Read our reviews of the major online career assessment tools for job-seekers -- listed in rank order based on our ratings. (Go here to see the review in alphabetical order.)

This tool is part of our Career Assessments section. If you have not been to our main assessment page, please follow the link for more useful information and links.

We invite visitors and readers to e-mail us to report any discrepancies between our descriptions below and your own experience with these assessments.

If you are looking for some career direction, or perhaps just want to learn more about yourself and your personality, then taking one or more of these assessment tests can give you a better idea of your attitudes and interests as they relate to discovering more about yourself -- and possible career choices.

Quintessential Ratings -- a guide to free or inexpensive ($30 or under) career assessments on the Web (ratings are based strictly on our own experiences and those of our clients and students):

Q = marginally useful
QQ = somewhat useful
QQQ = very useful
QQQQ = extremely useful

All listed assessments are interactive.

Assessment	Measures	Ease of Use	Detail of Results	Rating
Campbell Interest and Skill Survey Online version of a well-known and reputable assessment containing 320 multiple-choice items. Cost: $18.00	Interests and Skills	Easy to use but time-consuming: 25-40 minutes.	Very comprehensive results, covering nearly 60 occupations and a comprehensive career planner to help you interpret your results and plan for your new career.	QQQQ
Career Maze An on-line tool designed for people to find their future by increasing self-knowledge. Has you choose from among 2 sets of 82 characteristics. Cost: $19.95	How you see yourself and how you think others see you in terms of the 82 characteristics.	Very fast and easy to use.	Highly detailed, multi-page report tells your approach to goals, how you interact with the world around you, your natural pace, what you seek when given responsibility, career implications for these traits, and jobs that fit your behavior pattern.	QQQQ
Jackson Vocational Interest Survey (JVIS) Developed to assist high school and college students, and adults with educational and career planning, this test contains 289 pairs of job-related activities. Cost: $19.95	Vocational Interests	Though quite long (takes 45 mins.), the JVIS provides encouraging screens that tell your progress and give you a little pep talk.	Highly detailed report. A particular strength is the results' comparison of your similarity to college students in specific majors, thus suggesting possible majors for young people to consider. Detailed results. JVIS graphs your scores on 34 work roles and workstyles.	QQQQ
Keirsey Temperament Sorter This 70-question assessment is related to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Cost: Free for mini-report	Personality	Easy to use, but a little time consuming. Registration required.	Results, in the form of partial Myers-Briggs Types, give descriptions of the types. Several levels of more detailed report available: Career Temperament Report, $19.95; Classic Temperament Report, $14.95; Learning Styles Temperament Report, $14.95; Temperament Discovery Report, $4.95.	QQQQ
CoachCompass® Assessment Cost: Free	Defines an appropriate starting point for career services and coaching delivery, thereby allowing for the targeted development of effective client strategies to ensure career success.	Easy. Choose 1 appropriate statement among 6 for 16 sets of statements.	A short report appears on-screen, and a very detailed report with graphs attached is e-mailed.	QQQ1/2
FOCUS 2 Online Career Planning A comprehensive tool for career planning that used in more than 1,500+ schools and career counseling centers nationwide. Cost: Cost: $39.00 Site also offers: MCP Online Career Planning for High School Students My Golden Career for Persons in Career Transition	Interests, skills, values, personality, educational preferences, and leisure activities.	Has 9 phases that take up to 20 minutes each. More time can be spent by those who would like to explore several careers. At the beginning of FOCUS, you must choose which Web browser you're using and make a slight change in your preferences. The interface is easy.	Creates a profile of your interests, skills, values, personality, educational preferences and leisure activities and enables you to investigate matching occupations and their related duties, education, skills needed, specific working conditions, required training, job outlook, current and expected earnings. You can view a sample report.	QQQ1/2 The ability to explore occupations in great depth is a major plus.
Future Proof Your Career This 84-question assessment helps the test-taker find fulfilling work and creates a personalized career strategy that works with the latest employment trends of the knowledge age. Cost: Free	Temperament type, dominant intelligences, dominant abilities, preferred learning style, test-taker's status as a knowledge worker, and knowledge-age skills.	Easy. Registration required. Average completion time is around 10-12 minutes.	Comprehensive report covers test-taker's temperament type, three dominant intelligences, six dominant abilities, knowledge worker status, proficiency in the six key Knowledge Age Skills, and preferred learning style. Interpretive book available for $27.	QQQ1/2
