Career assessment on the Internet: An exploratory study

In spite of the proliferation of job/career Web sites and the many articles and books discussing how to use these sites in job searching, we know of n o research dealing with career assessment on the Internet. In an effort to remedy this deficit, the authors located a multitude of career sites contai ning se bewildering array of offerings. The research reported here focused on 24 Web career sites identified as having no-cost career assessment. Whil e easy to use, the sites provided only a moderate degree of test interpreta tion and fit into a schema of career planning only to a limited extent. The authors' subjective overall evaluation of these sites was not high (3.3 on a 5-point scale)--just above the mid-point of "Neither good nor poor." Rat ings of the factors based on the National Career Development Association (N CDA) guidelines for career planning on the Internet tended to be low: few s ites provided much information about the developers of the site, no site as serted that its assessment instrument was validated for self-use, and no si te stated that the sites to which it provided links met NCDA guidelines. Mo st sites provided confidentiality only to a limited extent in that they gen erally did not ask for the visitor's name and password. The authors discuss implications of their research for career counseling professionals, for ca reer research, and for career site developers.