Data and method
The figures on our data pages are published government data, or are worked out from that data or from stated conventions (2,080 hours in a working year, for example); each data page names the release its numbers came from. This page is the short version: what the test is, what the data is, how matching works, and what we are not claiming.
Who publishes this
This site is published by the Career Interest Test project, an independent side project. It is not a law firm, a licensed career-counselling practice, or a staffing agency.
This site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL), the National Center for O*NET Development, or the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We use their published data and tools under their licences — nothing more than that is implied.
The test
The questions are the 60 items of the O*NET Interest Profiler Short Form, which is published by USDOL and asks how much you would like doing each of 60 activities. We modified some of them (Chinese wording, scoring, and how results are presented).
That instrument is licensed to us under the O*NET Tools Developer License, not under the CC BY licence that covers the O*NET database. O*NET is a registered trademark of USDOL. USDOL has not endorsed, tested, or approved our modifications. The licence also requires a validation study — to professional standards, for the intended audience — before an adapted instrument is introduced as a product. We have not completed that study.
The career data
Two datasets, joined on the U.S. standard occupation code (SOC), which both publishers use.
- O*NET Database 31.0, released under CC BY 4.0 and retrieved 2026-09-15. It supplies occupation names, the interest profile behind each occupation's Holland code, Job Zone, and the rated education requirement. O*NET OnLine
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OES), May 2025 reference period, retrieved 2026-09-15. It supplies every wage and employment figure on this site. OES is a survey of employers, so it excludes self-employed workers and does not report every occupation in every state. BLS OES
How matching works
Every occupation in the database has a profile across the same six interest areas you are scored on. We compare the shape of your scores with the shape of that profile, and list occupations whose shape is closest — the same idea as a Holland code, but using all six scores instead of the top three letters.
The occupation interest profiles are estimates produced by O*NET with machine learning, not ratings made one occupation at a time by analysts. Similarity is not fit: it says your interests point the same direction, not that you would be good at the job, be hired, or enjoy the workplace.
What we do not claim
The list below is deliberately blunt, because most sites like this one do not say it.
- We are not licensed career counsellors and this is not career counselling. For decisions with money or visa consequences attached, talk to a qualified human.
- We do not predict your ability, your income, or your job prospects. Wage figures are statistics about occupations, not forecasts about you.
- The English instrument has published reliability and validity evidence. This product's scoring, matching and thresholds have not been validated locally. The similarity thresholds (profile correlations of .729 and .608) come from O*NET's published matching rules (National Center for O*NET Development, October 2025); their table has a third band (Good, r ≥ 0) that we do not use — nothing below .608 gets a ranking. The gate that decides whether a set of answers shows a clear direction — and therefore whether it gets a ranking — is our own: a range across the six interest areas plus a permutation test on the same 60 answers, chosen by us and not yet calibrated on real respondents. We do not claim our translation, scoring, presentation or matching is equivalent to the original.
- Results come from what you said about yourself. Interests change, and a test taken once in ten minutes is a snapshot, not a verdict.
Corrections
If a number here disagrees with the source it cites, the source is right and we are wrong — tell us and we will fix or remove it rather than defend it. Data pages carry the date we exported them; when a new O*NET or BLS release appears, we re-export rather than patch numbers by hand.
Career and wage data last exported 2026-09-16.
This tool does not predict your ability, income, or job prospects. The salaries shown are occupation-level statistics, not predictions about you. Your results come from self-reported interests and are not a judgment of your ability.