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Free O*NET Interest Profiler, 60 Work-Activity Items, 100+ Career Matches

The U.S. Department of Labor O*NET Interest Profiler, 60 verbatim work-activity statements, 25 minutes, full RIASEC Holland Code profile linked to 100+ O*NET occupations. CC BY 4.0 licensed, the most rigorous free career interest assessment available. No signup, no email.

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What is the O*NET Interest Profiler?

The O*NET Interest Profiler is the career assessment instrument published by the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET program, the same federal occupational database used by workforce agencies, career counselors, and labor economists nationwide. Where most interest assessments ask how much you enjoy abstract categories like 'working outdoors' or 'helping people', the O*NET Interest Profiler presents concrete work activities: 'Build kitchen cabinets', 'Develop a new medicine', 'Manage a retail store'. You rate each activity on a 5-point scale from Strongly Dislike to Strongly Like, and the algorithm maps your ratings to a Holland Code (RIASEC) profile anchored directly to O*NET's taxonomy of 900+ occupations.

The 60-item Short Form was developed by Lewis, Rivkin, and colleagues at the National Center for O*NET Development and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration. Published validation studies report Cronbach alpha reliabilities of .78–.85 across the six RIASEC scales and strong convergent validity with the full 180-item O*NET Interest Profiler. Unlike the Standard RIASEC test, which uses interest statements, the O*NET IP uses work-activity items, which produce more occupation-specific predictions because the items are drawn directly from O*NET occupational task databases.

JobCannon runs the O*NET Interest Profiler as the I-axis Deep tier on its assessment depth ladder: Mini Career Match (12 items, 2 min) → Standard RIASEC (60 items, 15 min) → O*NET Interest Profiler Deep (60 work-activity items, 25 min, 100+ occupation matches). The Deep tier is for users who want the most granular occupational fit data available for free. Your result includes a 6-axis RIASEC radar, your 3-letter Holland Code, and a list of O*NET occupations matched to your dominant interest profile, the same data that career counselors use when advising on career transitions.

Closely related on JobCannon: Standard RIASEC (60-item Holland Code test), Career Match (2-minute mini test), and Big Five personality test.

What You'll Discover

🏛️Your 3-letter Holland Code generated from the same U.S. Department of Labor instrument used by federal workforce agencies
🗺️100+ matched O*NET occupations ranked by fit, organized by your dominant RIASEC letter, far deeper than the Standard RIASEC's 20-career list
📊6-axis RIASEC radar with percentile rankings across all six Holland types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional
🔬Work-activity vs interest distinction, why your O*NET profile may surprise you compared to a standard RIASEC: activity-based items capture what you'd enjoy doing, not just thinking about
🎯Industry and work-setting fit recommendations based on O*NET occupation zone and industry cluster data linked to your top Holland letters
📈Career pivot analysis: how your RIASEC profile maps to adjacent occupations you may never have considered, with salary ranges from the O*NET Occupational Outlook

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

6 questions

  • Yes. The O*NET Interest Profiler is published by the U.S. Department of Labor under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). JobCannon runs all 60 items free with no signup required. The basic result, your Holland Code, 6-axis RIASEC radar, and top-matched O*NET occupations, is visible immediately on screen. A free optional account lets you save your result and compare future retakes.

  • Both measure the same six RIASEC dimensions (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional), but they use different item types and produce different outputs. The Standard RIASEC uses interest statements, 'I enjoy working with tools', 'I like analyzing data', while the O*NET Interest Profiler uses concrete work activities: 'Build kitchen cabinets', 'Develop a new medicine', 'Write books or plays'. Work-activity items map more directly to O*NET occupation data, which is why the Interest Profiler can match you to 100+ specific O*NET occupations rather than broad career categories. The Standard RIASEC is faster (15 min vs 25 min); the O*NET IP gives you a more granular occupational fit profile.

  • The O*NET Interest Profiler was developed by the National Center for O*NET Development under a contract from the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration. The 60-item Short Form was developed and validated by Lewis, Rivkin, and colleagues (published 2018, psychometric update). The instrument is part of the O*NET Career Exploration Tools suite, available at onetcenter.org. It is a work of the U.S. federal government, licensed CC BY 4.0 for free commercial and educational use with attribution.

  • The 60-item Short Form has been extensively validated. Published studies report Cronbach alpha reliabilities of .78–.85 across the six RIASEC scales, and correlations with the full 180-item version averaging above .90 for each scale. The activity-based item format (rating real work tasks) produces better occupational prediction validity than abstract interest statements, a consistent finding in vocational psychology research. The O*NET IP is one of the most rigorously validated free career assessments available, used in federally funded workforce programs across the United States.

  • Yes, it is ideal for career change. The work-activity format means your result reflects what you would actually enjoy doing in a role, not just the abstract idea of a career. A software engineer who discovers a high Social score might find that user experience research, product management, or developer advocacy roles fit better than pure coding. A nurse with a high Investigative score might thrive in clinical research or health informatics. The 100+ matched O*NET occupations are organized by work zone (education level required), making it easy to see which adjacent roles are accessible with your current background.

  • The O*NET Interest Profiler is the I-axis Deep tier on JobCannon's depth ladder: Career Match (Mini, 12 items, 2 min) → Standard RIASEC/Holland Code (Standard, 60 interest items, 15 min) → O*NET Interest Profiler (Deep, 60 work-activity items, 25 min). All three measure the same RIASEC framework, but at different depths and with different item types. The Mini gives a quick Holland letter; the Standard gives a full 3-letter code with interest-based items; the Deep gives the same 3-letter code plus 100+ O*NET occupation matches using the federal work-activity taxonomy. If you've already taken Career Match or RIASEC and want to go deeper, the O*NET IP is the natural next step.

Take the O*NET Interest Profiler (US DOL) Now

Discover your O*NET Interest Profiler profile. 60 questions, 25 min, free to take.

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