Am I in the right business? I'm pretty sure that I am, but I decided to take the Work Values Assessment on www.myplan.com mainly because it was free.
My highest scoring items were Acheivement and Independence. Sounds like I'm on the right track.
People who score high in the Achievement cluster should look for jobs that let them use their best abilities. It's also important that they look for work where they can see the results of their efforts directly. They should explore jobs where they can get a strong feeling of accomplishment.
People who score high in the Independence cluster should look for jobs where they are left to do things on own initiative. These people also value creativity and the freedom to work alone. They should explore work where they can make decisions on their own.
That sounds good, but how does that translate into the real world? The next level of analysis allowed me to compare my needs and values with real careers. Naturally, I selected Creative Writing and it gave me a graphical comparison of each category. It wasn't a line by line match up, but it was prety close.
Finally, it gives me a list of 900 jobs ranked by my best matches. I had a 74% match for the following jobs:
Operations Research Analysts
Public Relations Specialists
Creative Writers
Copy Writers
So, we've got a match. I should be a Creative Writer. And look at the income I have to look forward to:
U.S. National Averages
Writers and authors
Average Annual Salary $53,850
Average Hourly Wage $25.89
Total Employment 43,020