What job should I have free quiz: see sample results before you start

Most free quizzes on the first page of a search fall into one of three kinds. Each asks a different question, so each gives a different answer. Two quizzes that disagree about you are often both right, just about different things.

Interest quizzes: the tasks you would enjoy

An interest quiz shows you a long list of tasks, such as building cabinets or teaching a class, and asks how much you would like doing each one. Most are built on John Holland's six types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional.

Your highest scores form a code of two or three letters, such as SEA. The tool then looks for jobs whose code looks like yours.

The O*NET Interest Profiler is the best-known free version. It comes as a 60-question form and a 30-question mini form, and it was built so people can take it and read it on their own. Our guide to the Holland Code career test walks through each of the six types.

Personality quizzes: what job should I have based on my personality

A personality quiz asks about your habits with people and plans. Would you rather spend Saturday with a crowd or a book?

Do you like a plan made in advance, or one you make up as you go? Your answers become a type, often four letters in the style of the Myers-Briggs, and the quiz lists jobs that people of that type often hold.

These quizzes are good at giving you words for how you come across. They are weaker at naming jobs, because two people with the same type can want very different work.

And if you land near the middle on one of the scales, a different mood on a different day can flip that letter. If you want more on the four letters, we explain how far a Myers-Briggs career test can take you toward a job.

Forced-choice tests: how you work when you cannot have both

The third kind shows you two ways of working in each question and asks which is closer to you. For example: finish one task before you start the next, or keep three going at once.

Pigment works this way. Its questions cover how you decide, how you learn, how you deal with people and how you plan your hours. The result describes the kinds of roles where those habits help you, which is a different question from what you would enjoy.

The free what job should I have quiz with no sign-up

If you want a free career quiz with no sign-up, the O*NET tool is the safe pick, because a government agency runs it and it asks for no email. Many quizzes on commercial sites wait until you reach the last question, then hold the result back until you type in an email. If that happens, look for a small skip link.

If there is none, that quiz was a sign-up form all along. Also check whether the result page shows the full answer or a teaser with a paywall in front of the rest.

Here is what each kind of quiz hands back, using one made-up person. Call her Dana.

She is 31, sells event space for a hotel, and is tired of the late nights. One weekend she takes all three kinds of quiz.

Dana's interest quiz result

Dana's interest scores come back highest for Social and Enterprising, with Artistic third. The O*NET tool then asks how much training she has, or would be willing to get.

She picks the middle option. It lists jobs such as meeting planner, training specialist and recruiter, and each title links to that job's daily tasks, pay and outlook.

This is a quiz to find out what job you should have in the plainest sense. She gets job titles she can look up tonight. What it cannot tell her is why her current job, which also scores high on Social and Enterprising, leaves her worn out.

Dana's personality quiz result

Her personality quiz gives her four letters plus a few paragraphs about how she comes across: warm, quick to act, bored by routine. A list of careers follows, such as sales manager, teacher, nurse and actor.

The description feels right, and she sends it to two friends. The job list is wide, though, and nothing in it says why actor and nurse sit side by side.

Dana's forced-choice result

Her Pigment report opens with her strengths. Next come how her mind works, the types of work that suit her and her work styles.

Near the end, it names roles that fit her. In a report like Dana's, it might show that she does her best work in short bursts with people around her, and that work with no set finish time drains her.

That one finding explains the late nights better than the other two results put together. It also changes her search. She does not need to leave sales.

She needs a sales job with a calendar that ends. In her next interview, she can ask how often the team works past seven, and listen closely to the answer.

Getting your results back after the quiz

Most free interest and personality quizzes put the result right on the screen once you are done. Save it straight away, as a screenshot or a PDF, because free sites change and old result links stop working. Some quizzes only send the full result by email, which means you had to sign up to see it.

Whichever quiz you take, write down your top three job titles and one line on why each caught your eye. That note is worth more than the score. It is what you will check against the job ads, the pay and the people you talk to next.

Then run three quick checks on each title before you get attached to it:

• Find the job on O*NET OnLine, the free government job site, and read what people in it do each day. If more than half of it sounds dull, cross it off.
• Check the pay and the training it needs where you live. A job that needs four more years of school is a different plan from one you can start next spring.
• Find someone in the job and ask which part of it they would happily skip. One frank answer beats any score.

Whatever is still on the list after those checks is your shortlist. It is usually two or three jobs, and that is a good result.

The same quiz can do three different jobs, based on your stage of life when you take it. Here is how to use one at each stage.

Still in school or new to work

If you have little work history, a free interest quiz is the right first step. You do not yet know what a full week in an office or on a job site feels like, so a list of tasks you would enjoy is the best evidence you have.

Take the O*NET tool, pick three jobs from the list, and track down someone in each one to ask about it. A short chat with someone who does the work will teach you more than a second quiz.

A what job should I have quiz for career changers

Career changers know something students do not: what you are tired of. Use the quiz to find work that keeps the parts of your job you are good at and drops the parts you dread.

Dana did not need a new field. She needed the same skills on a different schedule.

Most good career changes look like that. They reuse what you already know, which is why they rarely mean going back to square one.

Thinking about a bigger move later in your working life? Our piece on a career change at 40 covers the money and timing side.

Taking the quiz when you already have a job

A quiz is still worth ten minutes when you are employed, but ask it a different question. You are not looking for a new job title so much as for which parts of the one you have to grow, and which to hand off.

Read your result next to your last month at work. Mark the tasks that match it and the ones that do not.

This is the group Pigment is built for. Most people who take it are well into their careers, often in senior roles, and many are not unhappy. They want to name something about their work they have felt for years, and a clear sense of what to aim for next.

Pick the quiz by the answer you want back. Here is the short order to try them in:

• If you have no job ideas yet, take the free O*NET Interest Profiler first. It gives you job titles you can look up today.
• If you want words for how you come across to other people, a personality quiz handles that well.
• If you already have a list of jobs and cannot choose between them, use a forced-choice test built around your working habits.

To see the paid options next to each other, our list of the best career aptitude tests sets them side by side.

When your quiz result might change

For most adults, interests change slowly, so a code you get at 35 will often look a lot like the one you get at 45. What changes more is your life around it: money, family, health and where you live.

Retake a quiz when one of those shifts, or every few years, and compare the two results. The parts that stay put are the ones to build on.

Getting help from a career counselor

Interest quizzes are a standard tool in career counseling. The O*NET profiler, for one, was written to help clients find work they would like, and many counselors use tools like it in a first session. If you want a person to read your result with you, the National Career Development Association is the professional body for career counselors in the U.S. A counselor can also catch what no quiz can, like a hidden reason you keep ruling a good job out.

Find out which job on your list would suit your workday

Free quizzes hand you a list. Pigment looks at how you work, so you can tell which job on that list suits your normal week.

See what Pigment's report covers