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Career Assessments

Choosing a Career/Major

Major confusion? Selecting a major is like a puzzle. You’re trying to put the pieces together to fit a “picture” of what career you want. Taking an assessment can help you choose a major or career. Career Services offers several free online assessments for SMSU students that focus on assessing interests.

FOCUS

FOCUS is a self-paced, online career education planning tool. This resource is available free of charge to all SMSU students.

FOCUS will enable you to explore your interests and skills and then suggest possible career/major options that are most compatible with your assessment results. Use FOCUS to help choose your major and verify your preferences for a career. To get started visit the FOCUS Assessment webpage.

Strong Interest Inventory

The Strong Interest Inventory is an assessment designed to highlight industries, occupations and majors that match your interests. The assessment is designed to match your responses to individuals in work environments that share similar interests and are successful in these areas. This instrument does not measure aptitude—only areas of interest.

The Strong will provide you with the following information: 

  • General Occupational Themes—overall orientation to work
  • Basic Interest Scales—highlight interests to specific industries
  • Occupational Scales—indicate potential occupations of interests
  • Personal Style Scales—measure preferences in work, learning, leadership and risk
  • Majors—highlights potential majors based on responses

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The MBTI is one of the most widely used personality typing instrument. It is used by many corporations, universities, governmental agencies and military for career counseling and team/organizational development. The MBTI can help people select a career. Research has found that individuals with similar personality types tend to gravitate towards similar careers.

StrengthsQuest

StrengthsQuest identifies a person’s top 5 talents based on 34 possible themes. Individuals can learn to build these talents into strengths and see how these talents can help with selecting a career, academics, studying, relationships, and extracurricular activities.

StrengthsQuest can help:

  • Discover your natural talents
  • Strategically determine a rewarding career path based on these talents
  • Maximize your potential talents and build them into strengths

To take the Strong Interest Inventory, MBTI, and StrengthsQuest
Interested students should stop by Career Services (BA 156) or call 507-537-6221 to schedule an appointment.

Self Assessments

Last Modified: 11/14/23 9:18 AM | Website Feedback