Career assessments can help broaden your sense of options, confirm hunches and suggest what type of working conditions may be ideal for you. However, no assessment can determine your career path. Do not expect a career assessment to tell you what your life’s work will be. Rather, use the results of your career assessment to begin and shape the process of exploration and information gathering that will assist you in narrowing down your choices and eventually making a decision about the occupational choice that is right for you.
The next three (3) standardized assessments require an initial appointment with a counselor to discuss which assessment would be most appropriate and helpful. There is a fee for each of these assessments.
Cambell Interest & Skill Survey (CISS)
Time Required: 30-60 minutes.
Assesses: Your interests and skills (or confidence in a particular skill).
Cost and Procedure: $20 - Call 243-2022 to make an appointment with a counselor to make sure
this is the most appropriate assessment for you.
Strong Interest Inventory (SII)
Time Required: 20-60 minutes.
Assesses: Your interests and compares them to people reporting satisfaction with
their job. Strong assesses your interests in Occupations, School Subjects, Activities
and "Types" of people you like to work with and Personal Characteristics.
Cost and Procedure: $20 - Call 243-2022 to make an appointment with a counselor to make sure
this is the most appropriate assessment for you.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
This is a personality type indicator. It will show you how you like to look at things
and how you decide things. It will help you see where your special strengths are and how
to relate to people who have different preferences than you.
Time Required: 30-60 minutes
Rating Scale Shows you which one of 16 personality types you are and the strength of that type. For example: Are you
extroverted or introverted? To what degree are you extroverted or introverted? How does this relate to
occupations and to people who are similar to your personality type? In what kinds of occupations are people
like you typically happy and successful?
Cost and Procedure: $20 - Call 243-2022 to make an appointment with a counselor to make sure
this is the most appropriate assessment for you.
Montana Career Information System (CIS)
This is a computerized assessment and database system. It provides several assessments that allow
you to match your responses to questions about interests and work values to careers that might be
a good "fit". Included in CIS are Occupation Sort, O*NET Interest Profiler, SKILLS and Work
Importance Locator. The inventories are quick and not as reliable as our other assessments. In
some of the assessments, you can change responses to questions and see how that changes the list
of occupations that "fit". CIS also has complete information on hundreds of careers including a
description of the field, training required, and the closest place(s) to get the training. It has
both Montana and National outlook and wage information. It also has an extensive listing of
schools and resources for financial aid information. You can find CIS at Career Services in
Lommasson Center 154 and at the College of Technology.
Career Exploration by Occupational Clusters
Beginning with a paper and pencil questionnaire, the Career Clusters Interest Survey provides you
with the opportunity to explore occupations from a perspective that is different from other types
of career assessments and can be used separately or in conjunction with other resources. Once
you have taken the survey, you are directed to look at the job titles from the Career Clusters
guides where you scored the highest. A set of instructions then takes you through the process of
exploring occupations using internet resources to find out more about those jobs. These paper
resources, with a three step process, are located in the Resource Library of Lommasson 154.