How Do You Know When It's Time To Go?

It's a long way from modeling clay to standardized tests, but it's impossible to discuss career counseling without some reference to testing. Just about every counselor uses tests in one form or another. Even counselors who pronounce themselves adamantly opposed to tests have some kind of standard written exercise they rely on.

Indeed, some of the most widely used career tests have achieved borderline pop-culture status. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator categorizes personality types along four dimensions: extrovert/introvert, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, judging/perceiving. More than 2.5 million people take the Myers-Briggs test each year, often in conjunction with the Strong Interest Inventory, which measures job preferences. The Strong is the mother of all standardized tests. It's been around since the 1920s, gets updated regularly, and has been taken by more than 30 million people. Other perennial favorites include the World of Work Inventory, the Sixteen PF Personal Career Development Profile (which links personality traits with different professions), and the FIRO-B (which evaluates interpersonal relationships).

Cliff Hakim, a well-known career-work consultant based in Boston, and the author of We Are All Self-Employed, worries that counselors often test for the wrong reason -- because everyone else does it. "There's a myth in the marketplace today that you have to be tested in order to better understand yourself," he says. "People who are reorganizing their career paths are overly tested, and many people in the career business don't know how to help them apply the information." Hakim says he occasionally refers clients to the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation, an aptitude testing firm with offices in 11 major cities.

Betsy Collard of the Career Action Center offers a level-headed compromise on the use of standardized tests. "These instruments are a quick way to get at some issues you can then discuss and reflect on," she says. "That's their value -- as a short cut."

How Do I Choose a Counselor?

The simple answer is that you choose a career counselor the same way you choose a doctor, a lawyer, or a personal financial adviser. It's some combination of credentials, referrals, unique skills -- and the all-important comfort factor. A few special rules do apply to career counseling. For example, never do business with a career counselor who expects big up-front fees. Any respectable counselor is prepared to charge on an hourly basis. No respectable counselor demands long-term contracts or guaranteed payments.

The issue of "credentials" is trickier in counseling than in medicine or the law. Career counseling is not a field where formal credentials count for much. The industry has adopted certification procedures, but certification measures only a counselor's education and expertise in psychological principles. It says nothing about real-world experience. As a result, many of the best counselors aren't certified, and many certified counselors aren't among the best. Lots of counselors do write books or give public seminars, however, and whether you like the advice they give in public might indicate how well you'd like working with them on your own career.

Ultimately you've got to find a counselor whose assessment styles and schedules match what you're comfortable with. That means a lot of legwork. As more people visit career counselors, it becomes easier to get advice from friends and colleagues. Most experts suggest you interview at least three counselors before you make a final choice. And if you choose to visit a counseling firm -- either a nonprofit organization or a national company -- be sure to interview several people in the office to find the individual counselor best-suited to you. It's not very helpful if you like your counseling organization but don't like your counselor.

Ann Hornaday has covered business and the arts for the "New York Times" and "Working Woman." She is the film critic at the "Austin American-Statesman."