iMapMyCareer This 298-question assessment based on the Birkman Method, a behavioral assessment instrument, identifies your career interests and then tells you what jobs are out there for you. Cost: $39.95	Interests, personality, values, knowledge, skills, and abilities.	Easy but time-consuming; takes 30-40 minutes. You can stop and go back to the test later (though the test administrators recommend completing it in one sitting).	Results include the iMapMyCareer Personal Report and the iMapMyCareer JobFit Report. Personal Report shows Energizers, Strengths, Ideal Environment, Stress Triggers, and a composite report of all areas. The JobFit Report compares your results to a database of people who have been successful in various occupational arenas. Each aspect of the reports offer interpretive video, an overview, "Your Info" (with your specific results) and a Worksheet. Results seem a bit skimpy for the price and are time-consuming to review, but the Worksheets are a helpful, value-added feature.	QQQ1/2
StrengthsFinder Profile This well-researched instrument asks you to choose to what degree either of a set of paired statements applies to you. Cost: "Free" with the purchase of book, Strengths Finder 2.0, which provides an access code and costs $13 to $22, depending on bookseller.	Areas in which you have the greatest potential for strength.	Easy. Takes about 25 minutes. Warning! There's a 20-second limit for answering each question before it vanishes from the screen.	Online results consist of a good sized paragraph describing your five most dominant themes of talent, your signature themes. Accompanying book provides more detail on each theme.	QQQ1/2
Career Compass from Hogan Assessments This 200-item assessment is said to be best suited to career changers, people assessing their fit with their current job, and for coaches and counselors to use with their clients. It is validated for adults and is not intended for high school or early college students. Cost: $39.00	Motives, Values, Preferences (recognition, power, hedonism, altruism, affiliation, tradition, security, commerce, aesthetics, and science)	Reasonably easy. Users choose agree, disagree, or no-opinion. Takes about 20 mins.	8-page PDF report that clarifies values in areas of status, social interests, financial interests, and decision-making style. Provides career drivers, a very broad overview of possible careers, and a description of the user's preferred working environment. A bar graph shows preferences regarding recognition, power, hedonism, altruism, affiliation, tradition, security, commerce, aesthetics, and science. "Mr./Ms," "he/she," and "his/her" phrases in report hurt readability. Solid information, and although users receive a 23-page interpretive guide, we'd like to see additional personalized career information in the actual results given that the interpretive guide is lengthy and time-consuming to work through.	QQQ
Career Interest Test from LiveCareer This 100-question assessment identifies your career interests and then tells you what jobs are out there for you. Free for basic results. Site also offers Career Satisfaction Test, Resume Test, and Start a Business Test.	Interests, personality, values, knowledge, skills, and abilities.	Easy. Takes 25 minutes. You can stop and go back to the test later. You also have the opportunity to review your answers before submitting them.	Free 28-page overview report shows 27 matching Job Categories ranked highest to lowest and Educational Profile for 100+ academic areas. Includes links to job postings for matching jobs, but some postings are inaccurate (e.g., you click on "Multimedia artist" and see job postings for bank tellers). Deluxe Report available for $15.	QQQ
Careerlink Inventory A 36-question assessment based on the premise that your self-estimates are a valid basis for career decision-making. Cost: Free	Interests, aptitudes, temperaments, physical capacities, preferred working conditions, and desired length of time preparing for employment.	Easy	Tells which career clusters fit you and provides details about each cluster.	QQQ
Career Test by CareerFitter The 60-question assessment describes itself as a "hybrid." Questions very similar to those on a Myers-Briggs-type test. Cost: $9.95	Work personality, including strengths, weaknesses, styles, optimal environments, and other in-depth characteristics of the test-taker at work.	Easy. Takes 15-25 minutes.	10-page Career Report includes summary of test-taker, personality chart, career choices for test-taker, occupational factors, primary characteristics, the test-taker at work, potential weaknesses, personality details, business points, communication method, ideal environment, team-building approach, management practice, and famous people like test-taker. You can view a sample report.	QQQ
