About Us

Our Story

After 20 years in human resource management, Carl Nielson, the founder of Success Discoveries, had a itching desire to follow a passion he discovered in college.

He started his professional career in human capital management (HCM) but little did he know that his future was being defined when he was a senior undergraduate at Texas A&M University studying organizational psychology. While there he stumbled into the futuristic science of using talent insights (psychometrics) and data analytics to predict individual success. That was in 1978. There was a great deal of work to be done before career and job matching using assessments would become a reality.

In 1998, Carl's 20-year HR career collided with advancements in predictive talent assessments by a little assessment company called TTI Success Insights® (at the time the company name was Target Training International). Carl was itching to expand his world using the assessments that TTI was developing. So after a successful career in HCM (also known as human resource management), Carl launched his own consulting firm, The Nielson Group, in 2001 to address challenges (severe gaps) he saw in the total talent management lifecycle of corporations. A few years later, he founded Success Discoveries to address the needs of individuals. 

Today, through both The Nielson Group and Success Discoveries, Carl serves a wide range of clients from executives at the highest levels in global organizations to recent college graduates. While The Nielson Group® focuses on organizational development, team workshops, leadership development acceleration and administering assessments to identify and hire talent, Success Discoveries® was created to assist individuals who want to fulfill their potential and achieve a higher level of personal satisfaction and success in life and work. 

As if that weren't enough, in 2006, Carl also developed a career exploration and evaluation program for high school students appropriately called Career Coaching for Students™. Two years later he developed a version of the program for college students. Carl states, "Career Coaching for Students is my answer for what I started studying my senior year in college. We know a lot about the science of self (talent), and we also know how to define a job such that degrees of match to applicants can be ascertained. In The Nielson Group, we are doing that every day for small and large companies - essentially empowering HR organizations to consistently hire best-fit talent. If we can do that at the company level, why can't we use that insight and the assessment technology to help young people navigate the world of opportunity and make informed decisions? So I answered my own question by developing this program. Through this program, we are coaching high school and college students who are just beginning to think about career options. More than career counseling, this is a program for how to apply decision making skills to investigate, evaluate and choose a career direction that will lead to personal satisfaction, a persistent drive and career success." Today, Career Coaching for Students is the premier program for private and public high schools, individual families and university career counseling centers. 

"I've served clients in pretty much every industry and career field that you can think of. That is part of the attraction for what I do." Carl Nielson