How to Use Tahatū Career Navigator When You Don't Know What You Want to Do

Start with the Interest quiz to surface your top interests, then use Path Finder to turn those interests into career directions. From there, browse the 800+ career ideas and job videos to test what appeals to you, and use the skills and values guides to narrow your shortlist. This works best if you treat it as a sequence — quiz first, exploration second, narrowing third — rather than jumping straight into a career list with no starting point.

Step 1: Take the Interest quiz

The Interest quiz (Kairoro Kaingākau) is the site's entry point for people with no clear direction. The premise is simple: answer questions about what you like doing, and the quiz returns your top interest areas along with career ideas connected to them.

• Input: your honest reactions to the quiz questions — not what you think you should be interested in.
• Action: complete the quiz in one sitting if you can; scattered answers tend to produce a muddled result.
• Expected result: a set of top interests plus suggested career ideas to explore.

If the results feel wrong, retake it. A quiz is a starting signal, not a verdict.

Step 2: Use Path Finder to connect interests to options

Path Finder (Tiro Whetū) is the site's tool for moving from "here's what I'm interested in" to "here's a path." Use it after the quiz, when you have at least a rough sense of your interests and want to see where they lead.

The value here is structure: instead of scrolling an undifferentiated list of 800+ careers, you're filtering by what you've already identified about yourself. Note down two or three directions that surprise you — those are often the most useful leads.

Step 3: Browse career ideas and job videos

The site hosts 800+ career ideas and a video library (Puna ataata). This is where you go from abstract direction to concrete day-to-day reality.

A practical way to use this stage:

1. Pick three careers from your Path Finder results.
2. For each, read the career idea page and watch a related job video.
3. Write one sentence per career on what the actual work looks like day to day.

That third step matters. Videos show the environment, pace, and tasks in a way a description doesn't — and it's often where you discover a career is nothing like you imagined.

Step 4: Check skills and values before committing

The "Discovering who you are" guide (Te tūhura haere i a koe anō) helps you examine your skills and values. Use it once you have a shortlist, as a filter rather than a starting point.

Ask of each shortlisted career:

• Which of my skills would I actually use here?
• Does the work environment match what I value (e.g. autonomy, helping people, stability)?

A career that matches your interests but clashes with your values tends to stall. This step catches that early.

Step 5: Move into study and training decisions

Once a direction holds up, the site's study and training section covers comparing options, how to apply, and ways to pay for study and training. The "How to choose study or training" guide is the natural next read, followed by the application guide when you're ready to act.

What to expect — and common sticking points

When this approach fits

This sequence suits anyone at the start of a career decision — school leavers, career changers, or people returning to work — who genuinely doesn't know where to begin. If you already have a target career, skip to the study and training guides. If you're only mildly curious, the Interest quiz alone is a low-effort way to get a few ideas worth a second look.