Interest assessment test?

January 18, 2011 1:02 PM

When I used to do testing for the State Employment service we had what we called a general "interests inventory" test ("Would you rather collect butterflies or draw a picture of a building?") We would give it to young people to help determine what areas of work they might like to pursue. Is there a current, free online test like that? My nephew wants to try to begin to set his son on a career path (freshman in high school) but the young man doesn't seem interested in anything special. Thanks.
posted by Tullyogallaghan to education (4 answers total)

We have a great one in the high school I work in called Choices which unfortunately doesn't have a free online version and is tough to Google.. They may have it available in the guidance office at his school. There are a few online that I poked around in, none of which were awesome.

1. http://www.careerpath.com/ - asks a bit about whether you'd like this job or that one and at the end [after you give them your email but it can be a fake one] sticks you in one of four color groups and explains what sorts of jobs are good for those people. My color: yellow, organization-minded, etc.

2. http://www.careersworkout.loucoll.ac.uk/quiz/start.asp is a nice simple series of questions for people interested in sports jobs that asks you simple questions and gives you a few career options at the end. It's in the UK. Finding something like this that was more general would be great. My job: coaching or development.

3. http://www.similarminds.com/career.html - short series of questions, gives you your job type at the end, no personal information asked for. My job: Executive

4. http://www.careerxact.com/ - had a great inventory/assessment thing, but ultimately they want your personal information to refer you to the database of jobs that they have. It's a long skills assessment but I'm not entirely sure they even use much of it. Plus you have to register. My job: customer service rep for NIKE.

That's basically it for the list of tests here. I skipped ones that cost money or had up-front uber-registration hurdles.
posted by jessamyn at 1:45 PM on January 18, 2011

I'm a layperson, but my belief was that a commonly used method these days was to determine your Myers-Briggs personality type and then use that to see a list of jobs to which you might be suited. Here's one site that will do what you describe; I'm sure there are others, possibly better.
posted by troywestfield at 1:47 PM on January 18, 2011

My partner and I were just talking about this the other night. We both did these types of tests when we were in grade 7 or so, in the late 80s.

I make websites and he's a systems administrator. Remember that question, what do you want to be when you grow up? Our future careers didn't even exist yet when we got asked that in grade 7. I'll bet that your nephew's son is probably in the same boat. The world is changing so fast.

I suspect personality trait indicators would be much more flexible and useful. I'm an INTJ, and I'm a certain kind of website-maker because of it. It also affected the kind of student I was, and the kind of friend I am, and the kinds of things I'm curious about and the ways I try to find out about those things, and on and on.
posted by heatherann at 5:50 PM on January 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thanks very much for the information. I'll forward it on to his dad.
posted by Tullyogallaghan at 6:31 PM on January 18, 2011