Career & Personality Tests

Career & Personality Tests

There are hundreds of various career and personality tests and assessments out there in the world.  While many of these are short and silly personality tests like “What your Favorite Music Says About You,” there are some very legitimate and helpful tests out there we can use to help learn more about ourselves and our optimal career paths.

Human psychology is a fascinating thing, and at the end of the day, we all have some distinct qualities, that once identified, can truly help us find work that suits us the best and makes us happy.  By matching our strengths and preferences to careers that reward our strengths and cater to our preferences, we narrow down the job search to only the most ideal career paths and work opportunities.

I have personally used career and personality tests to great benefit throughout my life, both free and paid tests, and found the results incredible.  Not only was I able to identify some of my optimal career paths (which for all extents and purposes turned out to be pretty spot on!), I learned a great deal about myself, too.

I learned more about how I think, how I behave, how I learn.  How I prefer to work and how I interact with others.  Where my strengths are, and more importantly, where my weaknesses are and how to improve them.  I learned how to embrace who I was and work towards becoming a better version of me.  This practice provided benefits to me throughout all facets of my life, including my career.

A list of all the different career and personality tests would be enormous.  Instead, I want to share some of my handpicked selections of what I consider to be the most useful and valuable tests* I have taken over the years.  These are in my opinion the cream of the crop that I would recommend to nearly everyone to take, if even only for the sake of learning more about yourself.  Do you have a favorite test or assessment?  Let me know in the comments!

*Keep in mind that the majority of these tests require your time and attention for the best results. 

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is one of the most well known and widely used personality assessments. It breaks down personality into 16 unique different “typings” within four main categories.

Favorite World – Are you outwardly or inwardly focused? (Introversion vs. Extraversion)
Information – How do you prefer to take in information? (Sensing vs. Intuition)
Decisions – How do you prefer to make decisions? (Thinking vs. Feeling)
Structure – How do you prefer to live your outer life? (Judging vs. Perceiving)

I’m not going to dive into all the science behind this theory, but rather I’m here to say I love this personality assessment and find it to be extremely valuable for both LIFE and WORK.  I also find it to be one of the MOST ACCURATE personality type assessments I’ve happened to come across and most people who have taken it agree!

I think it’s useful to find out what your Myers-Briggs personality type is if even only for the sake of curiosity. Once you’ve identified your personality type, you can start to dig into all the really exciting details.  Your strengths and weaknesses.  Your career and work preferences.  Ideal relationships and best tips for your love life.  How to best develop throughout life both professionally and personally.  Just a ton of really great information and insight if you are open to receiving it!

Curious what your Myers-Briggs Personality Type is?  There are HUNDREDS of tests and websites out there on the Internet that can help, both free and paid tests.  I’ve actually paid to have the official test done from the creators of the test itself and found it to be well worth the money.

Myers-Briggs Test Results Excerpt

My Personal MBTI Test Results

You can take the official test at MBTI ONLINE.  ($50)  In addition, you’ll find some more great information about the official Myers-Briggs assessment and methodology from The Myers & Briggs Foundation.

Looking for some free versions of the test along with LOADS of great information about each of the typing?  Below are my favorites!

1. WWW.16PERSONALITIES.COM
2. WWW.HUMANMETRICS.COM
3. OPENPSYCHOMETRICS.ORG

Lastly, I have to throw in one of my preferred sites just for getting more information about the typings themselves.  WWW.PERSONALITYPAGE.COM  This site used to offer a free test, but have since transitioned to paid only – which I would not recommend. (I only recommend paying for the official test via MBTI Online!)  The benefit of Personality Page is that you can still see all the descriptions and insights of each personality typing, and I find them to be very insightful and interesting!

Do you know your Myers-Briggs personality type?  Tell me about it in the comments!

STRONG Interest Inventory

The Strong Interest Inventory is a popular career assessment used widely in career and academic counseling and serves as a basis for many different career tests. It is based off of the Holland Codes, which are a theory of careers and vocational choice that were developed by the American Psychologist John L. Holland.  The foundation of the STRONG assessment is the Six Interest Codes (or General Occupational Themes), otherwise known as Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional.

Test takers will answer questions that measure their personal interests against the qualities and traits of different careers and work environments.  Once completing the test, a person can see which careers they are most interested in based on their answers.

STRONG Interest Inventory - My Test Results

Excerpt from my STRONG Interest Inventory Showing the 6 Main Themes

One important consideration of the STRONG Interest Inventory is that it typically only measures how much we prefer (or are interested in) certain types of work and not necessarily how good we may be at them. It really does not measure our innate skills or talents that may help us succeed in that particular career.  For example, we can express a love and interest for creativity and art, but if we can’t draw even a simple doodle, a career as an Illustrator might be out of the question!

