Public Service Commission

Career Assessments

Career Development Information

Career assessments are tests designed to help individuals gain a greater awareness of their personal interests, values, preferences and aptitudes that have an influence on their potential success and satisfaction with different career options and work environments. These assessments can provide ideas of possible careers that might match the individual’s skills or interests or help the individual understand how their personality preferences may influence their work and interaction with their work environment.

Assessments, by their nature, only assess one aspect of the individual at a time (decision making style, interests, personality traits etc.). Therefore, they should be viewed as a helpful tool to use within a self exploration process. Assessments do not take in account other considerations such as family or financial responsibilities that will influence your career decisions. This is why it is recommended to debrief the results of the assessment with someone qualified that can help you gain a more thorough picture of the different factors that are influencing your career exploration, transition or planning process.

top

What about “on-line” assessments?

Although there is a multitude of career assessments available on the internet, it is often difficult to evaluate the validity or usefulness of these assessments. As well, most of the more relevant, reliable and valid assessments are not available to the general public. However, these assessments can definitely help the individual identify possible careers that might interests them or identify personality traits that might influence their work satisfaction. As long as you keep your expectations in check and supplement the results with other avenues of self-discovery.

The following is a list of some of the assessments that might be used by the Career Counsellors at the Staff Development Branch, to assist you in your career exploration, transition or planning process.

Other assessments are also available to help individuals identify specific abilities or aptitudes such as the Nelson-Denny Reading test or Wide Range Achievement test. The use of such assessments is usually determined in collaboration with the counsellor.

top

Examples of Career/Personality Assessments available at the Career Assessment Centre:

Strong Interest Inventory @

The Strong Interest Inventory@ is a self-report questionnaire used to measure people’s interests in a broad range of occupations, work and leisure activities and educational subjects. The Strong Interest Inventory@ is based on John Holland’s theory of personality types and work environment. This theory suggests that people as well as work environments can be categorised into six types (although it recognises that we are usually a combination of two or three types). As well, people tend to seek professions or environments that meet their interests.

top

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator @

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator@ is a short self-report questionnaire used to measure and describe people’s preferences for how they like to get information, make decisions and orient their lives. This assessment was designed to make Carl Jung’s theory of psychological type understandable and useful in people’s life and increase individual awareness of the factors that influence how we make decisions or interact with others. 

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator@ is most often used to help individuals gain a greater understanding of their work, communication and decision making style. This instrument is also used in leadership training and group settings to help groups identify personality differences and ways to communicate and work more effectively together.

There are different factors that may influence the results of both assessments, such as past work experiences, culture, etc. Therefore, it is important that the interpretation of these assessments be done in collaboration with someone who is skilled in interpreting these results with clients.

top

Contact Information - Career & Assessment Centre

To assist Yukon government employees with career development planning and decisions:

Phone:  867-667-5613

Email:  Nathaniele Pelletier  or  career@gov.yk.ca