Strong Interest Inventory
The Strong Interest Inventory test has one of the oldest and most trusted pedigrees among current interest inventories. The first iteration of the Strong Interest Inventory assessment was introduced in 1927. It has expanded and evolved over the last 80+ years with the last two major updates occurring in 1994 and more recently 2004. It has been formulated to work effectively across genders and ethnicities. It is the premier assessment for those looking to match their interests with potential educational, career, and leisure pursuits, using their preferences in a variety of areas to help them discover what they’d most enjoy doing in work and in life. Each career option and college major category has a set of interest themes associated with them. Your answers reveal patterns between your likes and dislikes, and offer additional insight when taken as a whole, providing a clear picture of the types of activities and subjects you prefer.
There are four categories in the Strong Interest Inventory Test.
General Occupational Themes
These items deal with a candidate’s general attitude toward broad fields of interest. The six themes include Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional categories.
Occupational Scales
The foundation of the Strong Interest Inventory, these relate specific occupations with the kinds of interests and qualities that people in each occupation relate to.
The Strong Interest Inventory includes 122 gender specific (for a total of 244) Occupational Scales. Unlike the broader General Occupational Themes and Basic Interest scales, these are very specific. They compare likes and dislikes to those of men or women already working in each occupation.
While the other scales match likes and dislikes to scales that match those preferences, the Occupational Scales compare results to those of others in a specific occupational field, taking gender, ethnicity and cultural differences into account.
Basic Interest Scales
These measure a candidate’s interest in more specific subject areas and activities to clarify high and low scores on the General Occupational Theme Scales.
Personal Style Scales
These measure broader aspects of life and work, such as how candidates prefer to learn, how they best accomplish tasks at work, whether they prefer working alone or with other people, how they feel about taking a management role, and how they feel about taking risks.
A separate series of indexes allows us to understand more atypical profiles that may not correlate directly with the four scales noted above.
The information collected gives us a picture of your interests, and an indication of which career or college majors match these interests. Beyond your highest scores, you’ll see specific patterns which can still contribute to your ideal occupational path. Your profile provides insight into career paths, interests, risk-taking preferences, leadership styles, learning environments, work styles, and team orientation. (The College Edition Profile adds a section that lists typical college majors, recommended college courses, college preparation recommendations, and learning and studying tips.)