The VIQ was developed in 1994 by Dr. Darryl Cross (Psychologist) and Mr. Garry Simcock (Careers Advisor) and updated regularly since that time. It was one of Australia’s first career interest tests. Up until that time, we used questionnaires devised in both the USA and UK. The VIQ however, was the first to go online in Australia in 1998.

The VIQ is based on the basic premise that a job needs to be an extension of who you are as a person and play to your strengths. Work interests is one part of that equation in that if a person enjoys a particular job or career, they are more likely to do well in it and be more satisfied. They are also more likely to be motivated and have more drive. This questionnaire therefore assesses an individual’s inherent interests or liking in a certain type of task and job role.

The VIQ is not age specific in any way. It is commonly used by students in high school, specifically those in years 10, 11 and 12. However, the VIQ is also completely applicable to tertiary and post-secondary students as well as adults.

The VIQ is now available in audio format. This may be especially valuable for students with dyslexia, and quite likely ADHD as well.

As a person’s interests can alter over time, it is advisable that doing the VIQ regularly could give more current insights. However, if a person has a strong interest in a specific area, it is highly unlikely that that area will diminish markedly over time.

Over 100,000 students have used the VIQ since it was first devised back in 1994.

An understanding of potential career paths and potential tertiary study is an important part of a student’s Personal Learning Plan. The results of the Career Action Plan part of the VIQ will contribute to a stronger understanding of the student’s personal goals and will help them choose the school subjects that align with their personal path.

The VIQ is accurate in guiding students to choosing their interest areas. Doing the VIQ helps students learn who they are and shows the teacher, parent, school counsellor and career advisor, the possibility of where they can go. The VIQ provides many areas of interest for students to explore and offers ways for them to create the most suitable course of study to put them on the most appropriate career path.

The VIQ is so reliable because it enables students to locate the qualifications and courses they are required to have and complete for their career interests. We have numerous anecdotal stories from people who have contacted us to inform us that the career test that they did with us back in school was very accurate in terms of their final career result.

However, research has been conducted across a two-week period when students from 8 separate schools were re-tested on the VIQ & results showed a consistent result across that time period.
Further research has been conducted with the VIQ in terms of what is called its "predictive validity" and results showed that it was a very accurate instrument in terms of the career pathways that people took.

No. The VIQ doesn’t focus on either their strengths or weaknesses, but rather what the student enjoys doing. It is a questionnaire that helps identify areas that a student would enjoy or like to do. This is a particularly effective strategy for those students who have a passion for a specific field & the VIQ highlights the kinds of jobs that might be relevant to that field or area.

The VIQ produces a comprehensive report of approximately 14 pages for the student/client to read and analyse. The VIQ helps student/client to understand their interests and guides them through the process of researching and focussing on specific jobs in their career pathways.

The VIQ report includes an Interest Profile, which lists their top categories of interest with a full explanation of what these mean. Also listed are the specific job roles and tasks that they actually selected as “very appealing” and “liked” for their top 3 interest categories. This shows the student/client how they got the profile results that they did. The report also lists the specific careers that relate to those preferred job roles and tasks.

Using these results and the job recommendations, the student/client are then guided through a Career Action Plan and fill in a series of worksheets that help them to evaluate and work through their report. The VIQ report gives student/client instructions on how to use their report in conjunction with the "Good Careers Guide" (www.goodcareersguide.com.au) which looks at a range of occupations along with the education or training pathways that are required. This Career Action Plan includes making Year 11 and 12 subject choices that will help them to pursue their chosen career path along with investigating training courses and tertiary courses.

Adults of course, do not need to fill out these latter two steps in the Career Action Plan.

Yes. As well as providing a list of the specific job roles and tasks that appealed to the student or client, the VIQ also gives students/clients a recommended list of jobs that seemed most suitable from the responses they gave in the questionnaire.

Yes. The VIQ is specifically designed so that the results are given in the same work interest categories as the "Good Careers Guide". In this way, the VIQ is unique in Australia. No other career interest test does this.

The Career Action Plan is the tool at the end of the VIQ report. It teaches the students & clients how to use their results from the VIQ test and in conjunction with the "Good Careers Guide" to find the education and training pathways that are required for the occupations that seem to suit them most.

The VIQ report is specifically designed to be compatible with the "Good Careers Guide". The VIQ report is designed so that the interest categories directly match up to those used in the "Good Careers Guide". In this way, the VIQ is unique in Australia.

