Self assessments

Career assessments ask questions about your preferences and strengths to identify careers that might fit you the best. When you work in a career that fits your interests and skills, you are more likely to feel job satisfaction and achieve success.

CareerOneStop's three assessments offer career matching based on:

• How much you enjoy different tasks and activities: Interest Assessment
• Your skills and knowledge: Skills Matcher
• Which qualities in a job/workplace are most important to you: Work Values Matcher

What else can assessments help you do?

• Introduce ideas for careers you may not be aware of
• Gain insights about which work activities motivate you
• Create a description of your skills to list on a resume
• Identify workplaces that will fit your work values

Assessments have limitations. They will not:

• Guarantee that you will like a particular career
• Ensure that certain careers are available in your location
• Account for differences within the same career, for example,
  school nurses and Emergency Room nurses work in different circumstances

Since careers have many aspects, your assessment results may show some career ideas that you don't like. To gain a broader perspective, try taking more than one assessment. It can also be helpful to ask friends, family, teachers, and career counselors how they see your strengths related to careers from your assessment results.

Want more guidance to identify a good career direction?

• Follow the steps in the How-to Guide: Find career ideas
• Find personal help at your nearest American Job Center
• Take the next step to learn about different careers with the Occupation Profile, career clusters, or conduct informational interviews