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| Keirsey Temperament Sorter This 70-question assessment is related to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Cost: Free for mini-report | Personality | Easy to use, but a little time consuming. Registration required. | Results, in the form of partial Myers-Briggs Types, give descriptions of the types. Several levels of more detailed report available: Career Temperament Report, $19.95; Classic Temperament Report, $14.95; Learning Styles Temperament Report, $14.95; Temperament Discovery Report, $4.95. | |
| Careerlink Inventory A 36-question assessment based on the premise that your self-estimates are a valid basis for career decision-making. Cost: Free | Interests, aptitudes, temperaments, physical capacities, preferred working conditions, and desired length of time preparing for employment. | Easy | Tells which career clusters fit you and provides details about each cluster. | |
| MAPP (Motivational Appraisal of Personal Potential) Career Analysis This test has 71 triads of three statements. You must select the statement you MOST agree with and the statement you LEAST agree with, leaving one blank. Cost: Free for very minimal report; detailed reports start at $29.95 | Interest in Job Contents, Temperament for the Job, Aptitude for the Job, People, Things, Data, Reasoning, Mathematical Capacity, Language Capacity. | Registration required; fairly easy to use, but requires some thought. | Free results are essentially a teaser to encourage purchase of paid results; however, free MAPP Match features that compares your results with 5 chosen jobs is helpful. | |
| Mazemaster This 6-part assessment is geared to high-school and college students. Cost: Free | Interests, Skills, and Values. | Fairly easy; takes about 30 minutes. Registration required. Registration is set up for Canadians, but others can use it. | Rather than interpretive results, the report is a compilation of the Interests, Skills, and Values, the test-taker has chosen, along with Goals, Next Steps, and Action Plan. Links provide additional information on careers suggested by the Interest results. | |
| Carolyn Kalil's Personality Assessment (True Colors) True Colors is a personality system that has been around since 1979 and is modeled as a graphical presentation of both Keirsey's Temperament and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The assessment asks you to choose one of two ways to finish 36 statements. The results can help you define your skills and talents -- and possibly direct you to various career paths. Cost: Free | Personality | Easy. Takes just a few minutes. | Gives Web-based results in terms of one of four colors, explained with a one-paragraph description of your type. (You can also read about your other colors.) More detailed results are supplied on the next Web page after entering your email address, and ebooks ($4.95) and other publications are available for sale to offer even more insight. | |
| Career Interest Profiler from testingroom.com This 180-question assessment is a measure of occupational and career interests. Cost: Free | Six fundamental categories of interests that capture most characteristics of people. | Very easy interface. Takes about 15 minutes. Registration required. | Three-paragraph report; more complete results available for $14.95. Free sample of full results available. | |
| Career Interest Test from LiveCareer This 100-question assessment identifies your career interests and then tells you what jobs are out there for you. Free for basic results. Site also offers Career Satisfaction Test, Resume Test, and Start a Business Test. | Interests, personality, values, knowledge, skills, and abilities. | Easy. Takes 25 minutes. You can stop and go back to the test later. You also have the opportunity to review your answers before submitting them. | Free 14-page overview report shows interestsm personality, and workplace fit. Deluxe Report available for $15. Free samples of both regular and deluxe reports are available. | |
| Career Values Scale from testingroom.com This 88-question assessment looks at values to see how they relate to the test-taker's world of work and help to identify areas of career satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Cost: Free | Ten work values: service orientation, team orientation, influence, creativity, independence, excitement, personal development, financial rewards, security, and prestige. | Very easy interface; questions seem somewhat repetitious. Takes about 10-20 mins. Registration required. | Two-paragraph report; more complete results available for $14.95. Free sample of full results available. | |
| Career Zone An extremely bare-bones, 3-question assessment. Cost: Free | Combinations of six broad interest areas known as RIASEC codes. | Ultra fast and easy | Very bare bones, but gives lists of occupations for each type. Test-takers will need to do more research on the RIASEC types. | |
| Personality Index from testingroom.com This 90-question assessment examines key personality features that influence your approach to tasks, interaction with people, and the activities you enjoy. Cost: Free | 17 traits: ambition, initiative, flexibility, energy, leadership, concern for others, teamwork, outgoing, democratic, innovation, analytic thinking, persistence, dependability, attention to detail, rule-following, self-control, and stress tolerance. | Very easy interface; questions seem somewhat repetitious. Takes about 10-20 mins. Registration required. | Two-paragraph report describes two key features of your personal style; full report with an additional 20 traits available for $14.95. Free sample of full results available. | |
| The Insight Game Quick, fun visual take on the Myers-Briggs. Free for basic report. | Myers-Briggs Type | Very easy, fast, and fun, with the ability to flip and place "cards" that result in revealing one's type. Takes less than 10 mins. | About one page about your Myers-Briggs type. More in-depth career information and extensive loving relationship profiles are available for only $6.95, or $12.95 for the Comprehensive Personality Profile. Not useful for those who already know their Myers-Briggs type since letter codes are revealed on the "cards." | (fun, but basic results are not comprehensive about career) |
| Work Preference Inventory This 24-question forced-choice assessment that tells your work style. Based on the premise that the process of values clarification is very important in career planning. Cost: Free | Values | Quick and easy; interactivity depends on having a JavaScript-enabled browser | Results are in a chart with very brief descriptions of work style; tests with more detailed results available for a fee. | |
Given that a number of assessments in this review base their tests on common foundations, it's useful to know how these are defined:
Birkman Method: A 298-question personality assessment and a series of related report sets that facilitate team building, executive coaching leadership development, career counseling and interpersonal conflict resolution. The Birkman Method¨ combines motivational, behavioral and interest evaluation into one single assessment, which provides a multi-dimensional and comprehensive analysis, thus reducing the need for multiple assessments.
Holland Codes: Personality types developed by psychologist John L. Holland as part of his theory of career choice. Holland mapped these types into a hexagon which he then broke down into the RIASEC job environments (see RIASEC).
Myers-Briggs: Based on typological theories originated by Carl Jung, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions. The original developers of the personality inventory were Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers. The 16 different types are usually referred to by an abbreviation of four letters. One of each of the following pairs constitutes one's four-letter type: Extraversion or Introversion, Sensing or iNtuition, Thinking or Feeling, and Judging or Perceiving.
RIASEC: Acronym for the career-related personality types developed by psychologist John L. Holland. The letters in RIASEC stand for:
Realistic - practical, physical, hands-on, tool-oriented
Investigative - analytical, intellectual, scientific, explorative
Artistic - creative, original, independent, chaotic
Social - cooperative, supporting, helping, healing/nurturing
Enterprising - competitive environments, leadership, persuading
Conventional - detail-oriented, organizing, clerical
Ratings -- ratings are based strictly on my own experiences, students and others:
1 = marginally useful
2 = somewhat useful
3 = very useful
4 = extremely useful
Please e-mail the college counselor to report any discrepancies between the descriptions above and your own experience with these assessments.
