to be disappointed that my son's Morrisby results say he should look at a career as an actuary.

[Caroline1852]

I want him to do something interesting. It is so hard not to roll round on the floor crying, no no no, nerdy nerdy nerdy. I wanted him to do something I might like. The other suggestions were equally scary: Microbiologist, Chemist, Bio-Scientist. Doctor was the only reasonable suggestion in my book and I wouldn't actually encourage him to do that as it is so stressful. I want him to have a nice life with hot chicks in pursuit. An actuary wtf.

I don't set much store by the Morisby tests. My son was told he would be best suited to be a solicitor, barrister or librarian because of his scores in the verbal reasoning parts of the test. I suppose the first two of these would attract more hot chicks in pursuit than the third (and I'm a librarian btw). Apparently large numbers of his friends got the same results and as far as I know, none of them are currently budding lawyers or librarians. DS2 now due for his test - methinks it is a waste of money.
Actuaries make loads of dosh, so the discerning hot chick should be in pursuit.

My son has just sent me an email from school saying one of his friends got hotel manager or policeman as one of his Morrisby career suggesstions. His father is a senior partner at a huge city law firm..... he will not be impressed .

Thanks for that Caroline my results fairly accurate@

"Your results suggest that Enterprising type work might suit your interests and preferences.

Enterprising types like persuading and influencing people as well as controlling, managing and selling to them. They like to take a lead and are often quite motivated and ambitious but may be impatient and can find rules and detail frustrating. They tend to favour roles such as salesperson, manager, estate agent, supervisor, lawyer, advertising or marketing executive and often like positions that have status and prestige.

Investigative
Your results suggest that Investigative type work might suit your interests and preferences.

Investigative types prefer thinking to action, they like working with information and may prefer working with ideas rather than with people. They tend to like jobs in which they can research, analyse and solve problems (or come up with new problems!) and prefer using their brains to their interpersonal skills. Typical roles that suit Investigative types are scientist, engineer, laboratory worker, computer programmer, pharmacist and vet.

Social
Your results suggest that Social type work might suit your interests and preferences.

Social types like roles that focus on helping, teaching or supporting others and very much prefer working with people to working with things or ideas. They tend to prefer working in teams and like to feel they are doing something useful. Typical roles for social types include teacher, counsellor, nurse, minister of religion, clinical psychologist or police officer.

lily - discerning? Did you mean Ukrainian?

I think wanting him to have a career he enjoys and a happy life is admirable and absolutely correct.

Mind you, lots of cash never hurts in achieveing the above ime!

WWW - mine is accurate too - artistic type. I am going to get my son to do it after school. I think acturary is wrong wrong wrong for him.

actuary

Remember that these tests only give an idea of what you are suited to at the time you take it. They don't take into account how your potential might chance with time.

I thought to be a librarian you had to be good at numbers to read all those long Dewy decimal classifications 233.456.12.324.2.

I reckon Dewy was an actuary before his time.

Will others do this bbc test and tell me if it is accurate for them too.
www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/careers/

A specialist library is unlikely (bit of a generalisation there) to use Dewey, I think. You do have to have an orderly mind, but then librarians see cataloguing and classification people the same way that the general public sees librarians...

The BBC link suggests this for me:

Social - Typical roles for social types include teacher, counsellor, nurse, minister of religion, clinical psychologist or police officer.

Conventional - Typical roles for Conventional types include the range of administrative and clerical roles (e.g. in the government and financial sectors) as well as accountancy, banking, bookkeeping, secretarial work and some inspecting roles.

Does give me quite a wide ranging typical jobs! LOL. I work in the social category.

Test came out accurately for me, I'm Investigative. which fits what I do and what I like doing.

I did one of these on-line careers tests once and it came up with aromatherapist which is so wrong for me, not least because I can't stand the smell of most of the oils. Good fun to do though and they do make you think of things you might not have thought of yourself.

I have a joint law and economics degree, trained to be an accountant (and married one) and I have several lawyer friends. As in all walks of life some of the accountants and lawyers I have met have been the nicest, funniest people you could wish to met and some of them are so boring you can understand where the stereotypes come from.

Really I think trying to decide on a career at 15 is too young. The best thing you can do is keep as many options open as possible and choose the courses that interest you most and which you will be best at.

Also it isn't a one chance thing. You can try something and decide it isn't for you and switch careers later if you want to, as I am doing at the moment.

I know a film library that uses Dewey (sorry for mis-spelling!). Is that specialist enough?

LOL at idea of solicitors and barristers with "hot chicks" running after them

It said Yes to Artistic and Investigative (agree with it there and I've had jobs in both areas) and to Social (far less convinced by that -- I suppose I do prefer the Artistic/Investigative jobs that have a measure of social contact, but I'd run screaming from most of its suggested Social careers). It said No to Realistic and Enterprising (and I definitely agree with it on both counts).

Caroline - I don't want to worry you but mine said actuary and I ended up as an accountant . I managed to escape, but it was touch and go for a while.

I am artistic and then enterprising then conventional. All the science stuff is at the bottom.
Is it possible that this 5 minute test is more accurate than Morrisby which takes six hours (2 x 3 hours).

Supermonkey - LOL. Do you not like accountancy either?

If the films are on a range of subjects and are being classified that way then it would need a generalist classification system and Dewey is as good as any other (OK, subject to the fact that entire books could be and probably have been written on the subject of whether Dewey is "as good as any other").

But a law library, say, or a library at a pharmaceutical company, would be far less likely to use Dewey (because they would only end up using a fraction of the classifications and everything would start with the same few numbers). There are more specialist classification systems (e.g. Moys for law and I'm sure there's an equivalent for pharmaceuticals) that would be more appropriate.

I did one of these once, and it came up as me being either a shepherd, an arbourist, or a gunmaker! I threw the book away....

I agree with posters who have said 15 is too young to decide on a career. Trouble is you need to choose the correct A levels for some things. No point doing English French History and Politics if you want to be an accountant. No point doing double maths, economics and chemistry if you want to do english. No point living doing art drama english and psychology if you want to be an actuary.