Career Direct® assessment
Discover the work you are designed for
One assessment, four areas, a conversation with a certified consultant.
Career Direct has been developed for more than 30 years and taken by over 400,000 people in 84 countries. One assessment covers your personality, interests, skills and values, and you review the results with a consultant who helps you turn them into an action plan.
Reach
Proven around the world
400,000+
people
have taken the Career Direct assessment.
84
countries
where the assessment is used.
21
languages
in which the assessment is available.
30+
years
of development since 1989–1990.
What it measures
Four areas in one report
Career counsellors often combine several separate tests. Career Direct covers four areas in one assessment (about 1–1.5 hours online) and one consistent report.
Personality
How you work, communicate and make decisions: six main personality factors and their subfactors, described in pairs.
Interests
The fields that genuinely engage you and give you energy for years, linked to occupational groups.
Skills
Where you have a natural advantage and what comes easier to you than to others.
Values
What matters to you in work and life: the foundation of decisions you will not regret.
Why Career Direct
More than an online quiz
Built by work psychologists
Developed by licensed industrial-organizational psychologists, including Dr. Garnett Stokes and Dr. William A. Owens, with a background in personnel selection research.
Over 30 years of development
From paper to CD-ROM to an online platform, with a major report update in 2023 that added new fields such as data science and cybersecurity.
A person, not an algorithm
You review your results with a certified consultant who helps you focus on what matters most in a report of several dozen pages.
From results to action
The Interactive Action Plan connects your results with the O*NET occupational database: specific careers, steps and resources, available to clients working with a consultant.
Fair across groups
Items that behaved differently by gender or age were removed. The factor structure is the same for women, men, adults and young people.
Stress and finances too
The report includes scales for coping with stress and managing money that typical career tests do not have.
The science
Research you can read in numbers
Career Direct has a published technical manual (Crown, 2023). More than 18,000 people took part in the research behind the assessment.
0.88–0.94
reliability
Internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) of the personality scales.
0.91
one-week stability
Test–retest correlation of personality results; 0.82–0.83 after one year.
0.82
agreement with NEO PI
Career Direct extraversion correlates with extraversion on the established NEO test.
~71%
variance explained
Personality and interests explain about 71% of the occupational scale results on the Strong inventory.
These are correlation and reliability coefficients (0 to 1), not accuracy percentages. The research was conducted by the publisher on US samples; the norms are US-based. Details are in the Career Direct technical manual.
What clients say
Clients recognise themselves in the report
97%
of clients
say the report accurately describes their strengths.
96%
of clients
find the report useful.
94%
of clients
believe the assessment will help them grow.
88%
of clients
have a clearer direction afterwards.
These are clients’ own ratings from Crown surveys, not a measure of psychometric validity. That is why the conversation with a consultant, who helps you look at the results critically, matters so much.
History
From Larry Burkett’s idea to 84 countries
Career Direct was created at Crown, an organisation that has helped families with money and work since the 1970s. The founders’ conviction: every person is unique and has talents worth discovering.
- 1989–1990 · Larry Burkett invites Lee Ellis; the team defines the four assessment areas.
- 1995 · The assessment launches; its personality inventory is presented at the American Psychological Association (APA) convention.
- 1997–1999 · The Career Direct edition, studies with thousands of people, a CD-ROM with results in minutes.
- 2006 · The first fully interactive online version.
- 2008–2010 · First translations; each one is validated against the English version.
- 2023 · Major report update, the Interactive Action Plan and the technical manual.
Process
How the assessment works
- A short conversation: we clarify what you are looking for and which edition suits you.
- Online assessment: complete it at your convenience in about 1–1.5 hours.
- Optional 360° feedback: people who know you anonymously describe your strengths.
- Analysis: your consultant prepares insights and recommendations.
- Debrief session: online or in person, with a plan for your next steps.
Who is it for? Students from age 14, school leavers and university students, working adults and career changers, people 50+, and teams and HR departments.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Is it a Christian test?
It was created by Crown, a Christian organisation, and treats work as a calling. The assessment of personality, interests, skills and values serves everyone, regardless of worldview. The report may include references to faith; since 2023 the “Faith” value is defined more broadly.
How is it different from online tests?
It covers four areas instead of a single personality type, rests on more than 30 years of research, and you review the results with a certified consultant.
Will my results change in a year?
Only slightly: after one year the correlation for the main personality factors is about 0.83, and 0.86 for interests. The report stays useful for years and later decisions.
Will it tell me my perfect job?
It points to directions worth exploring and shows why they fit you. The decision is yours, and your consultant helps you think it through.
Know yourself. Find your direction. Live fully.
Tell us what you are looking for: choosing a school or degree, changing jobs or developing your team. We will reply and suggest the right edition of the assessment.
Sources: careerdirect.org, history, research and development; Career Direct Assessment Program Research and Development Technical Manual (Crown, 2023, PDF); Crown training materials. Career Direct® is developed by Crown Financial Ministries.