Holland is a professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins University in the United States and a famous professional guidance expert in the United States. 1959 put forward the theory of vocational interest with wide social influence. It is believed that people's personality types and hobbies are closely related to their careers, and interest is a great driving force for people's activities. Any occupation with professional interest can improve people's enthusiasm and encourage people to engage in this occupation actively and happily, and professional interest has a high correlation with personality. Holland believes that personality can be divided into six types: realistic type, research type, artistic type, social type, career type and conventional type.

The study of interest test can be traced back to the early 20th century. Thorndike discussed the relationship between interest and ability in 19 12. 19 15 James developed a questionnaire about interest, which marked the beginning of systematic research on interest test. 1927, strong compiled the strong vocational interest questionnaire, which is the earliest vocational interest test. Kuder released the Kuder hobby questionnaire on 1939.

1953 compiled a career preference scale, and on this basis, developed a self-directed exploration (1969), and put forward the theory of "personality traits and working environment matching" (1970). It is not difficult to see that before Holland's theory of career interest was put forward, career interest test and individual analysis were isolated, and Holland organically combined them.