others. Otherwise, we were subject to overthink and we didn't want to skew the results of our surveys.
I liked that subtle helps were offered in reference to the context of the words being used in the pairings. My daughter quickly realized that you could hover over the word/words for a definition and that helped her to narrow down her choices.
The entire survey took less than 15 minutes to complete, but the wealth of information that resulted from it was impressive. Immediately upon completion, an analysis of our core skills set was provided and a report was available to show us how to match our personalities to a career.
The
CashCrunch Career Report (4-pages) includes information on your Career Work Style, your Motivators and De-motivators, your Career Attributes, and your Career Match. This is a valuable resource and can be accessed forever. After you study your work style, motivators, and attributes, you can spend time searching through all of the different roles in individual careers. There are videos to aid you in best utilizing the survey to its fullest potential and Mr. Vasey continues to upload helps and information about the educational requirements for each.
I was not at all sure if the word pairings survey would truly be able to read my personality with the way the words appeared, but through a series of word shuffling, I think it was pretty spot-on for both me and my daughter. Her responses indicated that she thrives in team environments and attracks people with her high-spirited, energetic approach to work. Although she does not see that about herself, I very much do. My responses indicated that I actively and energetically strive to achieve ambitious goals and tend not to be satisfied until the task at hand is completed to my high standards. Yep. Guilty as charged.
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Our Motivator and De-motivator responses were very different -- she's a by-the-book, immediate effects kind of girl and I'm a work-at-your-own-pace, let's see the long-term picture leader -- but we are both motivated by independence and freedom, flexible work schedules, and the opportunity to travel. Don't stick us in a room without a phone though or feel the need to closely supervise our every move.
We both ranked highly independent and leadership-oriented. My daughter shows a deep concern for others with high integrity and I show a high tolerance for stress with a cooperative spirit. These are the things that will be most helpful in determing career path -- and also offer encouragement in everyday life.
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After you have studied all of these things, your best fit jobs are identified. There are over 20 career categories provided and each one highlights between 7 (Information Technology) and 39 (Architecture and Construction) different job role possibilities. This offers a nice overview of vocations outside of the typically thought of jobs and will help a student plan for the future. What is most impressive here is that each career category is linked to a description of the tasks and activities that make up the job, the projected growth rate of the career, the colleges where you can pursue the necessary educational requirements/degree to serve in that area, and a video which gives you an overall idea of the tasks, activities, abilities, work values and skills needed for the job. This is a neat way for students to engage in career counseling right from home.
You will find more information about
CashCrunch Careers when you visit the following Social Media websites:
In addition to
CashCrunch Careers,
CashCrunch Games offers a board game for ages 5 -12 (
CashCrunch Junior) and an online game for high school and college students (
CashCrunch 101). These teach the value of money and money management skills. They also offer a personal finance course (
CashCrunch Bite Size). Check them out.
I was given the opportunity to review the CashCrunch Careers assessment from CashCrunch Games as a member of the Homeschool Review Crew. You can check out the Crew Review and see what other members of the Homeschool Review Crew thought of these assessments by clicking on the graphic below.
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