In the introduction, it’s essential to define the scope of the career guidance test, its origin, and its real impact. You've seen titles like this before, right?

Do you want to know why these tests assume you’re even more gullible than you might think? Keep reading.

But hey, don’t be disappointed about not having a magic test to take! What you’re about to read will be far more revealing and interesting.

The idea here is for you to grasp the essence. So yes, as the late Jean-Pierre Coffe would say, “Tests are CRAP!”

And yet, they’re in every women’s magazine, self-help website, and psychology blog – and you love them. If you didn’t, they wouldn’t keep feeding them to you. Yes, they’re junk, but you still consume them.

Especially for career guidance.

But do you know why? Many people still use them for misguided reasons.

You need to understand the problem, the mechanism, and the deceit behind this approach to help your teenager make informed choices. Let’s dive in!

Our attraction to tests is rooted in at least three aspects of human psychology:

• The pleasure of the basic instinct to know more about ourselves.
• The natural tendency to identify with whatever is said, even without context. This is known as the Barnum effect.
• The third aspect is our tendency to put off or even delegate to others what we could or should do ourselves. In short, laziness – and for teenagers, this gets mixed with emotional rewards that feel much more satisfying than thinking about their future, since career questions can be anxiety-provoking.

This explains the appeal of astrology or fortune-telling.

Tests form the foundation of 95% of career guidance methods.

In 20 years, I’ve advised brilliant students who based their futures on these results and three pieces of advice.

The reality? It’s a well-oiled scam.

And here’s why, in brief:

1. These famous “career guidance tests”? They’re actually work personality tests (RIASEC, MBTI) repurposed from their original context. Though somewhat useful, they’ve gained exaggerated importance in the workplace and self-help world. Everyone falls for it and uncritically assumes it’s normal to think you need a certain personality type for a particular career. But no – personality doesn’t determine skills or interests.

2. While certain personality traits may be useful, they’re based on an outdated, narrow perspective:

   • Personality is supposedly “stable”
   • Aptitudes are “fixed”
   • Qualities for certain careers are “predetermined”

Who acts exactly the same at work as they do at home? No one.

The second hidden effect (look up “Kiss Cool effect” on YouTube for a fun break):

These tests (like all career guidance services) subtly shift your original question: You ask: “What job do I really want to do?” They answer: “What job is suited to you?”

Think about it – they can’t answer the first question!

It’s like introducing someone to you, then telling you after two hours of chatting that they’re your soulmate, when in reality you don’t feel any affinity with them and don’t particularly like them. It’s quite disorienting.

So why doesn’t it work?

Personality, skills, strengths, weaknesses, and test results have nothing to do with what we love or want.

How can a standardized test take into account:

• A student who’s passionate about 10 different fields
• The artist who’s bored in the traditional system
• The “scanner” who loves to constantly explore new horizons
• The visionary who dreams of a career that doesn’t even exist yet
• The gifted individual
• The multipotential

It’s not a question of personality, nor solely a question of skills!

Do you know the skills of a single parent? They can clean, organize, help with homework, give the kids a bath, and cook dinner simultaneously. And much more in multi-tasking mode. Do you think every single parent would want a career that leverages these skills?

I won’t elaborate here on the influence and threat to a student’s objectivity in reflection, but I invite you to think about it.

I think we’ve covered the topic of tests.

Career guidance is about making a choice. Choosing a career, a professional path.

Let’s turn this sad reality into a bit of fun: what’s been your experience with career tests? Have they really influenced your career choices? Share your story!

The numbers speak for themselves: 43% of young people choose a career path without a defined professional project. This concerning trend deserves our attention. As we’ve already discussed, choosing a path doesn’t mean choosing a profession.

Private companies and numerous so-called “experts” have taken over from school-based advisors, offering various academic and career guidance services often based solely on the “tests + assessment” model. It’s convenient for selecting service providers, as it can be implemented by practically anyone! Unfortunately for the students, things aren’t so rosy.

So, within the private guidance offering, and regardless of the names used, here’s what we have:

1. Orientation tests,
2. Orientation tests combined with assessments/counseling,
3. Career coaching.

Assessments and orientation counseling are essentially the same thing. They rely on different tests, whose origins and validation are unknown. However, the basis is always the same: workplace personality tests like RIASEC or MBTI.

Alarming Statistics (Cnesco 2018)

Based on a representative sample of 1,158 young people (60% guided by parents and teachers): • 37% reported receiving NO guidance at all • 54% gave up their aspirations after facing discouragement • 37% changed fields before completing their undergraduate degree

The Hidden Cost of Poor Guidance

Beyond financial aspects (guidance services, extra years of study), let’s not forget the psychological impact: loss of confidence, demotivation, and vocational drift.

Why Such a High Failure Rate?

The current system is mainly based on personality tests (RIASEC, MBTI) repurposed beyond their original intent. While practical, these tools cannot replace an in-depth reflection on one’s professional future.

