Career readiness assessment
Career Readiness Assessment for Schools
A career readiness assessment shows each student where they stand and what to learn next. This page covers what it should measure, what a student gets, and how a school runs one with a class.
What "career ready" means (ESSA indicator, Perkins V)
Federal law leaves most of the definition to the state. ESSA asks each state to add at least one indicator of school quality or student success, and the state chooses it. Perkins V fixes a list of reporting indicators and leaves one for the state to set.
An assessment is one piece of that evidence. The ESSA regulation says the indicator has to tell schools apart, so a measure every school passes just by running a test carries little weight alone. Pair the assessment with something larger, such as a postsecondary plan.
JobCannon is not a state-approved test of academic proficiency, so it cannot satisfy the proficiency indicators, and it is not a credentialing test. We do not submit anything on your behalf, and no export is formatted to a state template. Your state plan says what counts. Our ESSA guide and Perkins V guide explain where an assessment can fit.
What a good assessment measures
A readiness assessment helps only if a student can act on what it says. JobCannon's class assessment measures two things, then points to careers.
The core class assessment pairs RIASEC with the Big Five and takes about 8 minutes in all. Our RIASEC vs Big Five comparison shows what each one adds.
Ask every vendor what the assessment leaves out. Ours leaves out academic proficiency, skill level and credentials. A profile says what a student is drawn to and how they tend to work. It does not say how well they would do the job.
From a student's profile to the next skill to learn
The path runs from profile to careers, from careers to skills, and from skills to courses.
The first step is on the class result: six scores, a three-letter Holland Code and the top three careers, each with a fit score. The other two are in the Career Guide. It needs a student account, so a student on a class code does not reach it through the class link. There 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.
So the next skill to learn comes from the career a student chooses, not from a test of what they can already do. That is a limit, and a school should know it before it buys.
Running one for a whole class
- Request a class link with the form on the schools page. We reply by email to set it up.
- Share the link or class code with the class. Students enter it, pick a username and start.
- The core class assessment pairs RIASEC with the Big Five and takes about 8 minutes in all.
- The teacher opens the class report.
There are no student accounts, no email addresses and no roster import, and nothing connects to your MIS or SIS. The rules for student data, including students under 13, are in the FERPA guide and 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.
What the report gives a counselor
The class report is one page. It lists every student who took the test through the link, with each student's main result.
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. If students take a test from the public link instead, only the student sees the result.
Across a whole school, an organization administrator sets who sees named results: class summary only, named results for their own classes, named results for the whole school, or administrator. Raw item-level answers are never shown to any administrator.
For evidence and the cohort CSV, see the high school college and career readiness page. For caseload planning, see district counselor caseloads.
Interests and personality, not skill level. The RIASEC test shows which kinds of work a student is drawn to. The Big Five shows how a student tends to think and act. The results then rank careers by how closely the student's interests match each career's interest profile in O*NET.
The fit score compares the student's interest profile with the interest profile O*NET holds for the career. The student sees the top three careers, each with a fit score and a label.
It is not a test of academic proficiency and not a credential. It does not connect to your MIS or SIS, it does not import a roster, and no export is formatted to a specific state template. We do not submit anything on your behalf.
In a class, a link or class code and a username the student picks. There are no student accounts and no email addresses. A student who takes a single test on their own needs no account either.
For under-13s our posture is data minimisation, not parental consent: on a class code a student enters the code and picks a username, and we collect no email address and no demographics. We do not have a verifiable-parental-consent workflow; if your school or district requires one, that requirement is unmet today. The FERPA and COPPA guides linked below set out the rest.
The schools page sets out what a school pays. To start, request a class link with the form on that page. We reply by email.
Ask your state. The indicator is the state's to define, and an assessment is one piece of the evidence, not the whole measure. The ESSA and Perkins V guides below explain where an assessment can fit.