You want to see yourself, or your professional future, more clearly, and two kinds of tests come up: the personality test and the career test. They look alike from a distance, they are often confused, and yet they do not answer the same question. Choosing the right one depends on what you are really after.
This article sets out the difference between the two, what each measures, and how to tell which one suits you, knowing that the fullest answer often means not choosing at all.
What a Personality Test Measures
A personality test describes your way of being and working. It answers the question “how am I?”: your relationship with novelty, how you organize yourself, your need for contact, how you relate to others, how you respond to stress.
The reference model here is the Big Five, also called the OCEAN model, which Solivalis is built on. This benchmark personality test places each person on five broad dimensions, without confining them to a type. A personality test does not name a job for you: it sheds light on how you work, which is useful well beyond the professional sphere alone.
What a Career Test Measures
A career test, on the other hand, answers the question “what am I drawn to?”. It does not describe your way of being, but your professional interests: the activities that get you moving, the settings where you feel in your element.
It usually rests on Holland’s model, known as RIASEC, which groups interests into six broad families. This approach, at the heart of the career aptitude test, identifies from your profile families of jobs consistent with what draws you in. Unlike a personality test, a career test aims directly at the question of the job.
Which to Choose
It all depends on your question of the moment.
If you are looking to understand yourself better, to grasp how you work in your relationships, your job, your daily life, the personality test is the one that answers.
If your question is professional, finding a path, considering a career change, exploring jobs that resemble you, the career test is the one that sheds light.
But these two questions are often linked. Choosing a path without understanding how you work, or knowing yourself without knowing where to go, each time leaves half the answer in the dark.
A simple way to decide: ask whether your question is about who you are or about where you are going. The first calls for a personality test, the second for a career test. If both concern you, there is no need to choose.
Why Not Choosing Is Often the Best Answer
Personality says how you work, interests say what draws you in. Taken together, these two measures give a reading neither provides alone: two people with similar interests but different personalities will not thrive in the same settings.
This is what Solivalis is built on, measuring both and reading them together to help you know yourself better to choose the right path. Rather than choosing between two halves, you can take the test for free and get both at once.
