No matter what point we are at in life, most of us have a tendency to question things… sometimes more often than necessary. Still, if you’re asking the questions, you must be seeking something more.
Even if you think you are happy… are you really? Are you living your life to your fullest potential? Taking time for self-care? Working in the right profession? Happily married, dating or single?
Do you feel fulfilled?
The great thing about life is that there is no time like the present to change course if you feel the need. And the best way to do that is to get to know who you really are.
Personality and career assessment tests are great starting off points for understanding yourself better. In fact, what you want and what you are capable of, may surprise you.
In this article, I’m going to talk about the 15 best online personality and career tests. It’s time to quit wondering and start living your best life!
1. Truity
Truity is perhaps the best online personality test “on paper”. That’s likely because it’s basically your one-stop shop for more than a dozen tests. There are personality tests, career tests, relationship tests.
While the Myers-Briggs personality test is the most well-known, Truity also offers a look at The Big Five Personality Model… which I found particularly interesting. The Big Five (sometimes called OCEAN or CANOE, both acronyms), is the most widely accepted personality theory in the scientific community and generally believed to be the most scientifically sound way of conceptualizing the differences between people.
The Big Five is a trait model of personality, rather than a type model. Thus, it describes people in terms of traits on a spectrum and defines five dimensions of personality. They are:
All of Truity’s assessments are based on sound, research-backed theories. For those seeking a potential career change, the Holland Code system of career selection is particularly effective.
Fees:
There are a number of free assessments, as well as some that have a paid report option. All paid assessments have been subjected to a rigorous research process to ensure reliability and validity.
2. 16Personalities
16Personalities site wins the award for the most welcoming homepage… hands down. I mean, it’s adorable and instantly made me want to explore further. It reminded me of those old claymation television shows I used to watch as a kid.
But I digress.
16Personalities touts that taking their test will provide you with a “freakishly accurate” description of who you are and why you do things the way you do… and in less than 10 minutes. I’ve waited in line for a coffee longer than that.
The site talks about 4 main personality types. They are:
And each of those is broken down into sub-categories. This will help put into perspective what really drives, inspires, and worries different personality types… thus, helping you build more meaningful relationships.
The site also offers tools, as well as a mix of free and paid tests in the categories of: personal growth, relationships and career.
Fees:
The free test gives you greater insight into who you are and why you act the way you do. The premium version takes it a step further to help you grow and better navigate your way through life. It’s sort of like having a personality compass in your pocket.
3. Personality Hacker
So the first thing you’ll notice when visiting Personality Hacker's homepage is it is very Myers -Briggs driven. There are images asking you to click on your MB personality type.
The site uses something they refer to as “the car model” to explain the work originally laid out by Carl Jung (in his book Psychological Types), and expanded upon by Isabel Briggs Myers (in her book Gifts Differing). It claims to help people grasp these functions in a more accessible way.
If you’re like me, you may be wondering, “what if I’m not sure of my type?” The good news is, you can take the quiz called The Genius Personality Assessment. It is 60 questions and supposed to take about 10 minutes.
The bad news is, unlike other sites, it won’t let you just take the “free” quiz without entering your name and email address. So my advice/hack would be to take the quiz here first, unless you want to be on their mailing list.
Once you give permission, they will send about two emails per week directing you to articles, videos, podcasts and other content for using your personality type for personal growth. They will also occasionally run promotions, resulting in several emails in one week.
The site also puts a great deal of emphasis on the 9 Enneagram personality types, which you may want to do your own research on first.
What you need to know is that Personality Hacker is more of a course program, then just a resource site. Creators, Joel and Antonia, offer podcasts and webinars and tons of catalogs with information to help you make the most of your personality in all life situations.
They also encourage members to schedule a personality type consultation call, for which there is a fee. There are also coaching sessions available.
There is a lot of information to be found here, it just takes time to sift through it all and find out what is free and what is worth paying for.
