The document summarizes the Strong Interest Inventory assessment, which measures career interests across six themes: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. It uses General Occupational Themes scales and Basic Interest Scales to assess broad and specific interests that relate to different occupations. It also includes Occupational Scales, Personal Style Scales, and information on how to use interest codes to research matching careers in the O*NET database. The goal is to help individuals understand their interests and find satisfying work.

1. THE STRONG INTEREST
INVENTORY

2. GENERAL OCCUPATIONAL THEMES
(GOT)
 6 broad scales that measure general patterns in your
interests
 Each individual and occupation can be categorized as one
of six types:
 Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising ,
or Conventional
 (Does this seem familiar?)
 Most people’s interests combine several GOT’s
 Your scores reflect your personal interests
 GOT’s reflect your overall orientation to work, which may
combine more than one theme
 “Moderate” or higher interest required to be reflected on
GOT
 Explore occupations with codes that contain any
combinations of these letters in any order

3. BASIC INTEREST SCALES (BIS)
 30 different scales that measure your interests in
particular activities or subjects within the 6 General
Occupational Themes
 Arranged in groups corresponding to the strength of
their relationship to the six GOT’s
 Each BIS is concerned with one specific area of
activity
 Each BIS reflects a cluster of skills – “things people
do”
 Example: BIS = Mechanics & Construction (R type) -
means you may like working with tools and
equipment
 Your interests on the BIS are compared to those of
people in general and to individuals of your own
gender

4. OCCUPATIONAL SCALES
 122 scales that measure your similarity to men
and women employed in different occupations
who reported that they were satisfied with their
work
 OS’s represent unique items that define each
occupational group, including both “likes” and
“dislikes”
 OS’s are both positively and negatively scored
(GOT’s and BIS’s are only positively scored) – so
very high validity

5. PERSONAL STYLE SCALES
 These are 5 scales that assess your personal
preferences
 They measure your level of comfort regarding:
 Work Style
 Learning Environment
 Leadership Style
 Risk Taking
 Team Orientation

6. WORK STYLE AND LEARNING
ENVIRONMENT
 Work Style  Learning Environment
 Indicates  Indicates the kind of
how much
contact with people you setting in which you may
want during your work enjoy learning
 Do  “PracticalLearning” –
you prefer working
with people? learn by doing
 Or  “Academic Environment”
do you prefer working
with ideas, data, or – learn through lectures
things? and reading

7. LEADERSHIP STYLE, RISK TAKING,
AND TEAM ORIENTATION
 Leadership Style  Risk Taking
 Indicates what kind of
 Indicates your preference for
taking risks
leader you prefer to be
 Do you prefer to take
 One who takes charge? chances?
 Or do you prefer to play it
 One who leads by
example? safe?
 The scale helps you to
 Team Orientation
decide how you would  Indicates how you like to
function best in a solve problems
particular job  Do you prefer working
 It does not measure independently to accomplish
tasks?
whether you are
interested in leading or in  Or do you prefer working on
following someone else’s teams to get something done?
lead

8. REMEMBER…
 The SII measures interests, not abilities
 The SII is not a crystal ball – it only provides information;
it’s up to you to make use of that information
 The SII is just one assessment; you should also consider
your abilities, previous experiences, values, and
personality
 Career planning is not passive
 You need to take initiative in getting additional
information, planning, and making decisions
 Only you know best
 It is up to you to interpret how accurately the scores
reflect your personal interests

9. USING YOUR CODE
• Use the O*NET to search for occupations
that interest you
• The O*NET, the Occupational Information
Network, is a comprehensive database of
worker attributes and job characteristics.
 http://online.onetcenter.org/

10. QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS