One of the benefits of homeschooling my children is that we can study things they are interested in doing when they grow up. They are all unique and have talents they can develop to use in their adult life. My oldest son just recently went back to college to become an aerospace engineer so that really opened up conversations with my three younger children about career choices. I had all three of them take the Student Assessment from Good Life Careers to show them some career choices that might interest them.

The Student Assessment looks at the student's personality, interest, aptitudes and values by using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI) by CPP, Inc. The MBTI uses 93 questions to measure individual preferences and psychological types. It measures the strength of each particular trait you have resulting in a four-letter code. This four-letter code refers to how you focus your energy, take in information, make decisions, and deal with the outside world.

Strong Interest Inventory® was developed by John L. Holland. It is the description of six distinct career personalities and has been used by the US Department of Labor since early 1990s. Good Life Careers uses the student’s interests to match them to the six career personalities. The six themes are realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional.

My 11-year-old took the Student Assessment For Young Students, my two other daughters ages 14 and 15 and myself completed the Student Assessment For High School and College Students. There were four sections on both tests and it took us about 30-40 minutes to complete. Once we were finished we received access to our reports within a few hours.

The reports are divided into nine sections and included our Myers-Briggs Personality Type, an Interest Profile, Growth and Development, Learning Style, Work Values, Aptitudes, Group Interaction Style, Leadership Style, and our Career Exploration Themes. The report explains our four letter personality types and lists some examples of how they show up in our lives. It goes on to list our occupational interests, our strengths and weaknesses, examples of our learning styles, our work values, and a list of aptitudes. The assessment uses all of these traits to offer a list of general career fields and how to stay motivated in your career choice. Lastly we each had a list of careers that may appeal to us or we may enjoy. Careers requiring a college degree are automatically generated and you can also request a list of career choices that require a high school diploma or trade school.  

Each assessment is reviewed by a neuropsychologist. We received the results of our assessments very quickly, that afternoon on the tests taken in the morning and the following morning for the ones taken later in the day. We also received an email telling me our reports were ready and if we needed any further assistance or questions they would be very happy to help. 

I printed our reports and discussed each section with my daughters. We looked over the career matches and talked about what each career could entail. There were careers listed that my girls had talked about before and there were some listed that they hadn't ever considered. We also discussed how their personalities, likes and dislikes would go along with those career choices.

Whether they choose a career that was suggested or not using the Good Life Student Assessment has inspired my girls to look at their strengths and weaknesses and how they would carry over into their adult life activities and careers.

-Product review by Lisa McClanahan, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, December, 2016