Fees:
Some of the site features are free. Premium opens up other features, as well some ala cart webinars and podcasts. Personality consultations cost $225 US and last 1-2 hours. It includes your type specific Personality Assessment Starter Kit (valued at $67). The Starter Kit will help you get on the path to learning more about yourself and what gifts you bring to the world.
4. Myers-Briggs Test | Personal Growth
This is the official home of the Myers-Briggs online test. It offers tests for personal growth, career growth and team growth.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® helps support your personal well-being and professional performance goals by providing you with a deeper understanding of what makes you you.
With these insights you can make more informed decisions, better communicate with others, and build stronger relationships, all based on the science of your personality.
The website provides you with the opportunity to review each of the 16 personality types. You’re given an overview of the personality, its strengths, popular career choices and relationship advice.
It also breaks down what percentage of the population belongs to each type, as well as the male and female percentage. I thought this was rather cool.
Fees:
The tests on the official Myers-Briggs site are not free. The personality test costs $49.95, the career test is $69.95. Businesses wanting to take advantage of the team test pay $99.95. This test provides insights into your team's dynamics and reveals strengths and potential blind spots so that you can maximize team effectiveness.
5. CareerFitter
If you are interested in learning if you’re on the right career path, or still trying to decide which path you want to take, CareerFitter is a good place to start. It’s been around for over 20 years and trusted by major Fortune 500 companies and career counselors for its accuracy.
This career test is focused specifically on a person’s work personality or personality when they are working to uncover best career matches. There can be value in the different types of tests and quizzes for insight into desires, intelligence, and aptitude that work in unison with CareerFitter.
CareerFitter is the most accurate career test online and offers a satisfaction guarantee.
The free test takes an average of 15 minutes to complete. Your results uncover your unique combination of character strengths to create your detailed work personality profile. You may print your results when finished.
The Premium Career Report results are available in .pdf format, which many people choose to include on their job applications and resumes.
The site also includes some useful resources and articles, such as this one on “work from anywhere jobs and careers”.
Fees:
There is no cost to take CareerFitter’s career test. It includes a free career test report that is generated after you complete the questions. You can take our career test for free as many times as you choose. There is a Premium Career Report option that allows you to save your test results and view your advanced report, career research, career videos, and search who is hiring near you. The cost starts at $19.95 for these reports.
6. Test Color
Test Color is a super fun personality test. It’s very 1980’s with its neon colored squares. The test simply asks you to begin clicking on blocks, starting with those you prefer the most until they are all gone.
Then you do it all over again, beginning with the colors you prefer the least. The results then give you a breakdown of what the colors say about your personality. Your strengths and weaknesses. The site also offers free tests on your future, love, mood, career and more.
Test Color creators believe that classic personality tests are based on a series of questions that suffer from the social desirability bias. Basically, the person answering the questions will try to portray himself in a favorable light, answering questions in a way they think others would approve of.
Symbolic, emotion-based tests like this one, look at feelings and emotions instead… and therefore don’t lie, but speak profound truth.
Fees:
Many of the tests are free. I could not find any hidden fees. The website does not have a FAQ section.
7. Human Metrics
Human Metrics is based on the Myers-Briggs personality test; however, it names its test the Jung Typology Test, after Carl Jung who started the work that the mother daughter team based the test upon. This test is free.
Upon completion, it promises takers will:
The test is 64 questions long, and probably takes about 10-15 minutes to complete, depending on how much thought you give it. Once you have this information, you can use the results of this test to take the Jung Marriage Test™ to assess your compatibility with your long-term romantic partner. There is a basic and paid version of this test.
Fees:
The Jung Typology Test is free. And a useful starting point for other tests. A list of additional tests come with a fee, which varies based on type ($3 – $9). Most major credit cards are accepted and processed through PayPal.
8. 123Test
The 123Test website is for propronest of the Big Five Personality Test that we mentioned earlier, featuring questions that were developed over the past three or four decades, by several independent scientific researchers. It is used commercially by psychologists, career counselors, and other professionals that conduct personality assessment.
This personality test contains 120 statements, for which there is no time limit. Most people take about 15 minutes. Choices for this test model include:
Takers are discouraged from selecting “neutral” too often.
