Career Guidance tests

Career guidance starts from a simple question that's hard to answer without help: what kind of studies or work truly fit who you are, beyond what you're "supposed to" study? American psychologist John Holland proposed the world's most widely used model for answering it in 1997, known as RIASEC.

The model describes six types of vocational interest, arranged as a hexagon where neighboring types resemble each other more than opposite ones do:

• Realistic: prefers the practical and hands-on, working with objects, tools, machines, or the outdoors.
• Investigative: prefers analyzing, understanding, and solving abstract or scientific problems.
• Artistic: prefers creating, expressing, and inventing without a fixed procedure.
• Social: prefers helping, teaching, or caring for other people.
• Enterprising: prefers persuading, leading, and taking risks to reach a goal.
• Conventional: prefers order, data, and clear procedures.

Almost nobody is a single, pure type: most people recognize themselves in two or three neighboring types on the hexagon, what Holland calls a three-letter "code" (for example, SAI for someone Social, Artistic, and Investigative at once). The model underlies the Self-Directed Search (SDS), the instrument Holland built to apply it, and the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET occupational classification system, which assigns a RIASEC code to thousands of real-world jobs.

Aptitude and passion: Ken Robinson's complementary lens

The RIASEC model describes interests, but it doesn't explain why they sometimes get ignored. British educator Ken Robinson, in his book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything (2009), offers a complementary lens: he calls the "Element" the point where natural aptitude (what you're good at) meets passion (what you truly love doing), and warns that the two aren't the same thing. He tells the story of Charles, a keyboard player he used to play alongside as a young man: Robinson told him he'd love to play as well as he did, and Charles replied, "No, what you mean is that you like the idea of playing keyboards. If you loved it, you'd be doing it." Charles had practiced three to four hours a day since he was seven, not out of discipline, but, in his own words, "because I love it."

Robinson also tells the story of Gillian Lynne, a girl in 1930s Britain whom her school nearly sent to a special-needs center over her constant restlessness in class. A psychologist, after watching her move fluidly to the radio once left alone in the room, told her mother: "Gillian isn't sick. She's a dancer. Take her to a dance school." She went on to become a Royal Ballet soloist and the choreographer of Cats and The Phantom of the Opera. Robinson sums up the case this way: "She just needed to be who she really was."

Robinson himself urges caution with rigid typologies like this one: he warns that boxing yourself into a single category "closes doors instead of opening them." Our test is a popular-science, informational take based on the RIASEC model: it's a starting point for exploring your interests, not a closed answer about what to study or what to do with your life, and it doesn't replace guidance from a qualified career counselor.

Sources

• Holland, J. L. (1997). Making Vocational Choices: A Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments. Psychological Assessment Resources.
• Robinson, K., & Aronica, L. (2009). The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. Viking.
• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row.