About the Strong Interest Inventory®: Differences Between Adjacent Types

As you look at the hexagon for the Strong, you'll notice that some letters are closer than others. This reflects Holland's theory that some occupations are more similar than others. So Realistic and Conventional jobs are more similar than Realistic and Social, for example. But what are the differences between those scales that are closest to each other on the hexagon?

This time we'll look at two sets of adjacent occupations to see what's different.

First, there are differences between Realistic and Investigative jobs. Realistic jobs generally require more strength, stooping, exposure to hazards, activities involving processes, machines, or techniques as opposed to social welfare, and activities involving tangible, productive satisfaction versus prestige and esteem.

Investigative jobs rate higher than Realistic jobs in intelligence required, verbal and numerical aptitude, general educational development, and scientific and technical activities as opposed to business contact.

Secondly, Investigative jobs score higher than Artistic in intelligence needed, numerical aptitude, measurable or verifiable criteria, seeing, and scientific and technical activities versus business contact.

Conversely, Artistic jobs rate higher than Investigative jobs in feelings, facts, or ideas, influencing people, talking, hearing, communication of data versus activities with things, and abstract and creative as opposed to routine, concrete activities.

As you can imagine, many jobs combine aspects from several scales, so they are a blend of types. Of course, none of the above means that intelligent people work only in Investigative jobs or the strongest people work in Realistic jobs. It merely shows some of the criteria that separate jobs into the different categories. Once again, the most important aspect is your interests and abilities.