There are other personality tests offered on this site, including the DISC personality test. This one lets you determine your DISC type and personality profile quickly. DISC factors include:
These are used to explain your behavior towards others and the everyday things you do. This test contains 28 groups of four statements, meant to be answered honestly and spontaneously. The test typically takes only 5 to 10 minutes to complete.
And of course, you can take the Jung Typology Test here as well. Additionally, there is a decent assortment of other free tests to make this site worth a visit.
Fees:
The 3 major personality tests are free. Other basic versions of tests, including IQ and Career Profiling, are also free. Other tests require you to purchase a “ticket” , to gain access. For instance, a ticket for the Classic Intelligence test is $8.99. Finally, the site also offers Assessment Training packages, ranging from $18.99 for a single test to $44.99 for all prep packages.
9. Personality Perfect
The Personality Perfect test features 28 questions, each with only two choices. It is also based on the Myers-Briggs assessment. The test doesn’t take long, unless you think more than you need to. There is no right or wrong answer.
In fact, test guidelines state:
They ask for an email at the end of the test to see your results, but this is optional… which I like.
The site also features articles, which cover a variety of topics. But, what really sets Personality Perfect apart is its app, Personality Match, available on Google Play and the App Store.
The basic version lets you enjoy all the perks of the free test and articles, but there are nominal in-app purchases that allow you to delve deeper and connect with other personalities. Features include:
Fees:
The online test and app are both free. Optional in-app purchases range from $1.99 – $23.99.
10. Career Explorer
This is the world’s most powerful career test… according to Career Explorer's home page. It uses advanced machine learning, psychometrics, and career satisfaction data to reinvent what a career test should and can look like.
The test is not meant to be done fast, or even in one sitting. It is designed to be throughout, so coming back to it is perfectly acceptable. There are four dimensions to “career fit”:
It takes about 30+ minutes to complete. The choices require some thought. They are: hate it, dislike it, neutral, like it and love it.
Once you’ve completed your assessment, you’ll be able to view a variety of careers that are a match for you. You can view your selections by:
All of which will fall within your grasp, based on your test results. Your selections also include avg. salary and overall employee satisfaction ratings, which adds a nice touch. For example, a restaurant host/hostess has a very low satisfaction score, whereas a blogger’s is very high – and yet their salaries are similar.
The test platform utilizes The Holland Codes. The six traits that make up the Holland Code model are sometimes referred to with the acronym RIASEC, with each one representing a person’s interest in certain types of work-related activities: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional.
In the CareerExplorer career test, an individual can score as highly realistic and highly artistic – or you could score low on both, and so on. You’re not being placed into one category.
Fees:
The basic test is free, while the premium report costs $35.
11. VeryWell Mind
VeryWell Mind is a mental health and well-being website. They are one of the few to offer an EQ test to measure your Emotional Intelligence. Since this is a psychological test, rather than a traditional personality test, actual doctors and other field professionals review the test.
In essence, emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to understand and manage both one’s own emotions and others'. The VeryWell Mind test is just 10 questions long and your results are delivered immediately.
Knowing how to understand and manage emotions can prove helpful in both your personal and professional life. It can have an effect on the way you work, how you interact with others and the relationships you engage in.
Once you have your results, you have a nice foundation for figuring out your next moves. Perhaps you’ve been thinking about a career change? Knowing your EQ can help sort through your options.
Fees:
There are no fees for this test.
12. Visual DNA
The Visual DNA website is quite basic, but it offers an interesting and fun personality test. In fact, the test starts the moment you load the website—snappy, right?
Visual DNA’s personality test is a “Who am I?” test, and while the format is a question and answer type, the answers are in the form of images.
For example, the first question that pops up asks, “Which of these amazes you most?” and then you have a choice of five images – the walk on the moon, a technology chip or part of a motherboard, two ladies helping each other, the Northern Lights, and a newborn baby.
You need to go through almost 80 questions before you get your results, which also ranks how you score in terms of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and nature, similar to the Big Five personality traits.