These are the two categories used to classify how much the individual may like a particular job role or task. ‘Very Appealing’ is higher than ‘Liked.’

The VIQ and VIQ report are designed to appeal to the individual's interests and not their disinterests. Generally speaking, most people already know what they don't like – it's what they do like that they want help to focus upon.

Yes, VIQ completion notification can be sent to multiple email addresses. Under the settings for you organisation, there is a field to provide Email Address for alerts. You can add multiple email addresses seperated by a comma. Click the "Save Changes" button.

There are a wide range of benefits with the VIQ. These include lower cost, easier to set up, no software to install, time savings for students and teachers, clients and career counsellors, and unlimited customer support.

The most important benefit that careers counsellors often mention is the VIQs ability to directly dovetail with and compliment the "Good Careers Guide" and its 7 interest categories.

A wide range of leading private and public schools in all states of Australia are happy customers of MyFutureCareer.com.au. Due to commercial confidentiality, we are not able to give you a list of other schools that use the VIQ. Rest assured, should you choose to use the VIQ you will be in in the company of many of Australia’s leading private and public schools.

Yes. Students, teachers and those working in career centres have testified to the usefulness of the VIQ in helping students figure out what their career interests and pathways could be. They comment on how easy it is to implement and use the VIQ, the accessibility of the VIQ, the way the VIQ is a different way of working, the fact that students can take responsibility for their learning and that it is convenient and fun!

The instructions are provided for the individual online when they begin the VIQ. All you need to do is direct the student or client to visit your organisation’s customised URL @ http://www.MyFutureCareer.com.au/viq/yourschoolname

There are 140 questions in the VIQ, presented to the student 20 per screen. All questions are multiple choice with 4 options grading the student’s level of liking for that particular job role, job task or job function.

It usually takes student/client anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes to complete the VIQ. This includes time in registration and reading the instructions, as well as answering the questionnaire. Some student/client with reading problems may take a little longer, but the VIQ was designed to be completed within a class period. (However, it should be noted too, that there is an audio version for people with a learning disorder.)

The VIQ is accessed online from the customised URL that you choose when you register an account for your school or organisation (e.g. http://www.MyFutureCareer.com.au/viq/yourschoolname). This means the VIQ is accessible anywhere there is internet access.

The VIQ is generally completed in class in, for example, the school computer labs or in the library, during allocated class time. However, some schools prefer to ask students to complete the VIQ on their own time from home.

The student is able to resume and complete the VIQ at any other time, either in class, or at home. The VIQ is accessible online from any location. To resume an incomplete VIQ, the student needs to visit your school's custom URL again, but this time they must login on the RIGHT side of the page with the email address and password they gave when they first registered.

Yes. If the report has already been confirmed, a credit has already been used from your account and this cannot be refunded.
Please note, if a student wishes to do the VIQ again, they will need to use another email address (only one VIQ is possible per email address) and this will require another credit for the report to be confirmed.

At this time, due to technical limitations, a student cannot go backwards to change their answers once each batch of 20 questions per screen is completed and saved.

The VVQ is the Vocational Values Questionnaire and it looks at the kinds of work attitudes or values that a person holds in relation to different aspects of work (e.g. secure work, creative work etc).

The VVQ focuses on the values that give job satisfaction. These values are critical to motivating a person towards work. It is important therefore keep these values in line when the individual is reviewing a list of careers applicable to them as this is likely to result in a more enjoyable and successful career path.

The VVQ is absolutely free for all organisations.

The VVQ provides the individual with an ordered a list of 14 values that need to be considered when looking for a career path. From this list, the person will need to narrow it down to a top five "must have" values. These need to be kept in focus as they are the person's guide to job satisfaction.

The VVQ can be enabled for your organisation within your organisational settings. The setting is approximately half way down the page. To enable it, simply tick the box.

The VVQ is provided to a user as an optional step after completing the VIQ. You will see the option below the VIQ confirmation message.

The website will remember where you left off. Simply login again using the ‘Login” button at the top of the website. After logging in, it will return student/client to the VIQ completion page ready to start your VVQ.

Yes you can. Simply send your students/clients to http://www.myfuturecareer.com.au/vvq/OrgCode. Please keep in mind that they will not be able to begin the VVQ if they have not yet completed the VIQ.

