Before you can determine if IT is the right field for you, it helps to understand your personality, skills, interests, and values. This can help guide your decisions as you determine which career to pursue.
Understanding yourself also helps with:
your LinkedIN profile
resumes and
"tell me about yourself" questions during interviews.
Below are several options you can utilize - free - to determine some of these core traits that make you uniquely you!
🆓MAPP (Motivational Appraisal Personal Potential) Career Assessment - 22 minutes, 71 questions. Requires registration. It is free to take the MAPP Assessment and receive your sample report. This report will highlight your work motivations and match you with 5 careers.
123 Career Test: This popular aptitude test can help you gain insight into the careers that best fit your personality. It will help you learn what kind of work environments and occupations suit you best.
CareerOneStop Interest Assessment: Answer 30 quick questions online to get a list of careers that might be a good fit for your interests.
Color Career Quiz: Did you know color can be an indicator of what jobs are right for you? Color Career Quiz is a two-part quick and easy five-minute test that analyzes your personality based on the colors you select.
Test Color: Similar to Color Career Quiz above, a team of psychologists and human resources experts lead you through a two-part color selection process to determine your personality and aptitude. While the initial results are free, you can pay extra for a more in-depth analysis.
Keirsey Temperament Sorter: This test helps you to understand your personality type and discover what type of temperament you have. Test results suggest a predominant personality type, including Artisan, Guardian, Rational, or Idealist. Your temperament influences career satisfaction, job search strategies, and job performance. A free description of your profile will be provided with an option to purchase the full report.
Human Metrics: Using both Jung’s Typology and Myers-Briggs insights, Human Metrics takes you through 64 questions to rate you on both scales. The results explain to you how each piece relates to your personality type.
🆓O*NET Interests Profiler: My Next Move’s O*NET Interest Profiler is administered by the United States Department of Labor. Users take a 60-question interest inventory that yields a profile of interest tendencies, including six areas: Realistic, Investigative, Social, Enterprising, Conventional, and Artistic. You will see a list of careers related to each cluster, and can then sort those careers into five job zones representing different levels of preparation ranging from little job preparation to extensive preparation. The site also has extensive career information related to a variety of careers.
🆓PathSource: This free career exploration solution helps students and job seekers make better career choices with its free mobile app. Users can produce lists of careers based on personality characteristics and an interest profile. Lifestyle issues and income expectations are factored into the analysis. An extensive collection of 2,600 informational interviews on video provides an insider's view from workers in a broad range of professions. A database of careers related to various academic majors helps students to explore the implications of their academic choices. Users also can search for colleges based on academic offerings, financial aid, average test scores, and other admissions data.
🆓16 Personalities: Using the Myers-Briggs Model (hence the name), 16 Personalities is a site designed to help you understand yourself, contribute valuable data to researchers, and take tangible steps in your personal and professional relationships. While the test is completely free, most of the tools require that you join for a fee.
🆓Red Bull Wingfinder: Take a free 35-minute online personality assessment to identify and leverage your strengths in four different areas of your personality, including connections, creativity, thinking, and drive. Wingfinder test takers immediately receive a free 19-page feedback report containing an analysis of their strengths, along with advice, and coaching from Red Bull athletes who have the same strengths.
🆓Skills Matcher: The Department of Labor has developed this resource to enable users to assess the skills they want to incorporate into their careers. You will rate basic skills like reading, writing, speaking, scientific reasoning, and critical thinking, as well as more specialized social, technical, analytical, computer, problem-solving, and resource management skills.
🆓CareerExplorer: CareerExplorer is a free platform for users to assess their interests, personality types, abilities, career values, and preferred work and social environments in order to find matches that will lead to satisfying careers. The assessment suggests careers after users respond to a series of questions. There's detailed information available on each of the suggested career options. In addition, users can browse occupations by clusters like health and nutrition, law, arts and entertainment, animals, food and drink, politics and law, sports, travel, music, engineering, and science.
Career Key: Another career aptitude test that costs a fee is Career Key. This online career assessment tool determines how similar you are to six different personality types. The results are linked to occupational choices.
