Career Assessment Inventory

The Career Assessment Inventory (CAI) is an interest inventory designed to survey an individual's interest in a variety of areas and then provide information on how those interests match up with the interests of people in a variety of occupations. Intended to assist individuals in career planning and decision making, it was authored by Charles B. Johansson and originally published in 1975. The CAI has undergone several revisions and is currently available in two versions: The Enhanced Version, for both college-bound and non-college-bound individuals, and the Vocational Version, for those who want to enter the workforce with little of no postsecondary training.

Both versions of the CAI use the widely accepted Holland model to organize information about general interest patterns into six general theme areas (realistic, investigative, artistic, social, conventional, and enterprising). Individuals are encouraged to develop a better understanding of their interest patterns so that they can use the information from the test when exploring occupations or other areas that are not specifically covered in the inventory. Two to eight Basic Interest Area Scales under each of the theme areas help individuals better understand their interest patterns; for instance, writing, creative arts, and performing and entertaining are under the artistic theme. While these patterns represent interests in specific areas, they are areas that could cover a wide variety of occupations. The greatest degree of specificity is found on the Specific Occupational Scales (111 for the Enhanced and 91 for the Vocational), which are each also organized into the general theme under which it best fits. These scales compare the responses of the individual taking the test with those of people in various occupations and indicate how similar they are.

Four scales are considered nonoccupational and measure one's orientation to learning by doing versus learning through traditional classroom work, introversion versus extroversion in the workplace, fine arts versus mechanical orientation, and the degree of variability of interests. These scales can be very useful in determining the validity of the test as well as in future planning.

The CAI takes 35–40 minutes to complete. Its 370 items are rated on a 5-point scale from like to dislike. It requires an eighth-grade reading level and is ideally suited for use with high school students who are in the process of career exploration, particularly if they are attempting to choose between attending college and entering the workforce directly. However, a number of other interest inventories are much more widely used (e.g., Strong Interest Inventory, Campbell Interest and Skill Survey, Self-Directed Search).