The AchieveWorks Personality Assessment Sorts Preferences, Not Talent

The AchieveWorks Personality assessment is a 36-item questionnaire from Human eSources that sorts each student into a four-letter type drawn from the same 16 that Myers-Briggs uses. It was written for ninth grade through college, and most students meet it inside a school platform such as Naviance or Kuder Navigator, usually because a counselor assigned it.

Do What You Are, renamed

For years it went by another name, Do What You Are, and the vendor's own 2017 research report still labels its sample "DWYA." If a parent remembers taking the Do What You Are personality test in school, it is the one their teenager now takes, relabeled.

AchieveWorks Personality borrows Myers-Briggs' four scales, not its questions

The theory is shared. Both tests trace back to Carl Jung's 1921 book on psychological types, later developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs. Both score the same four pairs, the E/I, S/N, T/F and J/P scales explained further down this page. The questions are different. The official MBTI, in its Form M version, has 93 items and needs a certified practitioner to give it and explain the results. AchieveWorks Personality has 36 items, and any teacher, counselor, or HR staff member can run it. So you get a Myers-Briggs style type from a shorter test, with its own questions, written for teenagers. A later MBTI may give you the same four letters, or it may not.

AchieveWorks Personality vs the rest of the AchieveWorks suite

Personality is one of several AchieveWorks tests, and schools often hand them out as a set. Learning & Productivity looks at the sensory, setting, and mindset conditions in which you study best. Intelligences maps the kinds of thinking you rely on and ties them to school and career goals. Skills has you rate your current abilities and ties the strongest ones to careers. The vendor also lists an Aptitudes test. Of the set, Personality is the one about preference: which way you tend to lean, never how well you do anything. Keep that in mind when any of these reports ranks careers for you, because a ranking built on preference only tells you what might feel natural.

The AchieveWorks Personality assessment asks 36 questions spread across four preference pairs. Each one sketches a short, everyday situation with two ways of handling it, and you choose whichever is closer to what you would really do. Nothing is timed, and no answer is wrong. Your picks add up to a lean on each pair, and the stronger side of each pair becomes one letter of your code.

One step at the end surprises most students. When your scores on a pair land very close together, the test shows you short descriptions of both sides and asks which sounds more like you. Your choice settles that letter. It is a sensible fix: a score right at the middle is close to a coin toss, and your own judgment is as good a tie-breaker as any.

AchieveWorks Personality runs 36 items in 15 to 20 minutes

Sources disagree on the time, and both are close to right. Human eSources says the assessment typically takes 20 minutes. Many school guides for Naviance say about 15 minutes for 36 scenarios. A student who trusts a first instinct finishes near 15; one who rereads every option lands near 20. Naviance also lets you stop partway and save your progress, so one sitting is not required.

Taking AchieveWorks Personality in Naviance or Kuder Navigator

The test reaches students through their school, so your school has to switch it on. There is no public version for individuals to buy; it comes only through a school or college license. For AchieveWorks Personality in Naviance, open Naviance Student and go to the Self-Discovery section. It lists every assessment your school has made available, and from there you can start, continue, retake, or view results. In Kuder Navigator, log in, choose Take Assessments from the left menu, click Additional Assessments, then select Start next to AchieveWorks Personality. If it is missing from either list, your school has not added it, and your counselor is the person to ask. Kuder lists it for grades 9 to 12, while the vendor says it was written for ninth grade through college, which is why some college portals carry it too.

Your AchieveWorks Personality results start with four letters. Each letter is half of a pair, and together they name one of 16 types. The letters describe what feels natural to you. They are not grades, and no type ranks above another.

What does the four-letter personality type code mean?

• E or I is about where your attention goes. E (Extraversion) means you work ideas out by talking and being around people. I (Introversion) means you think first and do your best work alone or in small groups.
• S or N is about what information you trust. S (Sensing) leans on facts, details, and what has worked before. N (Intuition) leans on patterns, ideas, and what could be.
• T or F is about how you decide. T (Thinking) weighs logic and consistent rules. F (Feeling) weighs the people involved and what matters to them.
• J or P is about the way you run your days. J (Judging) likes plans, lists, and finishing early. P (Perceiving) likes open options and working in bursts close to the deadline.

The graph in your report is as important as the letters. A long bar means a clear lean. A short bar means you land near the center, and that letter could easily have come out the other way. If one of your bars is short, read the descriptions for both sides and keep whichever sounds more like you on an ordinary school day. For a longer walk through each letter, try what the Myers-Briggs letters mean, and if a letter feels wrong, read how people end up mistyped.