MAPP (Motivational Appraisal of Personal Potential) Career Analysis This test has 71 triads of three statements. You must select the statement you MOST agree with and the statement you LEAST agree with, leaving one blank. Cost: Free for very minimal report; detailed reports start at $29.95	Interest in Job Contents, Temperament for the Job, Aptitude for the Job, People, Things, Data, Reasoning, Mathematical Capacity, Language Capacity.	Registration required; fairly easy to use, but requires some thought.	Free results are essentially a teaser to encourage purchase of paid results; however, free MAPP Match features that compares your results with 5 chosen jobs is helpful.	QQQ
Mazemaster This 6-part assessment is geared to high-school and college students. Cost: Free	Interests, Skills, and Values.	Fairly easy; takes about 30 minutes. Registration required. Registration is set up for Canadians, but others can use it.	Rather than interpretive results, the report is a compilation of the Interests, Skills, and Values, the test-taker has chosen, along with Goals, Next Steps, and Action Plan. Links provide additional information on careers suggested by the Interest results.	QQQ
The Career Key 25-question test, providing another variation on Holland's 6 personality types. Cost: $9.95 Organization also offers The Self-Employment Key.	Holland's 6 personality types (how similar you are to six basic types of people)	Easy to use. Takes 15 minutes.	Results are in the form of Holland Codes w/lists of jobs that match users' personality types organized into "work groups" based on the original Guide to Occupational Exploration. This feature enables users to find similar matching jobs in context to their personality match. See this classification of jobs in the article "Match Your Personality with Careers."	QQQ
TypeFocus Personality Type Profile Quick and easy 66-question assessment that tells your Myers-Briggs type and offers a bit of career direction. Cost: Free	Personality	Easy to use. A little faster than the Kiersey/about 8 minutes	Results are in the form of an introversion/extraversion report; 3 levels of more detailed results available for $19.95, $34.95, $44.95.	QQQ
Career Fit Test This 72-item well-researched forced-choice assessment has users view successful workers in their ideal work settings. Cost: $6.00 scoring fee	Pattern of workplaces in which people would probably make the same picture choices as the user.	Very easy; takes 10-15 mins. Users choose between two pictures of people in occupations. Occupations are occasionally difficult to determine from photo, but black and white graphic images further elucidate.	3-(Web) page report that tells characteristics of the types of work the user would likely enjoy, offers a "carefully researched job career list representing successful persons who have also chosen those same job photos when completing this career test," and suggests further resources. Even at only $6, the brevity of the report detracts from its value. Works as a quick and very basic assessment.	QQ1/2
Carolyn Kalil's Personality Assessment (True Colors) True Colors is a personality system that has been around since 1979 and is modeled as a graphical presentation of both Keirsey's Temperament and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The assessment asks you to choose one of two ways to finish 36 statements. The results can help you define your skills and talents -- and possibly direct you to various career paths. Cost: Free	Personality	Easy. Takes just a few minutes.	Gives Web-based results in terms of one of four colors, explained with a one-paragraph description of your type. (You can also read about your other colors.) More detailed results are supplied on the next Web page after entering your email address, and ebooks ($4.95) and other publications are available for sale to offer even more insight.	QQ1/2
CareerDirect Personality ID Survey Cost: Personality ID Survey is free; full CareerDirect Assessment is $80.	Personality	Assessment involves ranking 16 sets of 4 descriptive words as to how well they describe you.	Gives reasonably detailed results about personality type.	QQ
Career Interest Profiler from testingroom.com This 180-question assessment is a measure of occupational and career interests. Cost: Free	Six fundamental categories of interests that capture most characteristics of people.	Very easy interface. Takes about 15 minutes. Registration required.	Three-paragraph report; more complete results available for $14.95. Free sample of full results available.	QQ for free report; QQQQ for paid report
CareerPlanner This test, based on the RIASEC system developed by Dr. John Holland, has 180 questions in which you either choose likes and dislikes or answer true/false. Cost: $29.95 for 1-hour processing; $24.95 for 2-day processing; $19.95 for 5-day processing Site also offers a version of the Myers-Briggs assessment.	The "fundamental nature of the careers that are good for you"	Easy. Takes 10-15 minutes.	A 15-page PDF report is available between an hour and five days after completing the test. Speed of delivery depends on fee paid. Results include dominant RIASEC codes and numerous careers matched to the test-taker's interests, values, and skill sets. Users should note that submission of most personal information is optional. Similar RIASEC-based tests are available free or are less expensive. Recommended in every edition of Richard Bolles' What Color Is Your Parachute since 2002.	QQ
