The SDS will help you in a couple of ways. However, make sure that you do not base any career or educational decisions only on the feedback that you receive. Rather use the information to learn more about yourself and your educational and life/career choices. The feedback that you receive is a very good starting point for you to identify the fields you might be best suited for given your specific interests. Your feedback, used in conjunction with other information, will assist you in making informed, realistic and good educational and career decisions. Remember, no test, evaluation or measure will be able to make the decision for you. It is your responsibility to make the decision yourself, but completing the SDS should certainly be one of the guidance tools you should use when making educational or career decisions.

There certainly are a variety of free tests, evaluations and measures available from various resources that claim to provide you with good feedback about career and educational choices. Be careful! A number of these are not based on sound research and do not adhere to the strict scientific and psychometric properties that these types of measures should adhere to. In other words, some of these will not even really measure what they claim to measure and because they are not based on research and scientific principles, it is very dangerous to base the decisions that you have to make on feedback from these measures.

The SDS is based on extensive research, is regularly kept up to date and adheres to strict scientific and psychometric properties. The SDS is also the most widely used interest inventory. It has been used by over 22 million people worldwide and has been translated into 25 different languages. The SDS results have been supported by over 500 research studies (Psychological Assessment Resources, 2001).

In other words, you pay for the comfort of knowing that your feedback can be used as a good, valid and reliable source to guide your decisions.

Taking the Self-Directed Search will determine your 3-letter Holland code that will help you identify the careers that best match your interests and abilities (Psychological Assessment Resources, 2001). After completion of the evaluation you will receive feedback via the SDS Interpretive Report developed by Dr. Robert C. Reardon. In your report you will find a list of occupations (and college majors) that best match your interests. You will also find recommendations about how to proceed through your career development and decision-making process.

For an example of such a report, please click on the link below.

[ Example Report ]

The process is quite easy. All you need to do to complete the evaluation is to click on one of the currency links below and make the required payment. After we have received confirmation of your payment, we will send you a code via e-mail that you need to type in after you have completed the evaluation. Only after you have typed in your valid code, will you receive your immediate report.