Show HN: Career Finder – A quiz that gives you career recommendations

http://shobia.com/career-finder

by harvestmoon • 12 years ago

43 36 12 years ago

shobia.com

st8ic• 12 years ago

When I finished the last question it just sent me back to the homepage.

cristianocd• 12 years ago

Happened a couple of times here too, just hit back and go on.

notduncansmith• 12 years ago

Well, the two that stuck out to me were "economist" (something I'm interested in but haven't devoted much time to studying), and software developer, which I happily do for a living. Pretty accurate.

prescindor2• 12 years ago

Do carry on in software development.

But save enough of your income to interest your economist side.

One morning, you will wake up and realize you made over 50% of your income before you tumbled out of bed!

Carried to an (eminently achievable) extreme, this is called "fuck-you money". Some achieve it suddenly, but many gradually.

bennyg2• 12 years ago

Scored as an "Artistic Thinker", but there are no artistic endeavors listed! Here's a quote from the synopsis of my test: "You might enjoy coming up with original music lyrics - or with new mathematical theories." However there aren't any musical or mathematical kind of jobs listed - half of them have to do with psychology/psychiatry and another quarter have to deal with tutoring/therapy. About the closest thing to what I actually do for a living, software engineering, is Industrial Engineer - listed at the very bottom. I think you need a little more diversity in the career choices you pull especially for something qualitative like "artistic thinker."

mattgreenrocks• 12 years ago

Got categorized as that as well. The suggested careers are pretty good in my case, many of them are ones I'd been interested in reading about, particularly mathematicians, physicists, and medical research.

It took me a long time to realize that art and engineering are not as divergent as mainstream culture would have you believe, particularly when you get into the research side. Every interesting field gets a bit weird as you get into it.

bennyg2• 12 years ago

Yeah I know art and engineering are fairly intertwined - it was really all of the medical choices that showed up. I'm interested in psychology but not so much that half of the career choices shown should be that haha.

hkmurakami• 12 years ago

Practical thinker - engineer/technologist

;)

sliverstorm• 12 years ago

Hands-on engineer though, note. Civil Engineering, Materials Science/Engineering, that sort of thing.

Distinct from many (most?) readers on HN.

mctx• 12 years ago

I got practical thinker too, and I'm a Mechatronic Engineer (I like building things)

ansimionescu• 12 years ago

Your results show you are a problem solving thinker

This means you like work where your main focus is on dealing with problems that you need to think about and find solutions for. You might enjoy being a computer programmer or a mathematician.

dopamean• 12 years ago

Got the same thing. Pretty close.

kaitai• 12 years ago

I am a mathematician, but it suggests that as a practical realist I might want to be a construction engineer. Or a medical scientist, except epidemiologist. Or a physicist. I kind of do string theory, but I don't think that makes me a practical realist.

kentosi• 12 years ago

Mine said the exact same thing except for the last part. "You might enjoy being a doctor or a legislator" ...

EricaJoy• 12 years ago

I got the exact same results. I suppose this means I'm in the right field.

Ingon• 12 years ago

I came out as thinking helper. With the promise that I could enjoy becoming doctor. What a coincidence - I dream of becoming doctor :)

quaffapint2• 12 years ago

Thinking helper - But I have to say there's not a job there I would enjoy. I think I prefer a more mixing of being a programmer creating stuff that helps people.

patrickdavey• 12 years ago

Me too - I must say though, I've found myself being more and more interested in Psychology etc. as time has gone by. Diplomat also sounds interesting.

Still, I definitely identify with being a programmer who creates stuff that helps people!.

siganakis• 12 years ago

This is somewhat similar to something I have been working on at, but which is focussed more on finding the right "next move" within the technology industry.

Essentially you rank your skills based around enjoyment and experience and it tells you what types of roles might be of interest to you.

https://www.msgooroo.com/career/skills-editor

quaffapint2• 12 years ago

Would like to be able to play with it before I have to join anything.

alixaxel• 12 years ago

How many possible career outcomes does this quiz generate?

carrotleads• 12 years ago

Your results show you are a business interactor

This means you like interacting with other people, especially when it is in a professional work setting like in a company.

Been a coder, and now run a startup and look to have a BizDev guy join me so that I can focus more on the startup.

and yes I do like Biz interactions and talking to folks and poring over data bore me while I like to solve problems.

infectoid• 12 years ago

"Your results show you are a practical people person."

Fairly correct.

"This means you like hands-on work that is focused on dealing with other people and helping them out. On the job, you probably want to combine being social with being productive."

I could agree with this. I really enjoy helping new people out with programming problems in the office.

"You might like being a occupational therapist or an athletic trainer."

This doesn't feel right :(

Not really into the medical profession at all. Been a webdev since the late 90's. Learned and re-learned several times over. Never really shined, just got shit done. Lost the love many years ago but still love the tech and problem solving. Been looking for some kind of horizontal career move but am currently stumped.

