How the Strong works

Strong Compass is powered by the Strong Interest Inventory® — the most trusted and widely researched career-interest assessment in the world. Rather than measuring skills or personality, it measures your interests — the activities, subjects, and work environments you're naturally drawn to — and matches them against the interest patterns of people who are satisfied in hundreds of careers. It's published by The Myers-Briggs Company and has been refined over more than 90 years of research.

The assessment takes about 35–40 minutes — it's the complete Strong Interest Inventory® assessment, in five short sections covering occupations, subject areas, activities, the people you'd work with, and your own characteristics. That depth is what powers the results: your scores are measured against national research norms, not guessed from a handful of prompts. There's no time limit, your answers save automatically, and you can even leave a few questions blank — if you step away, you pick up right where you left off.

No. There are no good or bad results, and no answers that make you look better. The assessment measures genuine interests, so the most useful thing you can do is answer honestly — based on what you actually enjoy, not what you think you should say or what would impress an employer.

Before. Strong Compass is a single purchase — you buy it, take the assessment, and see everything: all six theme scores, your Basic Interest Scales, career and college-major matches ranked across hundreds of options, your Personal Style Scales, and the downloadable Strong Compass™ report. There is no partial or preview version to unlock afterwards; one purchase is the whole thing.

Your Theme Code is a short summary of your strongest interest themes, drawn from the six RIASEC themes: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. Most people are a blend, and your top two or three themes combine to describe what kinds of work and environments tend to energize you. It's the headline of your results — a fast, memorable way to understand the shape of your interests.

Your interest profile is compared against the interest patterns of people who are satisfied and established in a wide range of occupations. Careers where the typical interest pattern closely resembles yours rank highest. This is why the Strong is so well regarded: a career match isn't about what you're good at today — it's about whether the day-to-day interests of that field line up with yours, which research links strongly to long-term satisfaction.

Your full results include five Personal Style Scales that describe how you prefer to work, learn, and lead:

• Work Style — working with people vs. with data, ideas, or things
• Learning Environment — hands-on/practical vs. academic/conceptual
• Leadership Style — leading by example vs. directing others
• Risk-Taking — cautious vs. adventurous
• Team Orientation — independent vs. collaborative

These add nuance to your themes — two people with the same Theme Code can prefer very different ways of working.

Your complete results include:

• Your Theme Code and all six RIASEC theme scores, measured against national research norms
• 30+ Basic Interest Scales — a fine-grained map of what specifically draws you within each theme
• Career matches ranked across hundreds of occupations by how similar your interests are to people happy in each field
• College majors and study paths ranked to your interest pattern
• Your five Personal Style Scales — how you prefer to work, learn, lead, take risks, and collaborate
• The Strong Compass™ — Expanded Edition: a downloadable report with theme deep-dives, interest narratives, and personalized next steps

Yes. Your full results include the downloadable Strong Compass™ report, and you can generate a secure, time-limited link that lets a career counselor, advisor, or parent view it — no account required on their end.

Yes. This assessment is administered directly by The Myers-Briggs Company, the publisher of the Strong Interest Inventory®. The scoring uses the same validated research model trusted by career counselors, universities, and organizations worldwide.

Core interests are remarkably stable from late adolescence onward — that's part of what makes the Strong so useful for long-range career and education decisions. Your circumstances and skills will evolve, but the kinds of work that genuinely engage you tend to stay consistent.

Yes. Your answers and results are stored securely and never sold or shared with third parties. Anonymized data may be used in aggregate for psychometric research — the same practice behind 90+ years of validity evidence for the Strong. You can delete your account and all associated data at any time from your account settings.