As you begin your career, it’s important to focus on your strengths - especially as you write your resume and build out a portfolio. But how can you figure out what your strengths are? It's as simple as taking one or more online talent assessments. We’ve compiled 6 free tools to help you better understand your top personality traits and best technical skills.
Focusing on our strengths is infinitely better than agonizing over minor improvements to our weaknesses. “We stand a greater chance of success if we build on our authentic selves – who we already are – beginning with our innate strengths”, says Susan Tardanico from Forbes. Using your strengths at work will also lead to greater job satisfaction and many other benefits based on an array of studies compiled by Psychology Today.
Check out these 5 talent assessments to help you discover your strengths and unlock your potential:
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Central Test - Recruitment Personality Test
What will I learn?
- Learn about work personalities
- Discover the occupations that suit you best
What’s the format?
- Choose between two options for each question
- 91 questions, about 15 minutes
- Overview of your top dimension (25 page report with full results and graphs at extra cost)
Why take it?
Quickly choosing between two adjectives or actions to describe yourself helps you better understand how you think and how you perceive yourself. The results from this test help put your strengths in the context of work projects.
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Mind Tools - Career Skills Test
What will I learn?
- Get a clear picture of your strongest areas
- Discover how often you tackle certain tasks
What’s the format?
- 15 questions, about 5 minutes
- Scores you in 5 areas: Personal Mastery, Time Management, Communication Skills, Problem Solving and Decision Making, and Leadership and Management
Why take it?
This assessment shows areas of growth and gives specific tips for improvement. A number value is assigned to each trait making it even easier for you to see how your traits rank against each other.
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Richard Step - Aptitude Test to find strengths and weaknesses
What will I learn?
- Identify your top 5 strengths and one weakness,
- Understand the details of your strengths
What’s the format?
- 84 questions, 10 minutes
- Respond strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree and strongly disagree to all questions
Why take it?
Gives you a quick breakdown of your top 5 strengths and percentages for 15 other traits. By seeing a short overview of your strengths, you might be inspired to investigate further. This test also highlights specific needs that correlate with your strengths.
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Via - Character Strengths Survey
What will I learn?
- Discover your ranking on 24 different character traits
- Understand how psychologists test for character (this survey is used for psychology research)
What’s the format?
- 120 questions, 15 minutes
- Can pay for more in-depth results
Why take it?
Learn more about yourself in this extensive assessment of your character strengths. By focusing primarily on potential and positive traits, this test enables you to identify areas where you're most likely to succeed.
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Digital Creative Institute - Digital Marketing Talent Assessment
What will I learn?
- Discover how you rank on technical and strategic skills - less focused on character
- Assess the amount of time you spend every day developing your skills
What’s the format?
- 10 questions, 5 minutes
- Rank your ability from 1 to 10 on 10 skills
- A percentage score for each skill is calculated
Why take it?
This self-ranking digital marketing assessment guides you in objectively scoring your skills. Discover how you rank across the varied disciplines within marketing and receive valuable resources for further developing your skills. Take it now.
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Workuno - Strengths Test
What will I learn?
- Your preferred ways of thinking, feeling and behaving
What’s the format?
- 170 questions, about 20 minutes
- Ranks statements on scale from 1 to 9 on whether you agree or disagree
Why take it?
This comprehensive assessment provides more individualized feedback based on your particular strengths. Each strength is paired with a main objective (or action), a description, and also a video explanation.
(NOTE: This free assessment most closely reflects the paid assessment below - StrengthsFinder 2.0.)
*Bonus Assessment*
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Gallup StrengthsFinder 2.0 - StrengthsFinder Assessment (paid)
What will I learn?
- Learn how to maximize your talents and find suggestions for taking action
- Place your strengths in context with this ranking of 34 traits
What’s the format?
- 177 questions with a time limit on each, so you don’t overthink it, about 1-2 hours to complete
- Choose from two opposite descriptors which describes you more and then to what extent to applies
Why take it?
This is the leading strength finding talent assessment and gives several reports and resources on personal development. It gives you in-depth results and valuable information about yourself to guide you forward in your career. (Tip: buy the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book here and the code for the assessment will be included. This is the cheapest option and provides the most value - a comprehensive explanation for each trait and ideas for action.)
Take one or more of these skill assessments today and begin focusing on your strengths! You'll be amazed how intentionally cultivating self awareness will uncover the best way to use your strengths and unlock your full potential.
Do you already know your strengths and want to nail the job hunt? Download the free eBook, Nailing the Job Hunt, to guide you through the journey of finding and landing the right digital marketing job for you.
