Understanding Your Career Matches Based on Matching Skills
When reviewing your Career Clarifier results, it’s important to understand what the number of matching work activities means and how to evaluate career them. While a higher number of matching activities can indicate a strong fit, it’s not the only factor to consider when making career decisions.
Careers with 8 or more matching skills are extraordinary matches. These roles align very closely with your preferred work activities, making them strong contenders as careers where you can naturally excel.
However, a high number of matching skills alone does not mean you should choose that career. Other factors such as work environment, compensation, job availability, and educational requirements should also be considered.
Careers with 5, 6, or 7 matching skills are very solid career options. These careers incorporate a significant number of your preferred work activities, meaning you are likely to find the work both enjoyable and engaging. It's possible that many of your strongest career choices will fall into this range.
Careers with 3 or 4 matching skills can still be strong options, but how you evaluate them depends on your overall test results:
If most of your career recommendations have 3 or 4 matching work activities, there are several possible reasons:
If you chose to avoid highly common work activities when taking the test, the system had to find careers that exclude those tasks. This can lead to recommendations that match only a small portion of your selected work activities.
If your work activitie preferences cover a wide range of unrelated careers, no single career will match a large portion of your work activities.
Some work activities rarely coexist in a single role (e.g., a mix of highly structured analytical tasks and freeform creative work). If your selections are highly diverse, fewer careers will strongly match your combination of interests.
If your favorite activities are less commonly found together in careers, the test may not be able to generate high-match recommendations and instead suggests careers that best align.
Some work activities are niche and only appear in a limited number of careers. If many of your selected activities are highly specialized, you may receive a smaller set of career recommendations with fewer matching activities.
If most of your career recommendations include 3 or 4 matching work activities, that does not mean there is anything wrong with your prefered work activities. It simply reflects the uniqueness of your interests and the way your chosen activities are distributed across careers.
Some people have a very specific set of skills that align strongly with a handful of careers, while others have diverse or specialized interests that don’t fit neatly into common career paths.
Your results are a reflection of your individuality, and the careers suggested are meant to give you a starting point for exploration. The most important factor is choosing a career that excites and motivates you, regardless of the number of matching skills.
The number of matching work activities is an important factor in career recommendations, but it’s just one piece of the puzzle. A career with fewer matches might still be a great choice if it aligns with your passions or long-term goals, while a career with many matches might not be ideal if other aspects of the job don’t appeal to you.
Use your the career recommendations in your Career Clarifier results report as a starting point for exploration, and consider all factors—including work environment, salary, job market demand, and education—before making your final decision.