Free Online Career Diagnostic Tests

Whenever I decide to take a 'free' test online, I'm always wary of advertising ploys. I checked out three of the most popular career diagnostic tests online, so you don't have to waste your time on the ones that don't deliver. Instead, find out what to expect from these three sites so that you can decide yourself if it's worth the time. For all of these tests, you must register with a valid e-mail address in order to retrieve your results.

Fun Education: Free Career Test

The Free Career Test on Fun Education is made up of 485 questions and takes about one hour. The questions are primarily targeted at figuring out your personality, and there are not many relevant questions about things that you enjoy. Taking this test was very similar to taking the JUNG personality test, and the questions seemed repetitive. You are given a statement such as "I can get very emotional," and you must click the bubble from "very inaccurate" to "very accurate" to describe yourself. There are five choices.

At the end of the test, you must bypass numerous 'special offers' to actually see your results. The results show you your scores on five sets of personality traits. Mine was fairly accurate, although I seemed to score 'high' to 'very high' on almost everything. The second part of the results lists fields that you may be interested in pursuing, based on your personality. I was told that I should pursue a career in management, and then I was promptly directed to an ad for an MBA program. The last part of the results, and what I thought would be most promising was a list of 305 jobs along with my personality analysis. For each job, a skill/interest level was predicted from 'very low' to 'very high.' As expected, I scored 'very high' on positions that I am interested in such as Secondary Teacher, University Professor, and Writer. This may seem promising, but I actually scored 'high' or 'very high' on 300 of the 305 jobs! I was told I should have very high interest in the positions of Industrial Truck or Tractor Driving, Parking Lot Attendant, Heavy Truck Driver, and School Bus Driver! My top 3 recommend jobs were New Accounts Clerk, Proofreader, and Radiologic Technologist; those are three jobs that I have about 0% interest in. The only job that I had a 'very low' interest in, according to the test, was the position of Funeral Director.

All in all, I would say that although the results are free, this test was a waste of time. There were too many ads to avoid and I kept thinking I'd never get to the results. Taking the career diagnostic test was long and tedious, and it was designed more as a personality test than a career test.

Live Career

This test was a lot more professional and informative than the free career test on Fun Education. The layout was more modern and there were only 100 questions instead of almost 500. Each question consisted of three options, and for each one you have to choose which activity you would most like to do (M) and which activity you would least like to do (L). There was one small advertisement per page, but it was not confusing or overwhelming. You could easily refuse each offer and move on to the next section. You'll need 15 to 30 minutes to fill out the survey.

When you finish, you'll need to avoid some small adds and move on to your multi-faceted report. You'll get a survey of your basic interests, occupational interests, work styles, and personal values. All of this information seemed to be right on, and it was presented in colorful graphs and charts. Knowing my interest profiles helped confirm my career path.

The only bummer of the free career test from Live Career is that in order to get matching job profiles, you need to pay. To get 20 job matches it costs $24.95, and to get 100 job matches for your profile it costs $39.95. Even though you can't get the job matches for free, I'd still recommend using this free career diagnostic test as an informative tool.

Job Diagnosis

Finally, I tested out the free career test at Job Diagnosis. This test was made up of 52 sometimes repetitive questions. Each question gives two choices, and you choose which activity you would prefer. There seemed to be an overwhelming number of questions asking me if I'd prefer to organize the payroll or perform a medical procedure. Organizing payroll sounds quite boring to me, but medical matters can make my stomach queasy. I didn't see how answering several questions comparing these two would be informative.

The test was the quickest of the three, and I quickly got my free results after registering (requires and address, phone number and e-mail) and avoiding some advertisements.

I was not given detailed test results, but instead I was told that my top two areas were Teaching and Management Consultancy. I was then led to detailed descriptions of jobs in the fields, including career paths and salary estimates. Out of all three surveys, the Job Diagnosis free career test gave me the best in-depth information about possible careers. It did not, however, give me any information about my personal interests, skills or values.

After doing all three of these free career tests, I'd suggest combining the Live Career and the Job Diagnosis tests. Between them, you'll get a detailed personal profile and solid information about your top two areas. For me, these two tests were accurate and well worth the time.