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Interest types

Find work that holds your attention.

This library brings together 30 interest types, each pairing two kinds of work that can hold your attention. Browse the pairings and example jobs, or take the Career assessment to find yours and use it as a starting point for work worth exploring.

Find your type Browse the types
Hands arrange work-themed cards showing a workshop, laboratory, garden, stage, and desk

Where these types come from

John Holland, a psychologist, developed this approach so you could compare yourself with kinds of work described in the same words instead of guessing. You can find occupations described with the same six interests in the job database run by the U.S. Department of Labor, which lets each type page show example jobs. Your interest type is your top two interests in order, strongest first, from combinations of Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. You can use it to explore work, but it does not measure how good you are at anything or settle a career decision.

The interest hexagon

RIASECRealisticInvestigativeArtisticSocialEnterprisingConventional
Holland arranged the six interests in a hexagon, R–I–A–S–E–C, with interests he saw as most alike next to each other. That makes the distance between two letters useful: nearby interests often overlap, while opposite ones point toward different kinds of work.

Six interests

  1. SFirst letter

    Your strongest pull

    Your first letter marks the interest that pulls at you most strongly, from hands-on Realistic work to structured Conventional work. It points to the kinds of work and settings you are most likely to want, not a job you have to choose.

  2. SEFirst two letters

    Your type

    Add your second-strongest interest. Order matters: the first letter is the stronger pull, while the second adds texture to it. The same two interests can therefore create two different pairings, depending on which one leads.

How the two interests relate

Every one of the 30 interest types lands in one of these three positions on the hexagon. Use the same positions to filter the cards below and compare pairings that are close, separated, or across from each other.

  • RIASEC

    Side by side

    Side by side on the hexagon12 types

    A pair like Social and Enterprising, or SE, shares a natural thread, so one kind of work can often use both kinds of attention.

  • RIASEC

    One type between

    One type between them on the hexagon12 types

    A pair like Social and Conventional, or SC, is related, but each interest brings something the other does not.

  • RIASEC

    Across

    Across from each other on the hexagon6 types

    A pair like Realistic and Social, or RS, is not a contradiction, and it may point to work that changes between different kinds of attention.

Holland thought interests that sit side by side on the hexagon tend to fit together most naturally. The research behind that idea is mixed[2], so the arrangement is best used to describe the shape of your interests—not to forecast a career or tell you what will fit. Sometimes neighboring interests point to an easy blend; sometimes the tension between them is the more useful clue.

All 30 interest types

R

Realistic

The Doer

Practical, hands-on work with tools, machines, plants, or animals.

5 types
I

Investigative

The Thinker

Observing carefully, researching questions, and working through complex problems.

5 types
A

Artistic

The Creator

Open-ended work that makes room for self-expression, imagination, and original ideas.

5 types
S

Social

The Helper

Teaching, advising, caring for, and working alongside other people.

5 types
E

Enterprising

The Persuader

Leading, influencing, persuading, and getting new ventures off the ground.

5 types
C

Conventional

The Organizer

Clear structure, accurate records, data, and systems people can count on.

5 types

Find your own two letters

Rate 30 work activities from the O*NET Interest Profiler, a free U.S. Department of Labor tool, to find which of the 30 interest types is yours. Then see what draws or drains you, which jobs to explore, and how strong interests can narrow what you consider.

Start the Career assessment

Questions

Where does this come from?

The numbered sources match the table on our method page. The personality statements come from the public-domain International Personality Item Pool, and the percentiles compare your answers with a published open data set of several hundred thousand people.

  • 2 Nauta, M. M. (2010). The development, evolution, and status of Holland’s theory of vocational personalities. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 57(1), 11–22.
How do these assessments compare with other sites?

The six interests behind Nomigram’s Career assessment are the interests other sites often connect with RIASEC or Holland codes. They are Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. Each of our 30 interest types pairs two of them, with the first interest listed before the second. Your type therefore describes a two-interest pattern, while your interest code contains your top three interests.

Nomigram is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by the Myers & Briggs Foundation, The Myers-Briggs Company or NERIS Analytics Limited, and the names are used here only to explain how our assessments relate to them. MBTI, Myers-Briggs and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Myers & Briggs Foundation, Inc. in the United States and other countries. 16Personalities is a trademark of NERIS Analytics Limited.

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