Back in the 1990s I took some sort of career counselling test at my high school, and again a few years later at my university. I remember that this consisted of a long questionnaire asking about my skills, interests, and personality. This questionnaire was handed in and my answers were compared against a database of answers from people working in hundreds of different careers. I got back a wonderfully comprehensive report on blue-headed paper showing various statistics and graphs, including ranked lists of careers which best matched my profile. I found this test to be very insightful and useful, and would like to recommend it to a family member. Unfortunately, I don’t have the report with me, and don’t remember the name of the test or the company that produces it.
Is my description detailed enough that someone could help me identify the test? I would recognize a scan of the report if I saw it.
Failing that, if someone here can personally vouch for a similar career test that can be taken online (for free or for a fee) I would be interested. There are a lot of websites out there peddling career advice and tests but it’s hard to know which of them are any good. I really liked the statistical approach of the test I took, which of course requires a lot of advance survey work on the part of the test producers.
However, officially the test has to be administered by a certified counselor and you won’t get your results without working with one (which is also what the Stanford page says).
The test company does offer an “iStartStrong” self-scoring test for individual test takers, but from the sample report it looks like a neutered version of the real deal. If this is the right test, maybe your family member can go to the career center of the nearest community college and ask if they can administer the test for her. Many colleges have access, but your family member might have to enroll in a 1-unit career counseling class or some such to be eligible.
Yes, it looks like I took one of the Strong tests. Trying to find anywhere that administers them online is maddening—almost all the information about the tests seems to be geared towards counsellors rather than test-takers. I found a couple pages that seem to be offering the test to individuals, but some issues with them give me pause. The first one is the personality.com site Reply gave, but that one is full of broken links and looks like their page design hasn’t been updated since 1997, so I’m wary about giving my money to them. The second one is Discover Your Personality.com, which looks like it has its act together but wants almost three times as much money ($80) for the test.
Having the family member attend a local career counsellor probably isn’t an option; I doubt any local counsellors would be offering an English-language test, which is what we need.
Sure. I’m talking to my college to take one myself just for fun. Thanks for the reminder
When I first took this, I was a computer science major. The test said I should become a plumber or farmer instead. I laughed it off as worthless.
Then a decade later, I ended up doing and enjoying a bit of home plumbing and now about a quarter of my friends are farmers or directly connected to farmers somehow, and I’ve seriously considered it myself. It’s like the test found a dormant career virus. Spooky.
