CareerHex

About CareerHex

Who makes it

CareerHex is made by Monolen, an independent software business in Ontario. It isn’t a testing company and it isn’t a school. On this page, “we” means Monolen.

Why we built it

Canada’s Job Bank has free career quizzes and great job data, but it’s spread across many pages. We wanted one short quiz that puts it together for anyone choosing or changing a career, at any age: real careers ranked by how well they fit your interests, estimated pay and demand, and what to study in Canada to get there.

The research behind it

CareerHex is based on the Holland (RIASEC) model, which sorts work interests into six types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional (Holland, 1959, 1997). The model’s main idea is that people tend to be more satisfied, and stay longer, in work that matches their interests (Holland, 1997).

A big review of 60 years of studies found a real but small link between interest fit and doing a job well and sticking with it. In numbers, correlations of roughly 0.2 to 0.3, where 0 means no link and 1 means a perfect one (Nye et al., 2012).

About the quiz

The quiz has 30 everyday activities, like fixing a chair or designing a poster, and you say how you would feel about doing each one, from Strongly dislike to Strongly like. We wrote the activities ourselves, following the rules researchers use for interest quizzes: ask about liking, not about skill, pay or what others think, and use everyday activities that people of any age know. The answer scale follows the one used by the free O*NET® Interest Profiler. None of its questions are used, and CareerHex is not connected to or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The questions have not been tested with real users yet. If one is confusing or doesn’t fit where you live, please tell us.

One honest limit: interest fit points to work you are likely to enjoy and stick with, but it does not measure your ability or tell you what you will earn. Interests also change, especially in your teens, so it’s worth retaking the quiz in six months.

Sources

  • Holland, J. L. (1959). A theory of vocational choice. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 6(1), 35-45.
  • Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3rd ed.). Psychological Assessment Resources.
  • Nye, C. D., Su, R., Rounds, J., & Drasgow, F. (2012). Vocational interests and performance: A quantitative summary of over 60 years of research. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(4), 384-403.
  • Rounds, J., Hoff, K., & Lewis, P. (Eds.). (2021). O*NET® Interest Profiler manual. National Center for O*NET Development. https://www.onetcenter.org/reports/IP_Manual.html

Our main sources, including the career data and school paths, are on our sources and credits page.

Curious where you fit? Start the quiz. It’s free, has 30 questions and takes about 4 minutes.