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Career tests are also referred to as vocational tests or inventories.  Before you take any, you should familiarize yourself with the following:

The Seven Rules About Taking Career Tests

1. There is no one test that everyone loves. - To begin with, some people hate all tests.  Period. End of story.  Forcing these tests on your best friend or family member (if he or she feels this way) could lead to your premature demise.

Other people like tests, but hate particular kinds of questions.  For example, some people dislike “forced-choice questions,” where they must pick between two choices that are equally bad, in their view.  Other people dislike “ranking yourself against others” questions, because, with their low self-esteem or high modesty, they rank themselves poorly in comparison with others in almost everything.

Hence, the form of a test has to feel right to the individual who is taking it.

2. There is no one test that always gives better results than others. - You may take a test that gives wonderful suggestions for future careers, but when your best friend takes the same test, his or her results may be way off the mark – and you are dismayed.  Tests have personality, and, with respect to any given test, one person will love its look, feel, taste, and touch, while another person will hate it on sight.  And, unfortunately, how one feels about a test will definitely skew one’s results.

3. No test should necessarily be assumed to be accurate. - We turn to tests with the hope that someone can definitely tell us who we are and what we should do, and we think a test will do that. NO, NO, NO.  You can’t say, “Well this must be who I am; the test says so.”  Test results are sometimes way off the mark.  On many online (and offline) tests, if you answer even two questions inaccurately, you will get completely different results and recommendations than you would have gotten if you had answered those questions accurately.  There have been countless sad stories about people whose lives were sent down a completely wrong path by test “results” that they believed when they shouldn’t have done.  You should take all tests results with not just a grain, but with a barrel, of salt.

Tests have one great mission and purpose:  To give you ideas you hadn’t thought of and suggestions worth following.  But if you ask tests to do more than that, you’re asking too much.

4. You should take several tests, rather than just one. - You will get a much better picture of your preferences, profile, and good career suggestions from three or more tests than just one.  It’s the old idea, since at least the time of the Second World War, of “triangulating” the source of a transmission.  You need to “triangulate” your test “profiles” in order to find your true self.

5. Always let your intuition be your guide. - Career tests are just a tool.  You know more about yourself than any test. No test outcome should be treated as “etched in stone.” Reject the summary the test gives you if it just seems dead wrong to you.  Trust your intuition.  On the other hand, if you really like the suggestions a test gives you, don’t agonize about whether those suggestions are worth tracking down – just follow those suggestions.  Always listen to your heart.

6. Don’t let tests make you forget that you are absolutely unique on the face of the earth. - There is a sense in which all tests tend toward one unvarying result:  Because they deal in categories, they don’t really tell you what’s unique about you, but rather they tend to end up saying “you are an ENFP,” or “you are a Type A,” or “you are an Autumn.”  It’s a category they’re talking about, and sometimes it is the wrong category.

Job expert Clara Horvath stated, “Career counseling at its best – person to person, face to face – treats you not as a member of some category, but as a unique job seeker, seeking to conduct a unique job hunt, by identifying a unique career and then connecting with a unique company or organization, that you can uniquely help or serve.”

7. You are never finished with a test until you’ve done some good hard thinking about yourself. - Tests are fun, but just reading the results isn’t enough.  You’re not done until you’ve thought hard about what distinguishes you from every other member of the human race, what makes you unique.  With that knowledge, you can then set out to find the work that is the most satisfying and fulfilling to you.  Without that hard thinking, tests become just a “flytrap for the lazy.”