The Three Major Pitfalls:

1. Personality tests that are unsuitable for career reflection
2. Automated assessments, lacking real personalization
3. Insufficiently qualified advisors

The story continues in Part 5. That’s where things start to get a bit fun!

If we compile the various sources of advice, influences, processes, and formats clearly defined (source: CNESCO - French gov agency), without considering the purpose, quality of the process, or outcome, here’s a list we get:

• Teachers’ advice
• Influence from parents, cousins, etc.
• Career fairs
• Following a friend’s choice
• The student’s main passion
• Choosing a prestigious school for its reputation
• A path that keeps the most doors open
• A career with the highest earning potential
• Free or paid career aptitude tests
• Career assessments
• Career counselors
• Career coaching
• And every other service or package marketed under different labels, generally aiming to provide "career guidance" (without any precise definition of the term), often based on invented methods or rehashed combinations of tests and assessments

How many counted 13? Some of you are slacking off—I’m keeping notes! Yes, there are indeed more than 12, because as someone who regularly monitors career guidance offerings for AFCSE, I can tell you that if we add in various programs and books found on Amazon, there are easily twenty or thirty variations circulating.

Don’t worry; we won’t review them all. We'll focus on the main types available as support options for when you feel lost and need a clearer sense of what each offers.

There’s no need to dig deeply into advice sources here since we have no real context or methodology to assess them. Public options like career counseling offices (CIOs) and school-based career counselors are complex and opaque, so we’ll focus quickly on the private sector, where we have concrete analysis to work with.

From this list, we focus on aptitude tests, assessments, career counseling, career coaching, and other packages. Career assessments and counseling are basically the same thing: they start with a series of tests whose origins and validity remain largely unknown. However, the foundational models are almost always the same: workplace personality tests like RIASEC or MBTI.

Other "invented" methods are too minor to dwell on, and fortunately, I don’t know them all. The goal here is to identify what might actually be useful for parents as they navigate these tools, processes, or methods to help guide their children thoughtfully!

It is important to continue exploring the topic and define the question. 

Integration is the act of placing someone into a job, filling a position, and responding to the needs of the market. It is "ready-to-work," often without considering the individual's deep aspirations. Society needs qualified workers in various fields. The school represents a system of guidance and teaches you to think only in terms of "paths" from an early age.

Orientation, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. It helps you explore, understand, and choose based on desires, values, passions, and life goals. It is a process that places the person at the center of their choice.

In simple terms? School prepares you for integration: to choose a path, guiding a young person somewhere. Reflection prepares you for orientation: to choose a profession. We will focus together on orientation.

The problem is that orientation is a vague and catch-all concept; amalgams are possible, and any process or method could be considered. Orientation is a "field" with methods that are not scientifically validated.

No standards, no norms, no rules. In short, we have the foundation for a complete lack of unity in the approach. (And yes, soon we will address tests based on RIASEC or MBTI.)

So why are there so few rigorous studies to assess their long-term impact, as there are in health, psychology, or education?

What could such studies reveal for the stakeholders in the educational and economic systems?

Are we swimming in a bath of inconsistencies and diametrically opposed objectives between individuals and society?

On one hand, political correctness and the concept of "Corporate Social Responsibility" (CSR) promote approaches that integrate well-being, development, and individual aspirations.

On the other hand, the labor market continuously demands more "suitable profiles" to fill targeted positions, from workers to managers. Can we build a sustainably productive society by encouraging everyone to find meaning in their work, ensuring they do what they love, while demanding adaptation only to economic needs?

Orientation means making a choice. And I imagine many working-class jobs that these professionals did not "choose." 

In this context, the current integration process, based on grades and early track choices, is contrary to modern aspirations and challenges. Do we need scientific studies to visualize this disconnect when we question the situation? No.

So, with all these methods and theories, how many ways of orienting someone actually exist?

Now, we have defined the forces at play: the school and businesses on one side, and the student on the other, their objectives, and the inconsistencies of this clash of ideals.

Now, for those primarily interested in "orienting" their child wisely, the next part, Part 3, will be coming soon.

If you think you're doing a great job, think again—the numbers prove otherwise. But I’ll be training you in a series of articles to change that.

As I mentioned yesterday, this is the first in a long series of articles aimed at helping parents challenge some common myths about career guidance, learn a few basics to grasp the bigger picture, and, ultimately, tackle practical steps you can take.

Why? Let’s put the situation into context.

Firstly, because if I tell you exactly what to do without you knowing why, that’s a problem. You need to be able to exercise critical thinking at every step.

Imagine if my theories were based on cosmic forces or the “Fourth Toltec Agreement” — wouldn’t it be important for you to know that right from the start?

Now let’s move to the second level, the current state of things.

