Why Skills & Abilities Focused Career Tests Are Better Than Passion and Personality Based Career Tests

Many coaches, books, leaders, and even career tests would have you believe that the key to career happiness is choosing a job that matches your passion.

Many of us have been bombarded with the message since an early age to figure out what we're passionate about and find a job that matches it. We're told, "Do what you love and the money will follow."

The problem is that advice isn't accurate for most people.

Countless clients have told me they don't feel they can be successful at work because they don't have any passions. And many people have passions that are very hard to earn a living doing (e.g., playing sports, creating art, creating fashion).

What Color is Your Parachute, written by Richard Bolles in 1970, has sold more than 10 million copies. Perhaps more than any other book, it introduced the baby boom generation to this passion-centric take on career happiness. This lesson has been handed down from generation to generation since. But following your passion is not particularly useful advice.

The passion hypothesis convinces people that somewhere there's a magic 'right' job waiting for them and that if they find it, they'll immediately recognize that this is the work they were meant to do. Unfortunately, bad things often follow when they fail to find it, such as job-hopping and crippling self-doubt.

When you have a "passion" mindset, you focus on whether you feel passionate about your work. This mindset leads to being hyperaware of what you 'don't' like about your work, leading to chronic unhappiness. This is especially true for entry-level positions that will not be filled with challenging projects and autonomy.

For some people, following their passion works. But observing a few instances of a strategy working does not make it universally effective. For most people, the goal should be finding work they'll eventually love. That sounds odd, but life unfolds over time. Deep, long-term passions take time to develop.

Amy Wrzesniewski, a professor of organizational behavior at Yale University, has made a career studying how people think about their work. In Wrzesniewski's research, the happiest, most passionate employees are not those who identified a pre-existing passion and then pursued it. Instead, research shows the most passionate workers are those who have been around long enough to become masters at what they do.

When you become an expert at your work, you command more money. You're challenged and receive peer recognition. You gain autonomy and job flexibility. You feel proud of your work. And you become more passionate about what you do.

Without the passion hypothesis to guide our careers, what should we use instead?

Personality tests ask a series of questions to measure your personality traits in psychological categories like feeling, thinking, intuition and sensing. Based on your answers, you are grouped into a specific personality "type" and then shown careers that match that type.

Many people believe a personality-focused career test will help them discover their best career choice. Many coaches and career books also use personality-based tests to recommend work ideas. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, also known as MBTI, is the most well-known personality test.

However, personality test results are largely meaningless and poor predictors of career success or happiness.

One big problem with personality tests is that most people's personalities aren't so cut and dry. With most personality traits – and the questions asked on personality tests - humans fall on different points along a spectrum. For example, if you ask people whether they are introverted or extroverted, prefer to think or feel, or whether they prefer to judge or perceive, the majority will tell you a little of both. Most people fall somewhere in between.

But personality tests don't allow that answer. Instead, they force you to choose 'yes' or 'no.' And the test results and 'personality types' are built entirely around the basis that people are all one or the other. That's just inaccurate and wrong.

Another problem with personality-based tests is that human behavior is context-based. People exhibit different personalities in different situations. A person can be extraverted in some situations and introverted in other situations.

Most of us also vary in personality traits over time. For example, depending on our mood when we take the test, we may or may not think we sympathize with people. But the test simply tells us whether we're "thinking" or "feeling" based on how we answered binary questions at that moment.

Consequently, personality-based career tests are notoriously inconsistent. Research has found that as many as 50 percent of people get a different result the second time they take a test, even if it's just a few weeks later. That makes the results of personality tests essentially meaningless.

Another indicator that personality tests like Myers-Briggs is inaccurate is that several different analyses have shown it's not particularly effective at predicting people's success at various jobs. The characteristics measured by the test have almost no predictive power on how happy you'll be in a situation or how you'll perform at your job. All this is why psychologists — the people who focus on understanding and analyzing human behavior — almost completely disregard personality tests.

If passion and personality-focused career tests don't work, what's left?

We recommend choosing a career primarily based on the skills and abilities that you are good at and enjoy using. According to Indeed Career Guide, the opportunity to use your favorite skills and abilities is one of the most critical ingredients in job satisfaction.

When the work you do uses your favorite skills and abilities, work won't feel arduous. Instead, it makes your work feel like a natural expression of you, making it more exciting and engaging.

Career Clarifier is a skills and abilities-focused career test designed specifically for college graduates, college students, and anyone considering earning a college degree or certificate. While we focus on skills and abilities, we also consider personal traits and interests.

Because Career Clarifier is focused on careers that typically require a college education, our test, career research, data points, and analytical tools are optimized to make more specific, accurate, and relevant job and career predictions.

When you take the Career Clarifier Test, here's what you'll receive:

A description of your favorite skills and abilities – These are a unique combination for you, and you'll want to use them in your work so you can excel in your job and have the career success and satisfaction you want.
A quick snapshot of the 20 best jobs and careers for you, including job title, compensation, matching skills & abilities, and links to sample job postings. These careers are sorted into career clusters that make it easy to assess your options
Detailed Career Summary Profiles will help you better understand the work and typical salary range, the demand for that type of work, helpful education (if that's relevant to you), sample job postings, and more.
A comprehensive list of types of employers that match your interests (a Career Clarifier exclusive). Research shows that interest in a career or field is one of the best predictors of career satisfaction. The work world is incredibly diverse, and most people have no idea about the many different types of employers that match their interests. When you combine the recommended careers with this list, you'll have a career that you'll excel in, enjoy, and be proud of. We're the only career test that provides this information.
Job idea research and evaluation resources. Choosing the right work is an important decision that you don't want to get wrong. That's why you may want to use our proprietary resources to help you do even deeper research to choose your best career option.

Why Skills & Abilities Focused Career Tests Are Better Than Passion and Personality Based Career Tests

The Problems with Following Your Passion

The Problems with Personality Tests

The Benefits of Skills-Focused Career Test

Why Focus Clarifier is a Unique & Better Career Test