🆓Crystal Personality Test: Crystal provides free personality tests like Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, DISC, Core Value, and Job Fit, so you create a full personality profile to understand how to use your strengths, manage your blind spots, choose your ideal career.
🆓Truity: Like Crystal, Truity offers several free personality tests including Career Personality Profiler, the Typefinder Personality Test, Big Five, DiSC, Enneagram, and MBTI.
Link to free assessment: DiSC on Truity.com
Time to take assessment: 10 minutes
This free DISC assessment will help you discover your personality type at work. Discover the four DISC personality types and improve communication, productivity, and conflict management in the workplace. The DISC assessment is a measure of interpersonal behavior. It classifies how we interact in terms of four personality styles:
Drive: taking charge and making key decisions
Influence: engaging others to work together
Support: assisting others to achieve group goals
Clarity: working independently to produce correct results
Link to Free MBTI Assessment: TypeFinder® on Truity.com
Time to take assessment: 15 minutes
This test is based on the personality theory created by Isabel Myers and Katharine Briggs and is one of the most popular personality assessments used to date. It measures your preferences on Myers and Briggs' four dimensions of personality type, as well as 23 more detailed facets of type to personalize your results.
There are 16 types and you can find comprehensive profiles of each of Myers and Briggs' personality types here: INFP • INFJ • INTP • INTJ • ENFP • ENFJ • ENTP • ENTJ • ISFP • ISFJ • ISTP • ISTJ • ESFP • ESFJ • ESTP • ESTJ
The Holland Codes or the Holland Occupational Themes (RIASEC) refers to a theory of careers and vocational choice (based upon personality types) that was initially developed by American psychologist John L. Holland. There are six broad areas into which all careers can be classified. These same six areas can be used to describe people, their personalities and interests. For instance, Building careers are those that involve working with tools or machinery (e.g. carpenter, mechanic, or airline pilot). Here they are:
REALISTIC (BUILDING)
Building jobs involve the use of tools, machines, or physical skill. Builders like working with their hands and bodies, working with plants and animals, and working outdoors.
INVESTIGATIVE (THINKING)
Thinking jobs involve theory, research, and intellectual inquiry. Thinkers like working with ideas and concepts, and enjoy science, technology, and academia.
ARTISTIC (CREATING)
Creating jobs involve art, design, language, and self-expression. Creators like working in unstructured environments and producing something unique.
SOCIAL (HELPING)
Helping jobs involve assisting, teaching, coaching, and serving other people. Helpers like working in cooperative environments to improve the lives of others.
ENTERPRISING (PERSUADING)
Persuading jobs involve leading, motivating, and influencing others. Persuaders like working in positions of power to make decisions and carry out projects.
CONVENTIONAL (ORGANIZING)
Organizing jobs involve managing data, information, and processes. Organizers like to work in structured environments to complete tasks with precision and accuracy.
Take your free Holland Code Assessment Here:
CliftonStrengths for Students is a personality assessment like none other; it focuses on your strengths rather than your weaknesses, allowing you to:
improve your self-awareness and teamwork
deepen your engagement with your classmates, instructors, and student success professionals
chart a suitable career path
The Indianapolis School of IT is able to provide you a code at no cost to you - visit the CliftonStrengths page to find out more.
Link to free assessment: Enneagram on Truity.com
Time to take assessment: 10 minutes
The Enneagram model describes nine different personality types and maps each of these types on a nine-pointed diagram which helps to illustrate how the types relate to one another. According to the Enneagram, every personality has a certain world view and looks at the world through their own lens or filter. This makes it possible to explain why people behave in certain ways. By describing how the basic personality adapts and responds to both stressful and supportive situations, the Enneagram shows opportunities for personal and professional development and provides a foundation for the understanding of others.
Link to free assessment: The Big Five Personality Assessment on Truity.com
Time to take assessment: 10 minutes
The Big Five personality test measures the five personality factors that psychologists have determined are core to our personality makeup. The Five Factors of personality are:
Openness - How open a person is to new ideas and experiences
Conscientiousness - How goal-directed, persistent, and organized a person is
Extroversion - How much a person is energized by the outside world
Agreeableness - How much a person puts others' interests and needs ahead of their own
Neuroticism - How sensitive a person is to stress and negative emotional triggers