According to the numbers, about 60% of you are involved in advising your child on their career path. It’s the kind of thing that seems easy to do yourself, that doesn’t look complicated, and doesn’t seem like it would have serious consequences…

Except, that’s not reality. That’s just what we tell ourselves because we think we’re doing the right thing and want to keep a certain "control" over the situation.

The numbers are telling: the consequences of parental guidance (which makes up about 60% of career advice sources) lead to 37% or more of students facing failure or needing to redirect their studies after high school. (Source: CNESCO / Government Services)

So, without a strategy or method, by managing your child’s career guidance yourself, you’re facing a 1 in 3 chance of creating:

• a problem,
• stress and worries,
• significant expenses when you consider the cost of a year of college (not to mention the emotional and relational toll on everyone involved).

In reality, when you dig into the data, it’s logical that the odds are actually even higher... a 1 in 2 chance wouldn’t surprise me.

My job isn’t to stigmatize or judge you, or to give you a pat on the back and say that as long as you’re doing it with good intentions, that’s all that matters.

No, my job is to help you understand and analyze your needs, to work with, rather than against, a parent’s natural desire to help their child, and to guide you in doing it as effectively as possible.

Don’t expect me to tell you what you want to hear. Because if we do that, those statistics aren’t going to budge. Together, we’ll think through a few key issues, which will give you the tools to make changes if you think they’re necessary.

Career guidance season is coming fast, but within a month, you’ll know a bit more about what’s involved.

I don’t know anything about finance, yet I’ve decided to advise my father on his investments.

Sounds crazy, right? Well, it’s not much different from you deciding to guide your child in their career choices.

Let’s fix that. I’ll learn finance (no, not really—I’d rather call in a professional), and you’re going to learn about career guidance.

The stage is set. Stay tuned.

I quote: "1.4 million young people aged 15 to 29 without jobs, not in education or training, 40,000 completely off the radar."

I’m not even going to discuss these numbers, do research, or write a thesis, but honestly, I can see solutions so simple that I’m going to step out of my usual restraint.

I was just reading the article in Femina: The Hikikomori Syndrome Affects 1.4 Million Young People in France.
Why is your teenager allowed to "avoid their development" (skipping meals, family life, and school)?

I’ll give it to you in a personal version: what I would do if I faced the problem with one of my kids:
We would break down the origin together; if they don’t want to talk, straight to the right psychologist, and if they’re resistant, then it’ll be a coach. (I’m a coach, but the role of a parent changes perception and effects...)

However, this coach will have to pass my competency screening; very few will make the cut. Finding one will be quite the task...
But such behavior is not trivial; the cause must be identified.

Then, measures to take at home:

• No phone, internet access, or video games in the room, limited use to 2 hours/day. Zero social media. Parental control app.
• Mandatory sports (solo or group, it doesn’t matter).
• Mandatory family outings and meals.
• Mandatory reading.
• Mandatory school attendance (unless it’s a heightened or residual problem influenced by the place, common sense must prevail...)

No, time won’t just do its work.

At this rate, their hikikomori should be quickly resolved in many cases. It doesn’t seem wise to let habits set in.
And no, after a week, we don’t give the phone back in the room...

There’s a guilt-inducing culture of positive parenting that, in some contexts, can’t stand against certain realities of the digital and school world.

Parents must create a framework and enforce limits. It’s a safeguard that must play its role.

For situations related to bullying or assaults, call on a professional at the first signs.

As if changing a life were a goal in itself. It leaves me with a deep sense of discomfort every time.
The client is the driving force behind their own transformation and the origin of its outcomes.
I often come across speeches about change and transformation, straight out of motivational speakers’ playbooks or management books, and influencers love them too.

So, I thought it was important to offer a clearer vision of how I view my work, even if those who know me or know how to dig can find a more detailed explanation.
While I have opinions on the subjects I master, I don’t have an opinion on my clients’ lives or desires. I don’t judge their choices.
There’s only one thing I care about: ensuring that their choices are well thought out and stem from a deep desire based on concrete elements.

I like the image of a surgeon who must maintain emotional distance; otherwise, they can’t operate or master their craft.
It’s the same for me. If I get too emotionally involved or start having opinions about what clients share, I can’t ask neutral, unbiased questions.
Super basic stuff.
Compartmentalizing is crucial. Many forget that.

In fact, many coaches believe that because they’re in a helping relationship and working with people, they must appear super empathetic and overly kind.
So, they adopt a calm, syrupy voice to amplify this impression, radiating reflection, serenity, and so on.

I don’t play a role. I’m naturally kind, rigorous, and detached.
I’m just an empath that offers an exploration based on the elements presented, guiding toward everything that seems relevant or touches the problem.

I’m a neutral problem-solving bridge.
But that doesn’t stop me from bringing elements of open-mindedness and analysis to enrich discussions and encourage questioning.
In fact, that’s also what makes me valuable.

I don’t transform anything. I fuel thought.

And that’s all you need.