Many people like to take shortcuts. Shortcuts, that is, to finding out who they are and what they should be do with the rest of their life. Hence the popularity of interactive tests that are increasingly coming onto the Internet, mostly for free. If you like such tests then you may enjoy this collection – and perhaps find some helpful clues about future directions for your life and your work.

Now to the tests. Interactive tests online divide into two categories: Personality tests, and career or vocational tests – though sometimes the line between them gets a little hazy. We will look at each category, in turn.

Free Online Tests Dealing with Personality/Traits

Most of these interactive tests/instruments/sorters that are on the WEB are not career tests, strictly speaking. They are "personality tests/games/instruments." But it is important that your future job or career fit your personality; so, "personality" is not without career implications, at the very least.

Personality TYPE

These instruments, particularly the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), are loved by many career counselors. Incidentally, "Type" means "what kind of personality do you have?" – not "was this set in Courier or Palatino?" Anyhoo, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is not on the Internet. But three other tests, quizzes or 'sorters,' dealing with "Personality type" are.

 personalitytype.com
http://www.personalitytype.com

Personalitytype.com belongs to authors Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger and is basically a teaser to get you to buy their books. I have no quarrel with that; their books are popular – and deservedly so. "Do What You Are" is their classic, and "The Art of SpeedReading People" is their newest one.

The Keirsey Character Sorter/The Keirsey Temperament Sorter
http://www.keirsey.com/
Keirsey has a more extensive, but also more complicated, site. It has explanations of Personality Type, and lengthy descriptions of the various temperaments. It has two interactive tests/sorters: the Keirsey Character Sorter (which is newer and more complete), and the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (which is online in several languages – English, Spanish, Portuguese and German, currently). The site is interactive, and once you've answered its questions, it gives its results to you in Myers-Briggs Personality Type language ("you are an ENFP") – with colored graphs. All to the good. The bad news is: You have to go to several places within the site, before you can find out what it all means, for you.

Resource Materials on Personality Types
 http://sunsite.unc.edu/personality/faq-mbti.html

If you want to learn more about Personality Types than is available online, the Resource Materials site has a very extensive bibliography of printed materials that you can go look for in your local library, or any bookstore (such as amazon.com or the one down on Main Street).

In my view, the fundamental defect of Personality Type instruments is that they are great at illuminating the style with which you do any job, but are often misguided at predicting what career(s) that implies. I can tell you from decades of experience: Dream jobs or careers are defined by much more than just 'Type' or "style." I would therefore take all Personality Type career suggestions with a huge grain of salt. But they may stimulate your own ideas, which is a very good thing. For that reason, they're sometimes well worth taking.

The Enneagram

This is another highly popular test or instrument, these days, though how much it has to say about career-choice is also in wide debate. We can say this much: Career choice is always a search for the self, and for work more fitting to that self. In that sense, the Enneagram at the very least has career implications, and is useful for stimulating self-awareness, self-observation and growth.

Site dealing with it exist in a number of places on the Web. The two that I think are the best, are:

Enneagram Personality Dynamics
http://www.9types.com/

Rebecca (Becca) Xiong of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, maintains another impressive site dealing with the Enneagram. For those who want to delve more deeply into the instrument and its philosophy, this is the answer to their prayers. Becca is very thorough. She offers an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), descriptions, diagrams, another version of the test that you can take interactively, an Enneagram chat room, a message board, and a list of other sites on the Web that have to do with the Enneagram.

The Enneagram: An Adventure in Self Discovery
http://www.ennea.com

A site called "The Enneagram: An Adventure in Self Discovery," maintained by Jack High, a certified Helen Palmer teacher who resides in the northwestern United States, has a most complete list of Enneagram resources, seminars, history, etc. This is for those who want to do further research into the whole idea of the Enneagram.