recommendations for skills assessment, how to get diff job

Post Reply New Topic

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for recommendations for skills assessment. I have a hard time assessing myself or articulating what I am good at, I have trouble with judgement. I know I am intelligent and know many things, but have difficulty being able to identity what it is exactly I am good at or what I can do without short-changing myself. It's like my mind is always blank and I frequently answer "I don't know". But if a question is asked of me that I have information for, I can answer it.

Is there some other approach than typical skills assessment tests? Because I have trouble judging what I like to do in such an exact way. I can say I like to do something, but then not really like it.

I don't have the formal education or experience for what I am interested in, it is all just things I have read because of interest.

I also have trouble just knowing what is out there in the world to do, like - where is all of this work going on? Where are people during the day, and what are they doing? I try to visualize it, but I guess I have the issue of not seeing what isn't right in front of me.

I would ideally like to create my own thing to make income from, but haven't been successful at that yet, so I guess I need to look for a job.

Thank you : )

Since you seem to be so unfocused, you might as well just take any unskilled job you can get right now. Have you taken any aptitude/skills tests. The local state employment office can help you with that. Also, you really need to sit down with a paper and pen, and make a list of your own as to "What do I like to do?", and "What do I know how to do?" If you ever figure any of that out, then you can start thinking of working for yourself. There are all sorts of self employment jobs out there, far too many for me to list. Your local libraries will have books on that, for people who are interested in working for themselves, so go have a look. Even these books won't list everything, but they have more than I can pull out of my own head.

Now get on with it.

If you cannot honestly answer those sort of questions about yourself then there is no assessment in the world that will do you a bit of good. Take any job you can find and see how things work out. For better or worse you will likely learn something new about yourself.


I went to on a 60k a year job with nothing more then a high school diploma. Education is good but experience is better. If you are not sure just begin doing before spending large sums of money on a degree that will not give you a job you will want to do. I am 40 years old and I am only now considering going after a degree myself. Largely because the phone industry that existed 20 years ago is pretty much dead and gone and my old career field gas been replaced by remote provisioning and automated computers. For me its time for a serious change in direction because my only chance to continue what I did before would be to move to a city with a much higher cost of living and a population larger then I can stand.



You sound young (and sheltered) here. The only answer to this is to just get out there and explore. You read up on things that interest you so I would begin there. Everything in this world no matter what has some sort of work related to it even if its just the work of researching and writing it all down for others to read. Dig deeper into those topics that interest you and see how they affect and work in real life. For me my my job path began 20 years ago when I joined the army not having any idea what I wanted to do. I scored high on the ASVAB and other tests. High enough to end up with a job dealing with security, communications and electronics repair. This started me down the path of telecommunications industry working on everything from fiber transport lines to huge phone switches that cover multiple floors of large buildings. Back in high school I have no idea what I wanted to do and if I had not taken that leap into something new I would likely still be working 3 jobs (taco bell, phar-mor, and IGA) at $3 per hour to make ends meet.
Even consider volunteering somewhere doing anything and see how things work out. You might learn what you hate but even that is good information.


When I was laid off from Qwest and decided corporate life was not for me I went into my own business. This is not something to take lightly but if you can find your place in the self-employed world it is by far the most rewarding. It might be best to have a steady alternate income to help you along to self sufficiency especially when you see unclear what sort of things you like to do. Just keep in mind the main thing about being self-employed. Expect to work 100 hours a week making about less then minimum wage. You will be doing this for a while and only those who are dedicated will succeed. So make sure you really enjoy the work because the lowest paying employer is always yourself when starting a new venture.