6 Personality Tests to Help You Find the Right Career
There is nothing worse than being stuck in a job that doesn’t suit you. On the flip side, there are few things more rewarding than finding a job that fits you like a glove, where you feel stimulated and know you belong. We like to think that we know ourselves and our personalities well, but often we focus on the wrong goals and end up in occupations that seem right on paper but don’t suit who we really are. For example, if you’re good with tech, you might opt for a career in coding. But if your personality is extroverted and people-focused, you might find the role you’ve chosen unrewarding deep down.
It’s essential to think deeply about your true priorities and what gives meaning to your life when looking for a career option, rather than just focusing on what you happen to be good at or find easy. One way to find out a bit more about what really makes you tick is to take a personality test.
Why Do a Personality Test?
Besides being fun to take, personality tests give you some valuable insights that can be helpful in your personal life and your career. You can start to understand your strengths and weaknesses better and be self-aware about them. For example, if you discover that you are high on the trait of introversion, this means that you find social situations tiring and need time to recharge after engaging with people. Knowing this can help you recognise when you might be feeling drained from too much social contact. It might also lead you to avoid jobs with lots of social connections, as these may not be the right fit for you.
Tips For Completing a Personality Test
Personality tests can be ‘cheated’ if you’re dishonest and respond to desirable personality traits rather than your real ones. But there’s no use in cheating the test because you won’t gain any real insight from it. So try to clear your mind, be honest, and don’t overthink your responses. Here are some free personality and career matching tests to enjoy. Who knows, they might lead you to a fascinating career option you’d never considered!
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1. 16 Personalities
16 Personalities evolved from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a well-known personality test that divides people into 16 different personality types. Your personality is scaled by the traits of introversion/extroversion (E/I), sensing/intuition (S/I), thinking/feeling (T/F), and perceiving/judging (P/J). So, for example, if your result is ESFJ, you are extroverted, observant, feeling, and judging. This means you are attentive, people-focused, and enjoy taking part in your community. Whatever type you are, you get a detailed personality profile when you complete the test. Once you know your type, you can read about what it means and think about what career path might suit you.
Why not check out this helpful article on which jobs suit which of the 16 personality types? There’s a fun little extra too - you can look up your country’s average personality! Here’s New Zealand’s. It turns out the average Kiwi is more extroverted than introverted and significantly more feeling than thinking. You can compare it with other countries too.
2. The Big Five
In recent years, the Big Five has increased in popularity, and many rate it as more helpful and having greater predictive power than the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The test measures five traits in your personality: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. It can give you some interesting insights into how you think and feel, and the science behind it is pretty strong. Take the test for free. There are various other valuable tests on this site, such as the career aptitude test, the work values test, and the team roles test. All of these can offer helpful insights into what roles might be a good fit for you.
3. The Open Colleges Personality Test
Try the Open Colleges Personality Test to take another quiz that matches your personality to the suitable career options. This test only takes five minutes and gives some useful ideas for career options that you would perhaps not have thought of otherwise.
4. Career Fitter
The Career Fitter test has been around for over 20 years and is used by HR departments and universities around the world. It is regarded as one of the most useful tests out there when choosing a career because it focuses tightly on your work personality and is suitable and useful for everyone, from students to seasoned professionals. It’s one of the very few personality tests out there to offer a satisfaction guarantee too.
5. CareerQuest
Here in New Zealand, the Careers NZ website has a useful career quest tool. It’s a photo quiz, which takes about 15 minutes to complete. Your reaction to the photos defines your interests, and CareerQuest suggests job ideas based on your results. Go on a CareerQuest.
6. The Berkeley Emotional Intelligence Test
This one is a classic and straightforward quiz, where you are shown pictures of people’s faces and asked to judge what emotions they’re feeling. You might find it harder than you think! Scoring high on emotional intelligence means that you could be well suited to roles high in emotional labour, such as nursing or social work. If you score lower, you might want to pursue a more technical option.
And Finally, Just For Fun…
You’ve delved into the depths of who you are and gained some fascinating insights. So it’s time for some light relief and to find an answer to that burning question: which classic Kiwi bikkie are you?
You know you want to find out…
Thinking of Making a Career Change?
Whether you’re a Super Wine or a Shrewsbury, there’s a sweet role out there for you. Sign up with JobNow to hear about some great opportunities with companies that put the employee journey first.