The pricing of VIQs depends on the status of your organisation (e.g. not for profit, public, private etc). Please contact us and we will let you know the relevant pricing.

The pricing of VVQ is 100% free for organisations with existing accounts. Please keep in mind that for a student or client to complete the VVQ, they are required to complete the VIQ before hand.

There are no ongoing fees. You only pay for the number of credits you require for the number of students/clients completing the VIQ. Unlimited customer support is provided free of charge.

Your students/clients will be able to answer the VIQ questionnaire, but you will be unable to generate the PDF report for the VIQ until you allocate a VIQ credit, which requires pre-payment.

You can pay online by credit card, by posting a cheque, or by sending money via electronic funds transfer through your net banking. The most common payment method is EFT.

MyFutureCareer.com.au follows the best practises for online security. All sensitive data is managed and processed externally by St George Bank Credit Card Processing Systems, which uses a high level of encryption and server security.

You can access your invoices online by selecting the ‘invoice’ icon on the VIQ dashboard. You are able to print off as many copies as you need from there.

First log in to your organisation administration dashboard. Click the INVOICES link at the top right hand of the page. Then, a list of all invoices (pending, cancelled, refunded and paid) is shown in their separate categories. If your invoice is still to be paid, it will be listed as “payment pending”.

Although this is not normal practise, it is possible to organise this special payment method by telephoning Dr Darryl Cross at 08 8361-7722. Please note, our online credit card processing facilities are secure and are managed by St George Bank, so you can feel confident in transacting online should you wish to.

No, VIQ credits never expire. They will remain on your account until they have been used. They cannot be refunded, though.

There is no minimum number of credits you need to buy in one purchase. It is recommended that you purchase the number of credits you require once per year for all the students you expect to complete the VIQ. For example, if you have 100 students likely to do the VIQ this year, it is suggested that you purchase 100 credits in one transaction.

No. There is no minimum number of credits you need to buy and use each year. Small schools and organisations are welcome.

One credit gives you the ability to enable one VIQ for PDF reporting. Once you spend a credit and enable a VIQ report, you can generate, print or save the PDF reports an unlimited amount of times for that VIQ.

The VIQ is very cost-effective in comparison to other assessments and is one of the very few which charges based on the usage of the questionnaire, in comparison to many which request an annual licence fee.

On your VIQ dashboard, it will show you how many VIQ credits you have left next to the shopping cart icon.

On the VIQ dashboard, you click on the shopping cart icon then you simply type in the number of credits you require and select your payment method.

If you purchase by credit card online, you will be issued the credits immediately.
However, if you pay via cheque or EFT, your transaction will need to be confirmed by us manually before the credits are issued to your account. However, even before the credits are issued to your account, your students or clients can still access and complete the VIQ test. You will just be unable to view the report until you have been provided with credits.

After you send the invoice to the person responsible for payments in your school, it can commonly take this person a day or two before this payment is initiated. An EFT transaction then takes another day or possibly two (depending on what bank your school uses) before the funds have successfully cleared and are delivered into the MyFutureCareer.com.au bank account. Your credits will be added within two business days of their arrival in our accounts. Overall, this means it can take up to five working days before your credits are released. If you require the credits urgently, you can contact us for them to be released early.

Log into your VIQ account at http://www.myfuturecareer.com.au/viq/yourschoolname and click on the invoices icon on the top right hand side of the VIQ dashboard. There you will see a list of all your past invoices including ones that are pending, ones that have been paid and ones that have been cancelled and refunded.

As a registered psychologist, Dr Darryl Cross and his team have extensive experience with confidentiality practices and maintain the best practises to protect all stakeholders’ interests. Careful web security protocols are enforced, meaning only those who absolutely must have access to sensitive data are given access to it. MyFutureCareer.com.au has signed confidentiality agreements with all staff members who assist Dr Cross with technical support and customer service for MyFutureCareer.com.au.

Each school can have one or more organisation administrators. These administrator accounts have access to all past and future reports that were completed from their school URL. If you wish to remove a staff member’s access, this can be done by clicking the CANCEL link from the ADMIN USERS page.

If your school has the “Instant User Level Reporting” setting activated, this means the student will also have access to THEIR report (and their report only).

In addition, Dr. Cross, the MyFutureCareer.com.au programmer and customer service support personnel have access to all data from all schools.

