How'd You Score THAT Gig?:

A Guide to the Coolest Jobs [and How to Get Them]

by Alexandra Levit

Job Search and Career Assessment have become a big business in the late 20^th and the 21st centuries. Fueled in part by Welfare to Work reforms beginning in the late 1990s and initiatives meant to find all Americans well paying jobs and to lower the unemployment rate state by state and city by city, the Federal government began ramping up its programs of individualized assessment and job coaching to higher levels nationwide. This effort extended to persons receiving disability payments from Social Security - SSI and SSDI, permitting some of these individuals to work part-time up to within $1.00 of their monthly payments in order to ensure that Social Security would be there, should their conditions become too limiting to allow further work. Efforts extended to Workers Compensation recipients as well, often requiring them to be enrolled in and attending GED classes in order to continue receiving payments, should they not have high school diplomas.

These were Welfare to Work measures applied to other assistance groups. During the Reagan Presidential Administration, 1000s were cut off from disability payments and notified to find work or start their own businesses. A few were able to do so, but a long list of seriously limited people tackled the ponderous procedures of reapplying for their benefits. During the Clinton and GW Bush Administrations, SSI/SSDI recipients were called in twice yearly for reassessment with the intent of cutting more people form the assistance rolls. Far less than during the Reagan years, many people were removed form the rolls, a few found long-term gainful employment and the rest reapplied for benefits. Not many really benefited from career assessment and guided job search.

The Private Sector (non-government companies) redesigned all of these programs into components usable for all levels of workers, even offering services as executive search and placement as well as to anyone entering an employment agency. In addition, personal coaches hung out their shingles to advertise services that would propel the worker along a higher paying career pathway in order to ensure wealth and fulfillment to their clients. The marketplace was flooded with job search and self-assessment materials in bookstores and on the Internet. Not all of them were very good, but a few were excellent.

I have administered 1000s of career assessments and used many types of work-related, psychological, and educational assessment instruments. Many of the newer surveys purport to reveal the test taker's Dream Job or Dream Career. This is the one for which the worker is best suited. It should provide high job satisfaction while best meeting the needs and goals of the employer for which the test taker works. In real life, it is often difficult to find a career or a job that fulfills both models.

The current trend in career assessment is to dig out a worker's true calling. This is begun with paper and pencil tests like the Keirsey Temperament Test, easily available online, or the Meyers-Briggs, other Internet-based quizzes, and the effective card-sorting games. The card sorts are good for determining career interests, motivating values, individual burnout factors, and some skill sets. Multiple Intelligences quizzes and short learning styles questionnaires are also often useful.

Some online measures reveal a "work personality" that aligns with a movie character from Star Trek® or Star Wars® or other successful films. No matter what type of assessment an individual uses, they may not be correct. In fact, in taking all of the tests personally, I have found the majority to be 50% or less correct. The card sorts seem to be the most correct - over 80%. The "work personality determination" can almost seem to be casting horoscopes, while Young Adult Professionals (YAPS) prefer something fresher and more pertinent.

How'd You Score that Gig is the best career assessment/job search book for young professionals that I have seen thus far in the 21^st century.

Author Alexandra Levit performed a survey among young people ages 20-39, using the data to determine a set of basic Work Passions that seem to have a wider applicability than the "work personalities." Levit had composed a short survey that is easily administered and self-scored. It can be re-taken periodically to reveal changes occurring throughout the lifespan. The results were extremely accurate when I used the instrument for myself.

The Levit Career Passions:

Adventurer

Creator

Data Head

Entrepreneur

Investigator

Networker

Nurturer

Users of this survey of pasions may find higher scores among a "highest three categories" or even more. My highest scores were similar and included 4 out of the 7 Passions. The 7 categories offer a range of very lucrative career fields attached to them and the author lists and describes 60 Most Wanted Careers and how to attain them. To supplement this and make it more realistic and pertinent, she includes interviews with actual workers that have been successful.

I read the book and took the quiz myself.

The results I received when I took this Career Passions Survey resulted in similar highest scores in Adventurer, Creator, Data Head, and Investigator. Interestingly, I think these are areas I do really enjoy and do well in pursuing. Other tests have told me that I should be a Mapmaker or Stellar Cartographer (mapmaking in the sky ... which sounds like a Sons of the Pioneers recording...). There is not a big market for making maps or charting stars right now, so I am pleased with Levit's recommendations:

Just some of the careers that fit this 4-prionged profile include Conservationist, Documentary Photographer, Travel Journalist; Author, Landscape Architect, Screenwriter, Chef, any type of Designer; Computational Linguist, Environmental Engineer, Meteorologist; Art Curator, Criminologist, Archaeologist, Forensics Scientist, Futurist, Historian, and jobs in psychology and other sciences. Interviews with people in these professions tell me how to enter those fields of work.

Some of the exciting jobs that are particularly best for the other three Career Passions include Bed and Breakfast Innkeeper, Event Planner, Health Club Owner, Inventor; Book Editor, Congressional Staffer, Lobbyist, Pro Sports Manager, Speech Writer; Doula, Elementary Teacher, Life Coach, Physical Therapist, Social Service jobs, and Zoologist.

This is a lot of good information from a quiz that is only 20 QUESTIONS long!

The book is smart, fast and easy to read, and very engaging. It's fun and applicable as well as effective.

I recommend that every high school and college grad receive this book as a gift. And, while this book looks like it is geared toward the 18-40 set, anyone can use it to illuminate their true work passions and plan a successful and fulfilling first, second, or even third career.