The Assessment Built on a Century of Career Science
THE STRONG INTEREST INVENTORY
The Assessment Built on a Century of Career Science
Not a quiz. Not an algorithm. A psychometric instrument backed by nearly 100 years of research and validated across millions of people — built to tell you what careers your interests actually fit.
Where It Came From
In 1927, Edward K. Strong Jr. at Stanford University published the first version of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank. His insight was deceptively simple: instead of measuring what people could do, measure what they were drawn to — and compare that pattern to the interests of people already thriving in specific careers. If your interests looked like a successful engineer's, that was a meaningful signal worth listening to.
The assessment has been continuously researched and updated ever since. Today's version — the Strong Interest Inventory® assessment — reflects nearly 100 years of refinement, including John Holland's RIASEC framework (added in the 1970s), multiple large-scale normative restandardizations, and ongoing validity studies. It's one of the most studied psychological instruments in history. That history is the reason it works.
The Research Behind It
The Strong isn't scored against a theory of what interests should predict. It's scored against empirical data from hundreds of thousands of people who've been tracked in their careers over time. When you answer the same way as people who love being architects, your score goes up for architecture. That's criterion-referenced measurement — the gold standard in vocational psychology.
Over 1,000 published validity studies. Predictive validity data spanning decades. Reliability coefficients that hold up across cultures, age groups, and geographies. This is what makes the Strong different from a career quiz that categorizes you based on a few trait assumptions. The data was collected from real people in real careers, not derived from theoretical models.
This Isn't a Personality Test
The Strong measures interests — what you're pulled toward — not personality traits, cognitive abilities, or values. It doesn't tell you what you're good at or who you are as a person. It tells you what kinds of work environments and activities energize you versus drain you. That's a different question, and it's one that predicts career satisfaction better than almost any other measure.
Interests are more stable than moods, more actionable than traits, and more honest than what sounds impressive on a resume. They're the thread underneath your best experiences — the common denominator in the times you've lost track of time doing something. The Strong surfaces that pattern and gives it a name.
Why It Matters Now
The average person changes careers 5–7 times in their lifetime. Most of those changes happen because the work turned out to not suit them — not because they lacked the skills. Starting with a strong interest profile doesn't eliminate that exploration, but it narrows the search significantly. Instead of randomly trying careers until something fits, you start with a map.
Early-career clarity compounds. Choosing a degree, internship, or first job that aligns with your interests — even partially — means you build skills in areas you'll actually use. You advance faster, stay longer, and are more likely to end up somewhere that feels like yours rather than somewhere you settled for.
What You Get
The Strong generates six categories of results — each one a different lens on your interest profile.
Your GOT Code — three letters that describe your dominant interest pattern and how it maps to career environments.
RIASEC Profile — all six interest type scores ranked, showing how you're weighted across the full framework.
Career Matches — 15–20 occupations ranked by how closely your interest pattern resembles people already thriving in each role.
Detailed Interest Scores — 30+ specific interest categories that show which parts of each broad type are strongest for you.
Personal Style Scales — five dimensions of how you work best: solo vs. collaborative, structured vs. exploratory, risk-tolerant vs. certainty-seeking.
College Major Matches — academic fields ranked by interest fit, mapped to the careers they typically lead to.
Built by The Myers-Briggs Company
The Strong Interest Inventory is published and continuously developed by The Myers-Briggs Company — the organization that has owned and maintained the assessment since it was acquired from Stanford in 1975. The Myers-Briggs Company employs a dedicated team of psychometricians and I/O psychologists whose sole focus is keeping the Strong's norms, validity, and scoring methodology current with the evolving labor market.
GoStrong is a tailored version of the Strong Interest Inventory® for students and young adults — scored with the same regression model and validated norms that are standard in vocational psychology, designed for direct individual access without needing a practitioner or an institutional license.
Take the Real Assessment
About 15 minutes. No email required to start. The most research-backed career interest assessment ever built — and the Pulse Check is free.
Strong Interest Inventory® is a registered trademark of The Myers-Briggs Company.