Books or online tests for finding strengths and career paths

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Does anyone have any good resources they could recommend?

I work in social services, for a non-profit, but my degree is in English, not social work. If I want to have better job security or earn more, I'd have to either go back to school for a Master's in Social Work or change fields. I've known this for a while, but some state budget cuts and restructuring earlier this year at my company sort of lit a fire under me. I'm not necessarily looking to change jobs in the near future, but would like to feel like I have more options and better security should I get laid off.

The problem is that, while I really enjoy some aspects of what I do, I'm aware that I'm in a high-stress field that is very demanding in the area of social skills. So, as someone with Asperger's, I do sometimes worry about burning out from it. I'm just not sure that I'm well-suited to it enough to invest time, energy and money in grad school for this path.

While I'm a decent writer, my best skill is in proofreading and copyediting. (I hope to God there aren't typos in this post after I just said that, lol!) I did that type of work for while after college, but publishing is highly competitive and, in my experience, didn't offer much job security, either, thanks to the constant threat of mergers and layoffs. Plus, many companies tend to prefer to use freelancers now and freelancing doesn't offer benefits or the security I'm after. So, although I enjoyed it and was good at it, I don't think going back to editing or proofing is a viable option.

Another thing to mention is that I cannot go through my state Office of Vocational Rehab for career testing because the company I work for contracts as a provider with OVR and OVR may very well just refer me back to our Vocational Services Department. Especially since I'm not even job-hunting at the moment, just trying to do some long-range planning, I really need to be a lot more discreet about what I'm doing than that!

So, I need to DIY resources and tests, in order to re-assess myself and think 'outside the box' a bit here. Any pointers would be appreciated!

I did try a book that seemed to do a pretty good job of sizing up aptitudes as well as pitfalls:

http://www.amazon.com/Test-Your-Own-Job ... 731&sr=8-1

This got me to an accounting degree when none of the tests I was taking at junior college were helping at all. My thought is this - you may want to use something like this book to find a second major, if it can point you to a major that both has better job security and can be enhanced by having a major in English you'll hopefully be in a much better position.

Thanks, I will take a look at this. (I have to admit, though, that recalling that you're now considering getting out of accounting does make me a little nervous about it's effectiveness, lol).

Still, accounting's a better fit for me than most of what's out there and, given, anything that the Myers Briggs and RAISEC threw back at me. That might be the untold story, I pent five or six years agonizing over what I'd do. Accounting still can work for me providing its not collections (where I'm at now), if I do end up going for international it would really be an extension of pursuit in that regard.

I still think this could help you out though. Of course if someone else has something that could help both of us big I'll be sure to jump on it as well.

I worked for a publishing company and think I'd just seen the ad on Monster or a similar website. Some of the 'work from home' jobs that get advertised probably are scams. And, I guess when someone is freelancing, rather than working for an established company, they'd have to be even more cautious about possible scams.

Here's something else as well, and its really something to consider weaving in. You've picked up some definite skill sets with your current job, particularly in the area of 503(c) administration. If you can find something that weaves that into what you want to do where you can use your grant-writing experience and where going back to school would just add paper creds to what you already know, it might be worth a shot.