Very few of us had any real idea of what we wanted to do as a career while growing up. Professional career counselors were an unknown breed and so it was sheer accident or just fate that most of us stumbled into our careers. The right career choice often is the difference between a mid-life crisis and a motivated life. A wise man's words should be the apt definition for the right kind of career - the supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.

So true! But how do we find out our attitude and aptitude for the right career? Deep thinking or godsend mentors are two ways. Some professional guidance is always well advised. But while you are waiting for all of these, why not take the help of some free career aptitude tests, tools and quizzes to decipher your personality traits and see what you would like to do with the next 30-40 years of your life?

Take them as fun tools or take them seriously"¦they just might reveal some things about the job you are meant to do.

TestQ [No Longer Available]

This is a nicely designed website that's all about career quizzes of all kinds. Some quizzes are plain fun (What's your perfect excuse?) while some tune into aspects of your hidden personality (the Classic IQ Test). An array of quizzes tests you on everything from finding out what you should major in to the fitness of your resume. The site is part of the well known Monster.com network.

Career Path

For some career guidance, start off with finding out what the right career is for you. If you are already into the rat race, measure your level of satisfaction on the job with the Career Vision Job Satisfaction Quiz. Some of the tests like the Color Career Indicator might give you sample reports and not the full one, but even the free sample results give an insight.

Career InfoNet

The site is sponsored by the U.S Department of Labor and has tools which help both the student and the established professional. One of the useful tools is the Skills Profiler which helps you take stock of your skills and connect them to the right kind of jobs or further training. The video section also gives you a peek into the day to day life of a variety of professions.

LiveCareer

The free online career aptitude test takes you through 100 questions that you can tick off in 15 minutes. All questions have to be rated with a choice of what you like the most and the least. The results can tell you your fitness for a particular type of career. The career service gives you the results in both graphical and text based forms. The site says that there are nearly 36,729 possible careers in North America and 284 academic majors you can pick from.

Monster's Career Tools

The career tools on this international job site aren't in the quiz form but they help with insights into any career or job you might want to explore. Career Snapshots gives you direct information on what each job entails and important data on things like rate of industry growth, expected size of industry, number of similar profiles on the site etc. Career Benchmarking shows where you stand with regards to aspects like job benefits, work-life balance, and salary etc. Career Mapping is the beta-tool you might be immediately interested in to see how your career path is panning out.

The above five are just some of the tools which can help you define yourself and define the years you are going to spend in a job you want to enjoy. If you want to really know yourself, we can throw a barrage of resources towards you.

Top 8 Websites With Cool Free Personality Traits Tests - by Mahendra

Armed with some self knowledge, you can dive into the job hunt with these -

5 Steps To Successfully Find Your Next Job Online - by Tina

5 Salary Comparison Tools For Your Next Job Search - by Saikat

5 Video Channels For Learning Basic Job Interview Skills - by Saikat

Have you made a deliberate effort to decide on your career or have you surrendered to your gut feeling? Let us know your take on these career guiding resources.

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