John L. Holland's The Self-Directed Search

The Self-Directed Search (SDS) is a career interest test that asks questions about your aspirations, activities, skills, and interests in different jobs. This test is based on a career theory developed by John L. Holland (1997). Career theories can help individuals to identify the important things to consider in making a career decision. Also, theories about career choice and development try to predict some future events, such as satisfaction/dissatisfaction in a specific kind of work or development and things that one should be thinking about at a later life stage. Furthermore, they increase understanding about job dissatisfaction and mismatch. Holland developed his theory of vocational choice while he was a researcher at ACT, Inc., the non-profit

Because of heredity, individuals may be predisposed to a certain code type. Parents and advisors help children develop and strengthen certain codes through this chain of events. Holland 1994, description of the six personality types as follows: Realistic, these individuals like to work with tools, objects, machines, or animals, develops manual, mechanical, agricultural, and/or electrical skills. They prefer occupations that involve building or repairing things and tend to be down-to-earth and practical or hands-on jobs such as construction, farming, architecture, truck driving, mail carrier and others. Individuals who are categorised as Investigative like activities involving the biological and physical sciences. They prefer occupations in scientific and medical fields and tend to be curious, studious, and independent. Occupations such as biologist, chemist, dentist, veterinarian, programmer among others suit such individuals. Artistic personality type prefers creative activities free from routine, for example, art, music, and/or drama and prefers occupations using these talents such as musician, poet, interior designer, writer, artist and other similar professions. Individuals who categorised the Social personality type enjoy activities that involve informing, teaching, and helping others, and working with people. Jobs such as teaching, nursing and counselling

These individuals prefer occupations involving record keeping, computation, typing, or computer operation such as bank teller, clerk typist and cashier among others and tend to be responsible, dependable, and