Find careers that match my interests

An interest is a pattern of likes and dislikes about various activities. The activities that you enjoy doing over a long period of time may become lasting interests. You can discover your career interests by:


  1. Reflecting on activities you enjoy doing time in different domains of your life. This could include activities you enjoy doing:
    • With your family
    • With your friends
    • At school
    • In the community
    • As a leisure activity

      Look for patterns in the activities you enjoy in different parts of your life and over time. Look for patterns in activities that seem to make time fly when you do them.

  2. Taking a career interest test.

Career Interest Tests

Career interest tests help you to:

  • Discover how your career interests relate to occupations.
  • Identify occupations that fit your career interests
  • Identify post-school education and training courses related to occupations that fit your interests.

Most career tests:

  • Ask you questions about different activities you enjoy. They ask you to rate how much you enjoy doing these activities.
  • Present a profile of your career interests based on your answers to the questions.
  • Suggest occupations that match your top career interests.

If you can see yourself in the profile, the career test may help you:

  • Identify occupations that match your career interests.
  • Identify matching occupations to investigate further.
  • Help you to make informed career choices

Many people find career interest tests helpful for:

  • Identifying career possibilities to investigate further.
  • Confirming a current career idea.
  • Monitoring and reflecting on career interests over time. To do this complete a career test every year or two. Take note of the pattern of your career interests over time. This can increase your confidence using the career interest test results to help you make career choices.

Your school Career Practitioner may be able to guide you in completing and interpreting a high quality and well researched career test. Or you can find a Career Practitioner from the Career Development Association of Australia.

myfuture Career Interest Test

Go to myfuture.edu.au website. Select My Career Profile. Sign up or log in. Follow the guidelines to complete the interest questionnaire. Explore the suggested occupations. Use the resources on myfuture to:

  • Research the suggested occupations that interest you most.
  • Find related education and training courses.

There are other quizzes you can do in the My Career Profile section of myfuture. These may help you to be more specific about what you might look for in an occupation, job or course. Your work in the My Career Profile section of myfuture is stored in your myfuture account. You can access your myfuture account at any time.

100 Jobs of the Future

The 100 jobs of the future website is based on research into the future of work in a technologically-driven society. The research team were from Deakin University, Griffith University and Ford Australia. Eleven experts contributed to the research. They investigated:

  • Major trends and changes in work in key industries
  • Jobs that will emerge as a result of these changes
  • Career interests and skills and interests needed for these jobs.

The research team identified 100 jobs of the future. They developed the Future Job Quiz.

Activity

A Caution about career interest quizzes

There are many career interest quizzes on the Internet. They are fun to do and may be helpful. But the accuracy and validity of many of these for high school students is unclear. Without this information, you don't know how reliable the career quiz is for accurately:

  • Identifying your true career interests
  • Matching Australian occupations to your career interests.

The career interest test on the myfuture website is for young people. It has been researched and is a reliable test for identifying:

  • Career interests
  • Matching occupations

You can find out more about the quality and accuracy of the myfuture career interest test in the myfuture Insights paper.

Popular Career Tests

Your school Career Practitioner may be able to give you some high quality, accurate career tests. Here are some examples of popular tools that are backed up by research:

There are others available. A Career Practitioner can advise you about high quality career tests.