This is why I feel it’s important to use this test in combination with other career or personality tests, a good one being the MBTI we talked about above.  The STRONG shows us where our interests lie, the Myers-Briggs shows us what we are good at.  Thankfully, there are already assessments available that incorporate both of these methodologies into a single test to give the most thorough results possible.  I also paid to have one of these done and found it to be a wonderful insight into my optimal career choices.

Finding this test is a bit harder than the MBTI.  The official test is owned by Consulting Psychologists Press (CPP) who tightly regulates the training, certification, and delivery of these assessments. Only certified practitioners/consultants can offer the assessment.  You can find a bit more details of both the Strong Interest Inventory and the Strong + MBTI Career Report on CPP’s website, but if you want to take the official test you’ll need to find a certified professional and buy the test through them.  (The CPP website won’t let you buy the assessment unless you’re certified!)

My recommendation would be to find a reputable career counselor/coach, or career services website and order the test through them. The price can range $50-$150+ depending on the provider and the specific assessment you’re taking. I personally paid $90 for a combination of both the STRONG and STRONG+MBTI assessments.  I ordered mine from Discover Your Personality (this specific test here) and was very satisfied!  Another site you might want to check out is Career Assessment Site.

O-Net Interest Profiler

I raved about the benefits of O-Net on my Job & Career Information page.  They also happen to have a pretty nifty career assessment tool, too!  AND IT’S FREE!!  It’s built off of principles of the STRONG Interest Inventory and helps highlight optimal career paths based on your strengths and main interests.  The great thing about this assessment is that once your ideal careers are identified, you can easily pull up all the supporting information about them via O-Net’s wonderful occupation database!

You can take the O-Net Assessment on their website via the following link: https://www.mynextmove.org/explore/ip

O-Net also has some additional Career Exploration Tools and Assessments available for free use on their Resource Center Page.

The Enneagram System

The Enneagram is a personality assessment that has grown in popularity over the last decade.  This is a personality typing assessment that is used primarily for insight on understanding ourselves and others, with a focus on self-awareness, self-understanding, and self-development.  That being said, you can apply the information gained to all parts of life, both professional and personal.

It uses nine interconnected personality typings as illustrated on the Enneagram Diagram via a series of connected lines and provides descriptions and insights into each personality typing.  Similar to the insights available for the MBTI, you can find insights into your career options, personal development, love life, relationships, and more with the Enneagram.

The Enneagram Diagram

Example of an Enneagram Diagram | Image Source: The Enneagram Institute

The actual origin of the Enneagram theory and methodology is actually a matter of dispute with traces of the system seen as far back as 4000 years ago. Currently, The Enneagram Institute has become a premier sponsor of the Enneagram, dedicated to further researching and developing this methodology.  They also provide a paid version of the Enneagram Assessment called the Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator Test (RHETI) for $12 that has become well known as one of the most popular Enneagram Tests.

While the Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator is considered the premier version of the Enneagram Assessment to take, there are actually MANY free versions out there, and some quite good!  Similar to how the Myers-Briggs has many free tests and awesome resources, the Enneagram is the same.  Here are some of my favorites!

1. WWW.9TYPES.COM
2. WWW.ECLECTICENERGIES.COM

Some Other Career and Personality Assessments

The Big Five Personality Test

A personality assessment that can measure how you work, relate to others, communicate most efficiently, and can ultimately help you find an optimal career path.  It measures five factors – Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

A free account sign-up is required to see the basic results of the test.  You also have the option to pay for a premium report of your full test results, but as always, I don’t find this necessary.  Utilizing the free test report is effective enough to get the info you need!  The company that offers this test, Truity, also offers several other interesting career and personality assessments on their website with the same basic free reports available for each of them.

Sokanu

Perhaps more fun than useful, Sokanu is not my preferred career assessment site by any means, but I love the design of it.   It shows real-time results for best career matches as you work your way through the assessments, and you can easily pull job descriptions and even job listings for those particular careers.  I dislike that many features and insights are locked behind a paid membership, but I still would recommend giving the free version a try!

Learning more about ourselves if always a wonderful thing.  I hope you can use some of these tests and assessments above to find the best path in your life to success and happiness!

Questions or thoughts about these recommendations?  Do you have a favorite career or personality test I haven’t mentioned?  Let me know about it in the comments!

Mr. Happy Work - Career and Personality Tests

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Daphne Gilpin
Daphne Gilpin
4 years ago

Thanks for explaining that the Strong Interest Inventory is used widely for career and academic counseling and is used as a basis for other career tests. Lately I’ve been feeling really unfulfilled and have been considering switching careers. I’m glad I read your article because now I can look for a service that offers a strong interest inventory.

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