This post highlights a range of FREE online tools that can help you understand your strengths, values and motivations — all of which are invaluable when completing applications, updating your CV or LinkedIn profile, and preparing for interviews.
How well do you know your key strengths, skills, values and capabilities? What motivates and energises you? What are you like to work with? The clearer your answers, the stronger your competitive edge when applying for jobs.
A quick health warning
No questionnaire has the answer. None of these tools can tell you what to do, and they shouldn’t be used to label or limit you.
What they can do is spark ideas worth exploring. Discovering different facets of yourself may highlight what really matters to you and open up new possibilities. We rarely spend time reflecting on what we want from life and work. When we do, it’s often time well spent.
1. Personality Preferences
Tool: 16 Personalities
The 16 Personalities questionnaire provides an in‑depth report exploring your personality preferences. It can help you understand why you work well with some people more naturally than others, and it gives you language to describe your approach in interviews. It’s based on the Myers–Briggs framework, which offers a structured way to think about how you perceive the world and interact with others.
2. Communication Style
Tool: IMA Strategies questionnaire
The IMA questionnaire describes how you tend to communicate with others and assigns you one of four communication “colours.” Understanding your style can help you articulate how you collaborate, build relationships and work in teams — especially useful in interviews.
3. Values
Tool: Personal values assessment
This assessment identifies the values you need to feel true to yourself. Knowing what matters most to you at work can guide decisions about the organisations you target and the roles you’re likely to find fulfilling.
4. Motivation
Tool: Work Values Test
The Work Values Test highlights the values most likely to motivate you at work. Understanding what drives you makes it easier to explore job roles and assess whether they’re likely to help you flourish.
5. Character Strengths
Tool: VIA Character Strengths
Martin Seligman’s site hosts a range of free questionnaires on wellbeing, resilience, optimism and happiness. The VIA Character Strengths questionnaire identifies the personal qualities you naturally bring to work. These can be especially helpful when you’re “selling yourself” in applications or interviews.
6. Generating Career Ideas
Tool: Prospects
Prospects offers two useful tools:
- Career Planner matches your skills, motivations and preferences to different careers.
- Job Match explores what you find interesting, rewarding and purposeful.
The site also includes an extensive list of job profiles with detailed descriptions. While these are targeted at recent graduates, they can provide a useful starting point if you’re struggling to think of possible career ideas.
7. Career Anchors
Tool: Schein Career Anchors Test
Schein’s Career Anchors questionnaire explores your motivations, values and attitudes to work. Your results reveal your dominant “career anchor,” helping you understand what you need to feel fulfilled and why certain roles may or may not suit you.
8. Big Five Personality Traits
Tool: Big Five Personality Test
The Big Five Personality Test provides a scientifically grounded assessment of five major personality traits. It’s particularly helpful for understanding your work style, how you respond to pressure and what might trigger stress.
Turning insight into action
Once you’ve completed some (or all) of these tools, take time to reflect on the reports and feedback you’ve received.
- Look for themes: Are there patterns around strengths, values or motivations?
- Notice surprises: Did anything challenge how you see yourself?
- Connect to decisions: How might these insights influence the roles you apply for or the way you present yourself?
Used thoughtfully, these tools won’t define you — but they can give you clarity, confidence and language that help you stand out.
“To grow yourself, you must know yourself.” — John C. Maxwell