About the test
Career interest test
Find out which kinds of work activities you enjoy most with our free career interest test. It uses the Oregon Vocational Interest Scales (ORVIS), a public-domain measure from the International Personality Item Pool, and shows eight interest areas with occupations that fit your profile.
Questionnaire / instrument: ORVIS
The test at a glance
- Price
- Free, including your results
- Registration
- No account required
- Length
- 92 activities and jobs
- Time
- About 9 minutes
- Format
- Rate how much you would like each · five response options
- Your report
- Eight interest areas · matching occupations
The eight interest areas
ORVIS covers eight broad areas of work interests. Six of them resemble Holland’s RIASEC types; Adventure and Erudition are not part of that model. These are the areas in your report:
Leadership
Leading, persuading and making decisions: taking charge, negotiating, selling ideas and representing others.
Organization
Planning, numbers and order: budgets, records, schedules and keeping systems running smoothly.
Altruism
Helping, teaching and caring for others, as in health care, education and social work.
Creativity
Art, music, design and writing: creating, expressing yourself and working with aesthetics.
Analysis
Science, mathematics and problem solving: understanding how things work, research, statistics and programming.
Production
Practical work with your hands, nature and machines: building, repairing, growing things and working outdoors.
Adventure
Excitement, physical challenges and competition: sports, the outdoors and work where the day is not predictable.
Erudition
Languages, books and knowledge: reading, writing, editing, translating and learning for its own sake.
What your results show
Your report is ready as soon as you have answered. The order of your areas matters more than the exact numbers. You can preview the layout before taking the test.
- Your three strongest interest areas, with a description and examples of each.
- All eight areas on a 0–100 scale, each marked as strong, moderate or little interest.
- The activities and jobs you answered “Strongly like”, since specific likes can matter even when they do not fit the overall pattern.
- About ten occupations matched to your profile, plus extra suggestions when Adventure or Erudition is among your strongest areas.
What does it measure?
Eight vocational interests: leadership, organization, altruism, creativity, analysis, production, adventure and erudition. It explores activities you enjoy, which can help you consider work and study options.
Where does it come from?
The Oregon Vocational Interest Scales (ORVIS) were developed by Pozzebon, Visser, Ashton, Lee and Goldberg. Their 2010 publication describes a public-domain measure available through IPIP.
How is the result calculated?
You rate how much you would like each of 92 activities and jobs, from 1 (strongly dislike) to 5 (strongly like). Each area is the average of its 10 to 14 items, shown on a 0–100 scale where 0 means every answer was “strongly dislike” and 100 every answer “strongly like”. Occupation suggestions use our own mapping of six areas to Holland’s RIASEC types, compared with O*NET interest profiles of more than 900 occupations; occupations linked to specific jobs you liked are moved up.
What can the result tell you?
Interest is different from skill, qualifications or the likelihood of getting a job. The 0–100 scores are not percentiles; your answers are not compared with a norm sample. Career matches are suggestions for exploration, not a validated prediction of satisfaction or success in a particular occupation.
Languages and adaptations
English follows the original ORVIS wording; German uses Marc Schreiber’s published IPIP translation. Other translations, including Norwegian, were made for this site with AI assistance and have not been independently validated.
Frequently asked questions
Is the career interest test free?
Yes. You can answer all the questions and read your full report, including the occupation suggestions, without paying or creating an account.
How is this different from the Holland code test?
The Holland code test uses the 60 work activities of the O*NET Interest Profiler Short Form and gives you a three-letter code from Holland’s six RIASEC types. This test uses the 92 ORVIS items, covering eight areas, including Adventure and Erudition, which have no RIASEC counterpart. Choose the Holland code test if you want a code used widely in career guidance, and this test if you want a broader picture of your interests. Both use the same occupation data for suggestions.
Does a score of 80 mean I am more interested than 80% of people?
No. The 0–100 scale shows where your average answer lies between “strongly dislike” (0) and “strongly like” (100). It is not a percentile, and your answers are not compared with other people. Above 62.5 is shown as strong interest, below 37.5 as little interest.
How are the occupations chosen?
We link six of the areas to Holland’s types (Production to Realistic, Analysis to Investigative, Creativity to Artistic, Altruism to Social, Leadership to Enterprising and Organization to Conventional) and compare the shape of your profile with O*NET interest profiles for more than 900 occupations. Occupations connected to a specific job you liked are moved up. The mapping is our own and has not been validated.
Should I answer based on what I am good at?
No. Rate how much you would enjoy each activity, regardless of training, ability, pay or whether you think you would get the job. Answering from what you think you should like makes the profile less useful.
Can my interests change over time?
Yes. Interests are fairly stable in adulthood, but they develop, especially during the teenage years and early adulthood, and new experiences can shape them. If you take the test again later, look at whether the order of your strongest areas has changed.
License and reuse
Public domainIPIP places its items and scales in the public domain. They may be used, copied, adapted and translated for commercial and non-commercial purposes without a fee or separate permission.
The terms below apply to the test materials. Articles, translations, software and our result descriptions may have separate terms.
Sources and further reading
Pozzebon, J. A., Visser, B. A., Ashton, M. C., Lee, K., & Goldberg, L. R. (2010). Psychometric characteristics of a public-domain self-report measure of vocational interests: The Oregon Vocational Interest Scales. Journal of Personality Assessment, 92(2), 168-174.