Best career for you quiz: sample questions from 6 popular tests

From the outside, every career quiz looks the same: some questions, a result, a few job titles. One thing you can check yourself sets them apart, which is the kind of question each one asks. The question decides what a quiz can learn about you, and so how specific your result can be.

Sample questions from six popular career tests

We wrote each sample below in the style of that test. None of them is copied from the test itself.

• O*NET Interest Profiler (free, a U.S. Labor Department tool; 60 questions, about 10 to 15 minutes). You see an activity, such as “repair a bicycle,” and mark how much you’d enjoy doing it, on a scale from dislike to like. You get a score for each of six interest areas and a list of jobs to explore.
• Strong Interest Inventory (paid, usually about $40 to $60 through a counselor; 291 items, about 35 to 40 minutes). You see a job, a school subject or a hobby, such as “newspaper reporter,” and mark how much you like or dislike it. You get a Holland code and a long report on fields where people who share your likes tend to work.
• 16Personalities (free, built on the Myers-Briggs idea; 60 statements, about 10 to 12 minutes). You see a statement, such as “you usually have a backup plan for your backup plan,” and mark how much you agree on a seven-step scale. You get a four-letter type and a list of careers linked to it.
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (paid, about $60 for the official online version; 93 items, about 15 to 25 minutes). Some items show two words, such as “planned” and “open,” and ask which one appeals to you more. You get one of 16 types.
• CliftonStrengths (about $25 for your top five themes, from Gallup; 177 pairs, about 35 minutes). You see two statements, such as “I close out one job before I pick up another” and “I like having several things on the go,” and mark which one fits you, and how strongly, with a short timer on each pair. You get your top talent themes. Gallup says the tool is not built to give career direction.
• DISC (many versions, about $20 to $50; often 24 to 28 word groups, about 10 to 15 minutes). In many versions you see a group of words, such as “bold, careful, lively, calm,” and pick the one most like you and the one least like you. You get a style that describes how you communicate.

Look at what each format can catch. Rating an activity tells a quiz what you enjoy.

Agreeing with a statement tells it how you see yourself that day. Choosing between statements makes you rank things you might have rated the same, and a ranking says more about which habit comes first for you.

Pigment’s test uses the choosing kind on every question. Start Pigment’s career test if that is the kind you want to try.

How steady is a quiz result?

You can trust a good one to be consistent, and that is the first part of accuracy. A consistent test gives you close to the same result on a second try weeks later. Psychologists check every test for reliability and validity, which means whether it gives steady results and whether it tests what it promises to test.

Two warning signs are easy to spot. If a quiz is very short, one careless answer can change your result. If it only asks what you like, it cannot tell you whether you would be good at the work, or how the days in that job would feel.

What a good quiz does for your decision

A good quiz cuts the field down. You start with every job there is and end with a short list to research, plus a reason for each entry. The reason is the useful part.

“Accountant” means little on its own. “Accountant, because you like to finish what you start and you notice small errors” gives you something to hold up against a real job post.

No quiz makes the choice for you. It tells you where to spend your next few hours of research.

Pigment’s version is a full career test, built for a real career decision. Every question is forced-choice, and each item weighs one work habit against another.

Three methods behind every career test, and the one Pigment uses

Almost every career test rests on one of three ideas. Interest tests, like the Holland code tools, match what you like to people in jobs who like the same things.

Type tests, like the Myers-Briggs, put you in one of a fixed set of boxes. Trait tests score many separate qualities, each on its own scale, and then look at how they combine in you.

Pigment’s career test belongs to the third group. It scores many separate work traits, such as pace, planning and the way you handle a deadline. Each trait sits on its own scale, with no cut-off line in the middle, so there is no box to fall out of.

The test draws on decades of published research about how well people match their workplace, and about what makes a job wear people out or hold their interest.

Why choosing between two options beats rating yourself on a scale

A rating scale looks at each statement alone, so it records how much you agree, not what you put first. A forced choice puts two statements in competition. Over many items, the answers add up to an order, and that order is what a career decision needs.

Format alone does not fix this, though. The official Myers-Briggs also uses some forced-choice items, and many people still get a different type when they take it again.

That happens because a type test draws a hard line down the middle of each scale. Pigment pairs forced-choice questions with scores placed along a scale, with no boxes, so the result holds up on a second try.

Most free quizzes end with a label and a list of job titles. Pigment’s report goes past the label.

It covers your strengths, with ideas for using each one more, and a plain account of how your mind works. It shows which of five work types and four working styles you lean toward, and how to work with people who do things differently from you.

Then it gets to careers. One section lists suggested roles, with the traits that led to each.

Another covers what you would be good at, and a last section flags which of your traits are uncommon. For example, a person whose results lean toward the Analyst pattern, careful and focused on the root cause, may see roles built around solving complex problems, with the reason spelled out in terms of how they decide.

The report also names the tasks likely to cost you the most energy. That section helps most if you are skilled at your field and still finish the week spent.

Why results change between sittings

Results move for three ordinary reasons. Your mood changes how you rate yourself. Short tests have too few questions to cancel out one careless answer.

And type tests draw a hard line through each scale, so anyone near the middle can land on either side. A trait test has no line to cross.

A good quiz describes you the same way twice and points you at work worth checking. None can guarantee you will enjoy a job. For what each kind of test can and cannot show, our guide to what each type of career test shows goes through them one by one.

The right quiz depends on where you are. Pigment’s career test asks about habits at work, so it reads best once you have some work behind you. It still helps at other stages, if you know what you want from it.

If you are changing careers

If you are changing careers, you already understand a great deal about yourself from work. What you need is a test that puts it into words and shows which parts carry over. Look for one with questions about your habits at work as well as your likes, because your next field will use your habits more than your hobbies.

That is how people change direction without starting from zero. Our guide on how to know what career is best for you lays out the steps for each starting point, and if a layoff or a rut sent you here, see how to pick a quiz for a layoff, rut or switch.

If you are in college

Students have less work history to draw on, so an interest test makes sense as a first step. The My Next Move Interest Profiler is free and gives you six interest scores and job ideas sorted by how much training each one needs. Its user guide explains how the scores are built.

Pigment’s test works for students too. In a small pilot at Purdue University with about 90 students, Pigment came first among four well-known tests for how well it described each student’s personal qualities.

If you are looking for a job right now

A quiz will not find you openings, but it can help you explain your strengths in an interview, and your preferred way of working, in specific terms. Once you have a short list, look up each job’s daily tasks, skills and pay on O*NET OnLine before you apply.

Career quiz or personality test: what is the real difference?

A personality test describes you. A career quiz is meant to point you at work. Many popular tests are personality tests with a list of careers added at the end, which is why the list can feel generic: it was written for everyone who shares your type.

A career personality test is useful when you want to understand yourself or your team. When the question is which job to go after, you need a test built around work.

Which career quiz should you take first?

Choose based on what you want to find out. If you have no idea what interests you, start with a free career test such as the Interest Profiler, or read our free quiz guide on liking work versus being good at it.

If you are settled on a field but something about the work feels off, take a test that measures how you work. To see more options sorted by cost and what each measures, see our roundup of tests to find out what career is best for you.

A roundup of ten quizzes still leaves you to do the comparing. The samples above do it in a minute: choose the format that asks about the work you will do, not only the work you like.

See the careers your answers point to

You have seen how six tests ask. Pigment’s career test scores how you work, then suggests roles that fit those traits.

Start Pigment’s career test