Free O*NET Interest Profiler — 60 Work-Activity Items, 100+ Career Matches

Yes. The O*NET Interest Profiler is published by the U.S. Department of Labor under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). JobCannon runs all 60 items free with no signup required. The basic result — your Holland Code, 6-axis RIASEC radar, and top-matched O*NET occupations — is visible immediately on screen. A free optional account lets you save your result and compare future retakes.

Both measure the same six RIASEC dimensions (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional), but they use different item types and produce different outputs. The Standard RIASEC uses interest statements — 'I enjoy working with tools', 'I like analyzing data' — while the O*NET Interest Profiler uses concrete work activities: 'Build kitchen cabinets', 'Develop a new medicine', 'Write books or plays'. Work-activity items map more directly to O*NET occupation data, which is why the Interest Profiler can match you to 100+ specific O*NET occupations rather than broad career categories. The Standard RIASEC is faster (15 min vs 25 min); the O*NET IP gives you a more granular occupational fit profile.

The O*NET Interest Profiler was developed by the National Center for O*NET Development under a contract from the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration. The 60-item Short Form was developed and validated by Lewis, Rivkin, and colleagues (published 2018, psychometric update). The instrument is part of the O*NET Career Exploration Tools suite, available at onetcenter.org. It is a work of the U.S. federal government, licensed CC BY 4.0 for free commercial and educational use with attribution.

The 60-item Short Form has been extensively validated. Published studies report Cronbach alpha reliabilities of .78–.85 across the six RIASEC scales, and correlations with the full 180-item version averaging above .90 for each scale. The activity-based item format (rating real work tasks) produces better occupational prediction validity than abstract interest statements — a consistent finding in vocational psychology research. The O*NET IP is one of the most rigorously validated free career assessments available, used in federally funded workforce programs across the United States.

Yes — it is ideal for career change. The work-activity format means your result reflects what you would actually enjoy doing in a role, not just the abstract idea of a career. A software engineer who discovers a high Social score might find that user experience research, product management, or developer advocacy roles fit better than pure coding. A nurse with a high Investigative score might thrive in clinical research or health informatics. The 100+ matched O*NET occupations are organized by work zone (education level required), making it easy to see which adjacent roles are accessible with your current background.

The O*NET Interest Profiler is the I-axis Deep tier on JobCannon's depth ladder: Career Match (Mini, 12 items, 2 min) → Standard RIASEC/Holland Code (Standard, 60 interest items, 15 min) → O*NET Interest Profiler (Deep, 60 work-activity items, 25 min). All three measure the same RIASEC framework, but at different depths and with different item types. The Mini gives a quick Holland letter; the Standard gives a full 3-letter code with interest-based items; the Deep gives the same 3-letter code plus 100+ O*NET occupation matches using the federal work-activity taxonomy. If you've already taken Career Match or RIASEC and want to go deeper, the O*NET IP is the natural next step.