Fees:
Taking the “Who am I?” Visual DNA online personality test is free, and you can take it more than once if you want to.
13. The Personality Lab
The website of Personality Lab looks modern and very user-friendly. The company offers an enneagram personality test with 100 questions and 300 data points they analyze to give you your personality type.
Personality Lab claims that 90% of the people who took the test could make improvements to their personal and professional life based on their test results.
Scrolling further down on the web page, you’ll see that your enneagram personality test will reveal which of the nine personality types suits you best. There’s the:
- Challenger
- Investigator
- Individualist
- Perfectionist
- Helper
- Peacemaker
- Enthusiast
- Achiever
- Loyalist
Each of these types has a little character to match, it really is the cutest!
Clicking on the “Start the Test” button will generate the test. You will need to complete all of the questions, and luckily, you can return to the questions later (if you want to revise your answer).
The downside to other enneagram tests is that you have “this or that” questions, which are quite absolutist, and you may fall somewhere in the middle rather than one extreme. Luckily, the Personality Lab addresses this and gives you a range of options, from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” to more accurately describe which statement fits you.
Fees:
The test is free.
14. HEXACO Personality Test | IDRlabs.com
IDRlabs.com has a HEXACO personality test, together with various others, like a dark triad test, psychopath test, 8 values test, an enneagram test, and a faces test. All of these look super interesting, but I want to specifically focus on the HEXACO test.
The HEXACO personality test is like the Big Five personality test; however, instead of getting a score on five personality traits, you get a score for six core characteristics. These six core personality traits are:
- Honesty and humility
- Emotionality
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Conscientiousness
- Openness
The test is highly reliable as it was compiled by professionals and is based on the work of Michael C Asthon and Kibeom Lee who created the six core personality traits model.
You can choose to take the test in English or Spanish, and you’ll need to answer 48 questions before getting your results.
Beware though …
Some questions are really soul-searching and you might really need to evaluate your values and morals, as you need to answer questions like “I wouldn’t be tempted to use counterfeit money, not even if I were sure I could get away with it.” (Answer: “Agree” or “Disagree.”)
Fees:
You don’t have to pay anything when you take this HEXACO personality test.
15. My DiSC Profile
My DiSC Profile has a modern site that’s easy to navigate. I like that the site is explanatory, and you can choose to take the test, look at a sample report, and see the personality types.
A DiSC personality test looks at who you really are and what your ideal job is in terms of the following behavioral traits:
You need to complete 24 questions, and you get more than 16 personalities, making the DiSC personality test more accurate and unique. Who would say no to that?
The report is quite comprehensive since you get information about your personal style, core values, abilities, strengths, and limitations, personal development, how you relate to others, work style, and info to help you plan your career.
Fees:
Yay, the test is free and you don’t need to provide any personal information.
Final Thoughts on the Best Online Personality Tests
Whether you are looking to improve your personal or professional life, an online personality test is a great place to start. Regardless of which one (or ones) you choose, you are equipping yourself with the tools you need to succeed.
“No one can make you successful; the will to succeed comes from within.” – Fabrizio Moreira For that to happen, you need to understand what makes you who you are. You need to know why you react to certain situations the way that you do.
You need to delve into the way you think and process feelings, as well as what makes you truly happy. To better understand why happiness is so important, be sure to check out this article that helps put things in perspective!
And if you're looking for more resources on personality tests, be sure to check out these blog posts:
- 7 Fun Printable Personality Tests for Students
- 7 Sigma Male Tests to Test Your Personality in 2023
- 7 Narcissist Personality Disorder Tests to Try in 2023
Finally, if you want to identify YOUR personality type, then take one of these 11 personality tests to better understand what makes you tick.
Nicole Krause has been writing both personally and professionally for over 20 years. She holds a dual B.A. in English and Film Studies. Her work has appeared in some of the country’s top publications, major news outlets, online publications and blogs. As a happily married (and extremely busy) mother of four… her articles primarily focus on parenting, marriage, family, finance, organization and product reviews.