Some types turn up far more often than others. A rare type sounds exciting, but it only means fewer students answered the way you did. Your talent sits outside the four letters entirely.

What is in the AchieveWorks Personality report?

Human eSources lists four parts in every report:

• Type code: your four letters.
• Type description: a plain-English portrait of how your type tends to work and learn.
• Score graph: one bar per pair, showing how strong each lean is.
• Majors and careers: a list linked to your type.

The career list works by matching. People of your type are said to enjoy certain kinds of work, so jobs with that kind of work make the list. That makes it a good place to browse, and it explains why the list runs long and can feel random. The list knows which way you lean. It knows nothing about your grades, your skills, or what you have already tried and liked. Treat each job on it as something to look into, then use the Occupational Outlook Handbook to check what the work involves, what it pays, and how much training it takes.

The 2017 study behind the Do What You Are test

Anyone asking how accurate the Do What You Are test is has one main public study to go on: a 2017 report from Human eSources covering 35,478 students aged 14 to 20, from 41 states and six countries. Two numbers matter most. The first is coefficient alpha, which checks whether the items on one scale point the same way. The four scales scored between 0.78 and 0.87, and three of the four cleared 0.80, the usual line for good. The second is fit: 61.4 percent of students called their type description very accurate and 31.3 percent mostly accurate, 93 percent in all. For a 36-item test, those are solid numbers. The cards below show where they stop.

The AchieveWorks Personality assessment is written for students from ninth grade through college, and it works best with a counselor in the room. Its best use is self-awareness: shared words for why one student loves group projects and another dreads them, or why one plans a paper weeks ahead and another writes it the night before. Counselors use it to open conversations about study habits, teamwork, and which classes to try next. Parents can use it the same way, to talk with their teenager about study habits and group work before any talk of a future job.

Its weakest use is picking a single career. A 15-year-old's preferences are still settling, the test was checked for consistency and self-rated fit rather than for career outcomes, and a type describes comfort. Skill never enters the scoring. If your school assigned it alongside an interest survey, the pair tells you more than either alone. Our pages on the Naviance career test and the Kuder career interests assessment cover those.

It is also the wrong tool once you are an adult weighing a career change. It was normed on people aged 14 to 20, and at 35 your preferences come with a work history that a student questionnaire never asks about. For a wider list of options at the high school stage, try our ranking of high school career tests.

A common result goes like this. You finish the AchieveWorks Personality assessment, read a type description that sounds a lot like you, then scroll through dozens of majors and careers that all seem plausible. You feel understood and no closer to a decision. That is the test doing its job. It tells you which way you lean. A decision needs two more things it never asks about: which working conditions keep you steady once school gives way to a full-time schedule, and where your strengths sit.

Why AchieveWorks Personality can't pick your career by itself

People with your type succeed in very different jobs, and people in any one job come in many types. Preference nudges which work feels comfortable. Skill, interest, training, and the place you work decide most of the rest. So use your type to narrow what to explore, then test the shortlist against real experience: a class, a club, a summer job, a talk with a person already doing that job. The free My Next Move site lets you search careers by interest and see what each one involves day to day.

Retaking AchieveWorks Personality is up to your school's account

Human eSources does not publish a retake rule. In Naviance, the Self-Discovery page shows a retake option for assessments your school has switched on, and a counselor can help if it is locked. A retake makes sense if you rushed, picked the answers you thought a teacher would like, or had a short bar or two on your graph. Expect a letter to change now and then, most often on a close scale.

If you are in college or a few years into working and still stuck between options, a test built for that stage can help. Pigment was designed for adults who already have a few jobs behind them; most people who take it are well over a decade into their careers. Its test asks around 120 questions. Each one is forced-choice, and your answers place you along a scale on each trait. The report leads with the question a type report leaves blank: the working conditions that keep you going, such as pace, structure, and how much you work alone. It then covers your strengths, including a section called What You Would Be Good At, and Career Alignment turns those patterns into suggested roles. For a student still in high school, AchieveWorks and a counselor are the right start. Pigment is the next read once you have a little work to measure against.

Go Beyond Your AchieveWorks Personality Type

Your letters describe your working preferences. The Pigment report covers what your type skips: the working conditions that sustain you, then your strengths. $79.99.

See your strengths with Pigment