Career Values Scale from testingroom.com This 88-question assessment looks at values to see how they relate to the test-taker's world of work and help to identify areas of career satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Cost: Free	Ten work values: service orientation, team orientation, influence, creativity, independence, excitement, personal development, financial rewards, security, and prestige.	Very easy interface; questions seem somewhat repetitious. Takes about 10-20 mins. Registration required.	Two-paragraph report; more complete results available for $8.95. Free sample of full results available.	QQ for free report; QQQQ for paid report
Career Zone An extremely bare-bones, 3-question assessment. Cost: Free	Combinations of six broad interest areas known as RIASEC codes.	Ultra fast and easy	Very bare bones, but gives lists of occupations for each type. Test-takers will need to do more research on the RIASEC types.	QQ
Personality Index from testingroom.com This 90-question assessment examines key personality features that influence your approach to tasks, interaction with people, and the activities you enjoy. Cost: Free	17 traits: ambition, initiative, flexibility, energy, leadership, concern for others, teamwork, outgoing, democratic, innovation, analytic thinking, persistence, dependability, attention to detail, rule-following, self-control, and stress tolerance.	Very easy interface; questions seem somewhat repetitious. Takes about 10-20 mins. Registration required.	Two-paragraph report describes two key features of your personal style; full report with an additional 20 traits available for $14.95. Free sample of full results available.	QQ for free report; QQQQ for paid report
The Insight Game Quick, fun visual take on the Myers-Briggs. Free for basic report.	Myers-Briggs Type	Very easy, fast, and fun, with the ability to flip and place "cards" that result in revealing one's type. Takes less than 10 mins.	About one page about your Myers-Briggs type. More in-depth career information and extensive loving relationship profiles are available for only $6.95, or $12.95 for the Comprehensive Personality Profile. Not useful for those who already know their Myers-Briggs type since letter codes are revealed on the "cards."	QQ (fun, but basic results are not comprehensive about career)
Work Preference Inventory This 24-question forced-choice assessment that tells your work style. Based on the premise that the process of values clarification is very important in career planning. Cost: Free	Values	Quick and easy; interactivity depends on having a JavaScript-enabled browser	Results are in a chart with very brief descriptions of work style; tests with more detailed results available for a fee.	QQ
Big Five Personality Test Formerly called All About You, this 48-question test measures personality aspects that can be applied to careers. Cost: Free	Five fundamental dimensions of personality	Easy to use; takes 5-10 minutes	Fairly bare-bones chart assessing Openness to New Experiences, Extraversion, Nervousness, and others.	Q (interesting personality assessment, but only marginally applicable to careers)
Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator (RHETI) SAMPLE This 38-question assessment, a sample of the full RHETI which has 144 questions, looks at personality types. Cost: Free Site also offers the 44-question "The New Enneagram Test."	Personality	Easy to use. Takes 5-10 minutes.	Fairly good description of 1 of 9 types	Q (interesting personality assessment, but only marginally applicable to careers)
Career Liftoff Interest Inventory (CLII) This 240-question test uses activity-based questions to create a report with Holland/RIASEC codes. Cost: $19.95	Interests.	Takes 20-30 minutes to complete.	Detailed profile and narrative reports instantly available in PDF format.	QQQQ for paid report
Hollands Self-Directed Search Online version of widely used and highly respected career assessment. Cost: $9.95	Interests, Values, and Skills	Contains 5 section and takes 20-30 minutes.	An 8-16 page personalized report appears on screen after payment and provides a description of each of the 6 RIASEC types, your 3-letter RIASEC code (a combination of the 3 RIASEC types that most closely match your interests), an explanation of how to use your code in career planning, a list of occupations, fields of study, and leisure activities consistent with your 3-letter code, and next steps for career exploration and decision-making.	Not rated

See also Career Development Manual from the University of Waterloo, a free, noninteractive and self-scoring site that enables you to explore your personality, attitudes, skills, achievements, knowledge, learning, style, values, entrepreneurism - and develop your own Personal Career Profile.

Skills Identification Tool, a noninteractive tool from AARP that helps identify transferable skills. especially for those with little paid work experience or who are returning to the workforce.

See also these collections of personality, interests, and career tests:

• All the Tests -- 57 career-related tests
• Coaching for Success collection of tests
• Queendom/Test Junkie Career Tests
• Personality and IQ Tests