I am not the kind of person that wants a start up but I think it would be great to help someone achieve something important and amazing (i.e. working for Elon Musk is way more attractive to me than being Elon Musk). I'd take a pay cut for that feeling again. To have the sense that my work has meaning.

phektus• 12 years ago

I got recommended into the medical fields. Interesting, as I've always dreamed of being a doctor when I was young.

quotient• 12 years ago

Practical Thinker --- Engineer or Technologist. That's pretty appropriate. I've been told I would be an engineer since age two or so. For a while, I thought I was going to go into the humanities/arts. I'm now an entrepreneur and (applied) mathematician.

tzs• 12 years ago

It would help to understand the results if it also gave a list of careers you should avoid, and a list of careers that are in the middle.

fogleman• 12 years ago

"Oh geez, no." was my thinking for most of those questions.

AndrewKemendo• 12 years ago

I feel like an idiot whenever I take things like these. I never have a straightforward answer for anything. I always think: "I want to like doing [x] but I am bad at it so I guess I should choose like...but what if they mean would I choose doing that over something I am good at? In that case it should be a dislike, or maybe. Shit! I don't know!"

or when given this one:

A sick person has some difficulty walking and needs to go up a flight of stairs. You help them do so.

"I think that would make me feel good to help someone, so I'll choose like. Although is that what I would want to do for a job? If so then I would definitely dislike that job. I guess I would maybe like to help someone up the stairs."

Gahh!

diN0bot• 12 years ago

it sounds frustrating to answer these questions with "should's" in your mind. it's more straight forward and ultimately satisfying to go with what your gut/heart/self really wants. i'm not saying that is simple to figure out, just more worthwhile and pleasant.

chrismorgan• 12 years ago

Our in-depth psychological assessment shows that you might like a career as a cheese taster, scuba diver or professional TV show watcher.

Nicely done! :-)

s3nnyy• 12 years ago

I majored in CS but was always intersted in psychology. "Your results show you are a focused people person

This means you enjoy dealing with other people while also being able to work hard and get things done. A good career fit likely means a good amount of social interaction that has a goal and purpose, like being a nurse or a genetic counselor.

Psychiatrists Healthcare Social Workers Registered Nurses Recreational Therapists Audiologists"

priyesh07• 12 years ago

Your results show you are a problem solving thinker

You might enjoy being a computer programmer or a mathematician. :D :)

prescindor2• 12 years ago

Hah! I'm a big loser!

    Our in-depth psychological assessment shows that you
    might like a career as a cheese taster, scuba diver
    or professional TV show watcher.

To be fair, it does list some alternatives. E.g., I could be a political scientist. But, then, I'd get fired and be downvoted into oblivion.

I could be a user experience designer or an online reputation manager [watch it!], but that sounds far more like a supplier than a job description.

I suppose I could be an epidemiologist. But I'm lazy, so that would only work for really interesting diseases. Gotta stay motivated, don't you know!

I could be an animal scientist or trainer. Maybe that would work if I could be as sensitive as another recently posted author (octopuses). But I seriously doubt it, I being a slacker!

I could be a cartoonist, except I can't draw worth shit. I could be a lyricist or a poet or writer. But that takes talent. Which I don't have.

I could be stonemason or a plasterer or a stucco mason. But, did I mention, I'm a slacker!

Baker. Getting warm. Bread being baked does smell nice. Yeah, that's promising. Except I'm too rich.

subir• 12 years ago

'Practical thinker' it is.

Fairly accurate. I've been a coder and entrepreneur. I love solving problems and building stuff.

soganess• 12 years ago

"artistic thinker", what is that suppose to even mean?

That said, I'll bit, I'd love to know about more of the inner workings of the match. How many possible outcomes are there? How does the scoring working, are they questions weighted evenly? Are the jobs preset for a specific match, or are they dynamically selected based on the questions? How were the jobs profiled to meet the aforementioned criteria? What is psychological basis for the questions and their formations... give me the dets yo.

devonkim• 12 years ago

I've been finding these tests are like a lot of "personality" tests where they're highly dependent upon mood and such, except for this it's moreso a function of "what do you like to do these days?" or rather "what would you rather be doing?" For some people this is pretty stable and for others it changes constantly. The ones that try to match your personality to your career may do a tad better but it's still only so accurate I'd presume. I do like how this isn't really a personality test at all though and just asks what you like to do. Most career recommenders are glorified Myers-Brigg topology tests I've found.

Got business thinker when I've been mostly a software engineer. What's interesting is that on the suggestions list they have technical and/or likely software centered careers like physicist, VC, quants, and actuary but nobody actually writing software or systems as their primary job. Not a single software developer type career listed but industrial engineer and geneticist are higher recommendations with economist at the top? I dunno if the results are telling me that I probably wouldn't enjoy writing code primarily or if this type of thinker shouldn't be writing code.

But really, none of this means you'd be any good at it. Maybe there needs to be more of an assessment of different skills instead of the usual self reporting to contrast with these types of tests.

Show HN: Career Finder – A quiz that gives you career recommendations

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