Career assessment for high school
Career Assessment for High School Students
Which career assessment suits a high school student depends on what you want to learn. This page sets interest, personality and aptitude tests side by side, shows what a student sees in the results, and how a counselor runs one for a class.
Interest, personality, aptitude: what each test can and cannot tell a 15-year-old
The three names get used as if they meant the same thing. They do not. Each one asks a different question, so each one can answer some things and not others.
Interest test
Can tell: which kinds of work a student is drawn to.
Cannot tell: how well the student would do that work. It is also a weak guide to earnings.
Personality test
Can tell: how a student tends to think and act.
Cannot tell: which specific job to choose. It does not predict that with high precision.
Aptitude test
Can tell: what a student is able to do.
Cannot tell: what the student is drawn to.
JobCannon's class assessment measures interests and personality. It does not measure aptitude. If a school wants aptitude data, it needs a test built for that. Our high school college and career readiness page says many districts use the ASVAB Career Exploration Program for aptitude and military-pathway data, and JobCannon for personality and civilian-career fit. They do not conflict.
Which assessment fits which goal
- To see which kinds of work appeal
- The RIASEC test: 60 questions, 4 min. The O*NET Interest Profiler (Short Form) covers the same six interest areas through concrete work activities: 60 questions, 4 min.
- To understand how a student works
- The Big Five: 50 questions, about 4 minutes. It scores five traits. The high schools page suggests RIASEC first, for interest discovery, and the Big Five later, for trait depth.
- To look at specific careers
- Career Match: 12 forced-choice questions, 3 min.
- To cover a whole class with one link
- The class assessment below: RIASEC with the Big Five, about 8 minutes in all.
- To measure aptitude
- Use a test built for aptitude. JobCannon's class assessment is not one.
- To gather evidence for state reporting
- Start with the high school college and career readiness page and the ESSA guide.
What the class assessment covers (Big Five and RIASEC, about eight minutes)
The core class assessment pairs two tests. RIASEC covers interests: 60 questions, about 4 minutes. The Big Five covers personality: 50 questions, about 4 minutes. Together they take about 8 minutes.
One tells you what a student is drawn to and the other tells you how the student tends to work. Our RIASEC vs Big Five comparison sets the two side by side.
Students open a class link or enter a class code, pick a username and start. There are no student accounts, no email addresses and no roster import.
What it does not cover: aptitude, skill level and academic proficiency. It reports interests and personality, and the careers that match the interests.
What the results look like: careers with fit scores, skills, free courses
The class result screen shows six scores, one for each RIASEC type, and a three-letter Holland Code. The top three careers are on the same screen, best fit first. Each shows a fit score as a percentage, with a fit label beside it: Strong fit, Good fit, Possible fit or Stretch fit. The label comes from the score, not from the career's place in the list, so two careers can carry the same label.
The fit score compares the student's interest profile with the interest profile O*NET holds for that career. It is a measure of interest match, not a forecast of how well the student would do.
Skills and free courses come one step later. They are in the Career Guide, which needs a student account, so a student on a class code does not see them through the class link. In the Career Guide a student picks a career and sees the skills behind it, with free courses and docs for the skills where we have a curated link.
A longer ranked list of careers is part of Premium for individual accounts. The class result shows the top three.
How a counselor runs it
Before class
Request a class link with the form on the schools page. We reply by email to set it up. Schools most often place the first run in a ninth-grade homeroom or advisory period.
In class
Share the link or class code. Students pick a username and answer. Plan for about 8 minutes.
After class
The teacher opens the class report: every student who took the test through the link, with each student's main result, on one page. On tests scored on several scales, the page also shows the class average for each scale once at least five students have finished, so no single student can be picked out.
What we do not supply
There is no counselor playbook, no session plans and no parent-communication templates for grades 9-12. The lesson plans we publish cover grades 6-8 only. The high schools page says more about how schools fit it into existing programming.
Student data
The rules are in the FERPA guide. For the occasional student under 13, see the COPPA guide.
Want a class link for your students?
Tell us your school and how many students. We reply by email to set up your class link.
A personality test describes how a student tends to think and act right now. It is a weak guide to one specific job: our Big Five validity page says the Big Five does not predict which specific career someone will choose or excel in with high precision. That page also says Big Five scores stay stable from adulthood onward. A teenager is not there yet, so read the result as a snapshot, not a label. Use it to start a conversation, not to settle one.
Not always. Our RIASEC validity page calls RIASEC codes moderately stable and says they can shift with education, job experience or major life events. Counselors typically run the core battery at grade 9 entry and refresh it each year.
No. Our RIASEC validity page says RIASEC predicts which occupations people choose reliably but predicts earnings weakly, so use it to explore, not to forecast income. JobCannon ranks careers by how closely a student's interests match each career's interest profile in O*NET and shows the top three. The student decides what to explore next.
Most JobCannon tests are calibrated for ages 14 and up, and RIASEC works well for US grades 9-12. For grades 6-8, the middle schools page explains which tests we recommend.
Not for a single test. Anyone can take the RIASEC test without creating an account or giving an email address, and the scores appear on screen at once. A class uses a class link or class code instead: students enter it, pick a username and start.
Request a class link with the form on the schools page. We reply by email to set it up. The schools page also sets out what a school pays.