Career Exploration Resources

A note about career exploration and career tests… Career tests (or assessments) are not meant to tell you “what you are going to do.” Rather, they are a way of focusing and clarifying what is important to you as a person and what you are looking for in a job. Do not take these tests too seriously.

Assessments that are available online usually have a large margin of error and have not necessarily been validated or tested for reliability. If you are unsure what you want to do and don’t know how to answer the question, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” take some of these free online instruments and take your results with you when you see a career counselor.

General Career Websites

  • Career One Stop - A site sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor that offers career resources and workforce information to job seekers, students and businesses
  • Vocational Information Center - A compilation of worksheets, handouts, templates and workbooks
  • Assessment.com - The MAPP career test, designed to help you find your "true calling"
  • O*Net - Contains hundreds of standardized and occupation-specific descriptions; also contains some free career assessments
  • Job Hunters Bible  - The official site of the book "What Color Is Your Parachute?"
  • The Riley Guide - A gateway for information on job searches, career exploration and schools
  • Occupational Outlook Handbook  - Profiles describing hundreds of occupations; sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics
  • Hoovers.com – Data, information and insight on companies
  • Vault.com – A resource for career management and job search information, including insider information
  • MonsterCollege  - A job network for college students and recent graduates
  • Career Cornerstone  - Career-planning resources, with interviews of professionals in science, engineering, technology and medicine
 

Values

  • Stewart, Cooper and Coon - Offers a career values test to help clarify what you want in a career
 

Skills

  • Online Workshops - Offered by MIT Global Education & Career Development
  • O-Net Skills Search - Generates a list of occupations that use skills you possess
  • Monster  - Provides a connection to Job Assets & Strengths Profiler, or JASPER; free registration to Monster required
  • Stewart, Cooper and Coon - Offers an online version of the Motivated Skills Card Sort by Richard Knowdell
 

Personality

  • Human Metrics  - A free test, the Jung Typology Test, based on Carl Jung's and Isabel Briggs Myer's typological approach to personality
  • TypeLogic -  A description of the 16 personality types
 

Informational Interviewing