There is a contact number which you can call to get help and ask questions. The phone number is +61 450 202 351, contactable from Monday to Friday between the hours of 8.30am-4.30pm, Adelaide time.

You can ask questions via email. The email address to use is [email protected]

We strive for the highest level of customer support and you can expect help during the signup process, and then any ongoing support you require. Your customer support person can be contacted via phone or email. You have unlimited access to customer support.

We can arrange for you to speak to Dr Darryl Cross about the psychological aspects of the VIQ or VVQ. The psychological properties of the VIQ or VVQ are also listed on the My Future Career website. Please contact the customer support to arrange a time to speak to Dr Darryl Cross.

Visit our website www.MyFutureCareer.com.au and click on the “Free VIQ Trial” option at the top of the page or the red circle with “Trial the VIQ click here” to read our signup instructions. Here you will find contact details to request a trial account. New accounts will generally be activated within 1 business day as we manually confirm and create your account. You will then be able to purchase credits for the number of students/clients you wish to complete the VIQ. From that point on, you just need to direct your students/clients to your school's customised URL which will be provided to you upon account creation.

To help speed things along, you can give us a call on +61 450 202 351 to speak directly with one of our representatives who should be able to create the account for you on the same day.

Not very long. All we need to do is create an account for you which will require your school’s contact details. From there, you create groups for students who are completing the VIQ (eg., class group, house group, home group) or you create a group for your clients if you are an organisation (eg,. 2013, 2014 etc). After that, you’re ready to go!

There is a free trial that you can try yourself. Simply visit www.MyFutureCareer.com.au and select “Free Trial” at the top of the page or click on the red circle to see for yourself what the VIQ has to offer.

You can go ahead and set up your school or organisation on the My Future Career website. Once the school or organisation has been verified, you are free to purchase credits for the students or clients who you wish to complete the VIQ and get the students and clients to do the VIQ for themselves. Call us if necessary and we can contact you to help you with this.

We can offer you 5 free credits for you to use on a few students. Please contact us for this on +61 450 202 351 or email us at [email protected].

We are able to check on the database for you as to whether your school already has an account. You can also check at the first stage of the free trial process.

No. You do not need to install any software on the school computers. Everything you need to complete the VIQ and VVQ is on the internet.

It’s great to see that you’re back using the VIQ. You do not need to set up a new account. We can simply reset the password for you to access your school’s existing account.

After the students/clients have completed the VIQ, the career counsellor needs to confirm the individuals' VIQs (this is to prevent any bogus VIQs being completed and being charged to your school or organisation). Once confirmed, you can visit the Confirmed VIQs page and print off the PDF report for the students. The students can then complete their Career Action Plan.

After the students/clients have completed the VVQ, their report will be ready to download from your organisational dashboard immediately. You may download this report ready to provide to the student or client so that they can use it as their personal guide to job satisfaction.

That depends on what you intend. You can enable it so that students can see their reports immediately after completion. However, it is the usual practice that the students’ reports are sent to the careers counsellor for them to print off for the students, and then to distribute in class or whenever the teacher or careers counsellor desires. The same occurs for careers counsellors in an organisation or agency. You can allow your clients to immediately view the VIQ or VVQ, but it is preferable that you hand it to them and go through it with them in the privacy of your office or location.

At this stage we have no plans to delete old VIQs or VVQ. We will contact current customers far in advance if we plan to delete any old VIQs or VVQs.

The one page summary only shows the Interest Profile across the 7 work interest areas. The full report includes the Interest Profile, followed by a description of each the interest areas, a list of job tasks and activities in the questionnaire that appealed to the student/client, and importantly, a recommended list of jobs that seemed most appealing and suitable for them. The final part of the report is a Career Action Plan to help the person research and focus on their career pathways.

Yes there is. Log into your school’s organisation account and select the icon at the bottom right hand corner for VIQ analysis reports where there is a graph which compares your school’s results to the national averages. This is very interesting data for your school (which could have implications for subject streams and for the curriculum itself).

It is recommended that you provide them with the report at a time where they are also able to access the "Good Careers Guide" so that they can put into use, their Career Action Plan.

When you log in to your school’s or organisation's account, click on the “Organisational Settings” link at the top right hand side of the page. Here you can update any of your organisation’s details.

