In other words pursuing a career based on measured vocational interests contributes only a tiny fraction towards job satisfaction in among a range of possibly far more important factors that could impact your job satisfaction, including pay, flexible working conditions, colleagues, ease of commute, office surroundings, the boss, etc.

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The issue is not whether these tests predict job satisfaction – study after study suggests that they are a fragile predictor – but rather, given the limited time and resources lamentably available for career counselling, why is so much of that time and money spent using them?

Probably because people like the illusion of certainty and these instruments fulfil that by providing a list of occupations to explore. It is concrete advice.

Further muddying the waters, is the inconvenient truth that one of the key assumptions of these tests, that birds of a feather flock together, is not supported by large-scale independent studies.

A 2018 study looked at the measured interests of people in 219 different jobs. They calculated the proportion of people in each job that shared the same primary measured interest according to the tests.

Even for the top 15 that had the biggest proportion of people sharing the same measured interests 28 per cent had different interests. For the lowest 15 occupations, about 75 per cent of people had primary interests in areas other than the one the tests suggest they should have.

In other words, people with all kinds of different interests end up working together in the same occupations. There are more important things to consider when making career decisions than relying on measures of interests to provide an even remotely accurate picture of what jobs will provide satisfaction.

Coaching and equipping people with the confidence and skills to explore occupational opportunities and to make decisions for themselves continually throughout their careers is a more productive way forward.

Life is not a horse race, and we cannot cheat and find out in advance the best horses to back. But what we can do is prepare better jockeys to run their own best race.