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Personality and vocational assessments can be a great tool to learn more about yourself, your strengths, and how you work.

Contributed by Josh Durando, Myra H. Kraft Director of Volunteer and Alumni Relations, Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston

Hi everyone! This week’s Saturday edition of Club at Home comes to you from Josh, BGCB’s Myra H. Kraft Director of Volunteer and Alumni Relations. This week he’s back again with a few more ways you can use this time in quarantine to your advantage!

Personality and vocational assessments can be a great tool to learn more about yourself, your strengths, how you work, and which career paths might be the best fit for you. You can use these assessments to learn more about your strengths and write about them in resumes and cover letters, or to learn about the type of careers that may best suit you and your personality to help you in your search. There are many great ones that exist, but today Josh has chosen to highlight a few that he’s tried and thinks are useful.

Assessment #1: 16 Personalities

The first assessment is called 16 Personalities. It’s based on what is likely the most famous personality assessment, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The MBTI is a self-report questionnaire centered on how people perceive the world and make decisions. The four categories are Introversion/Extraversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, and Judging/Perception.

Each person is said to have one preferred quality from each category, producing 16 unique types. The 16 Personalities assessment is cool because it takes this premise and tells you not only what your MBTI is, but also what that means for different parts of your life. As you can see in the picture below, the free personality description includes categories like strengths and weaknesses, career paths, and workplace habits. Not only can you learn about yourself, but also how you work and where you thrive!

Assessment #2: Holland Career Aptitude Test

The Holland assessment has six different personality types: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional. In the assessment, you rank the types, starting with those you have the most interest in to those you have the least interest in, and it gives you your specific Holland Code. There are 720 possible combinations, however, only two or three letters are necessary to create a useful description, such as SC, IRC, or AIC.

The version of the test at 123test.com is a quick and easy 15 question version of the test that gives you feedback on your unique combination of the 6 types along with suggested occupations good for your type. You can find another good version here!

Assessment #3: Which character are you?

Of course, Josh couldn’t leave you without a more fun assessment too! This personality quiz asks you questions and spits out a list of TV characters you are most similar to. What’s really cool is that you can click on each character’s name and see a description of them and a breakdown of traits that make you similar to them. It’s fun and it’s silly, but hey, it may still help you put your finger on something about yourself you never thought of before! Enjoy!

Keep up with all the latest “Club at Home” updates, including fun and interactive content for members to do at home, on our blog.