Picking a major, thinking about a career change, or just wondering why one job felt like a grind and another flew by? Career interests are one of the best-studied pieces of that puzzle, and the Holland Code is the standard way to describe them.
This guide covers the six RIASEC themes, how our career interests test works, and how to go from three letters to real job titles.
The Holland Codes, or RIASEC model, sort career interests into six themes: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. This test administers the sixty-item O*NET Interest Profiler Short Form, published by the U.S. Department of Labor, and reports your three highest themes as a three-letter Holland Code.
The six themes
Your Holland Code is your three highest themes in order — for example IAS for Investigative, Artistic, Social.
- ✦Realistic (R): hands-on work with tools, machines, plants, or animals.
- ✦Investigative (I): research, analysis, and solving abstract problems.
- ✦Artistic (A): creating, designing, and self-expression.
- ✦Social (S): teaching, helping, and caring for people.
- ✦Enterprising (E): leading, persuading, and selling.
- ✦Conventional (C): organising data, records, and processes.
Why the test asks about activities, not jobs
Our test administers the sixty-item O*NET Interest Profiler Short Form, published by the U.S. Department of Labor. You rate concrete work activities like "build kitchen cabinets" or "develop a new medicine" rather than job titles, because people tend to rate job titles by prestige, salary, and stereotype instead of by what the work actually involves.
Interest is not ability
RIASEC measures what you are likely to find engaging, not whether you would be good at it. Interest predicts how absorbing the work is likely to feel and how long you are likely to stay. Performance depends on skills, training, and circumstances the questionnaire does not touch.
From code to careers
Occupations in the O*NET database carry their own Holland codes, which makes comparison straightforward. Our careers by interest area pages group O*NET occupations by theme, and your result shows matched occupations directly.
Interests are only half the story. Two people with the same code can want very different things from a job — which is what work values measure.