The VVQ can be enabled for your organisation within your organisational settings. The setting is approximately half way down the page. To enable it, simply tick the box.

Log in to the school’s or organisation's account, click on “Admin Users” and click EDIT on the user you want to update. When you log into your account after you have updated your details, simply use the updated email address as your “email”, not the old one.

We can. This is also something you can do yourself. Simply go to the login page at www.MyFutureCareer.com.au/users/login and click on the link which says ‘Help! I’ve forgotten my password’. You can then enter in the email address you registered with and we’ll send you an email with your password.

Yes you can! Go to the VIQ dashboard and select the “Admin Users” icon. On that page, you then select the link ‘Add A New Organisation Administrator’ and enter in their details. They will log in with their email and password. The newly added administrator will be able to view all reports from your organisation, create and see invoices, edit organisation settings, add/remove/edit organisation administrators and other administration duties. You should only add someone as an organisation administrator who has the authority and trust for the position.

When you first register an account, our helpful customer service staff will add the logo to your account for you. Please ring or email us and we will assist you.

It can be fixed, but you need to contact MyFutureCareer’s support staff and we will do this for you.

It is possible to be notified by email each time a student or client completes the VIQ. This option is enabled when you register and enter in your email address for the question which asks whether you wish to receive alert emails for newly completed VIQs. To turn this feature off, just leave this question blank. You can update this setting under ‘Organisation Settings’.

Log into your school’s account at www.MyFutureCareer.com.au/users/login, click on the “Admin Users” icon. There you will see a list of the careers advisors who have access to your school’s account. Simply click cancel and confirm this action to cancel the access rights for those who no longer need access to your school’s or organisation's account.

The different roles you can choose for a new administrator are principal/senior management, careers counsellor/advisor, class teacher/facilitator, and administration/billing.

These are merely for the internal use of the MyFutureCareer support staff and do not affect your user experience.

When you log into your account, if you click on the “completed VIQs” link, you will be able to see all the completed VIQs. Here you can filter the completed VIQs by group.

When you log into your account, if you click on the “completed VIQs” link, you will be able to see all the completed VIQs. Here you can filter the completed VIQs by group.

From within this page, there are some large green buttons above the list of completed VIQs that will generate group reports for VIQ Reports, VIQ Summaries and VVQs (if enabled within your organisation settings).

A group is a way of organising and combining students or clients into particular collections. This makes it easier for you to find and print reports.

For example, you may wish to put all students from the BROWN house group together into a group called “Brown 2017”.

Each group is linked to a single year (e.g., 2017) which helps you to also organise who did the VIQ by WHEN they did it.

To set up a group, click on the “Manage Groups” icon. Next, click on the “Create A New Group” link. From there, simply type in the group name (e.g., Home Group 1), and the Calendar year you are currently in.

When you select a calendar year, it means that the group is for that specific year. Selecting the calendar year therefore enables you to use the same group names for the next year as well.

You can edit the name of a group after you have created it. Select the “Manage Groups” icon at the top right hand side of the VIQ dashboard. When on the Groups page, scroll down to the list of the groups where you have the option to click on the “edit” link next to the group name. Edit the group name there and simply click “save.”

An incomplete VIQ is a questionnaire that has been started by a student or client, but not finished. The individual needs to have finished the VIQ for it to then move to the unconfirmed stage.

Unconfirmed VIQs are successfully completed VIQs which have not yet been accepted by the school administrator or careers counsellor as legitimate. Unconfirmed VIQs need to be manually approved and allocated a VIQ credit before a VIQ report can be generated and viewed. You can confirm an unconfirmed VIQ by visiting the ‘Unconfirmed VIQs’ page from the VIQ Dashboard, selecting the VIQs you wish you confirm, and then clicking the confirm button. This is to ensure that only the people that you want to do the VIQ actually get confirmed and to stop any outsiders from using up your school or oganization's credits.

Yes, it does. You can only accept a VIQ report once, and this first time will use one of your VIQ credits.

Confirming a VIQ enables the PDF file associated with the VIQ report to be generated, and then saved or printed. You are unable to view the PDF report for a VIQ until it is confirmed.

Confirmed VIQs appear in the Confirmed VIQ page, which you can visit by clicking the green tick icon at the bottom of the VIQ Dashboard page. If a VIQ appears in the Incomplete or the Unconfirmed lists, they have not yet been confirmed and you are not yet able to view the report.