Kanso FAQ

Kanso is a career decision tool for people weighing a job offer or questioning their current role. Its free five-minute assessment helps you clarify your career values, decide what matters most and see where you can compromise.

Kanso is for individuals making a career decision. Use it when you are:

• considering a job offer and want to look beyond salary and title
• wondering why your current role no longer feels right
• happy in your role and want to understand what is working
• preparing for an interview, offer discussion or conversation with your manager

It is not an employer screening tool, recruitment test or job-matching service.

Personality assessments describe patterns in how you think or behave. Kanso asks what you need from work now.

It does not assign a type or predict which job will suit you. Your results reflect the answers you give.

Kanso helps you clarify your career values, then goes a step further: it shows what you would protect, where you can compromise and what to check about a particular job.

It is a career decision tool, not a personality test, occupation recommendation or job-fit score.

Personality, behaviour and talent assessments such as MBTI, DiSC and CliftonStrengths describe patterns in how you think, behave or contribute. Job satisfaction and burnout tools focus on how you feel in your current situation. Kanso helps you set priorities for a career decision and identify what to check about a role.

See the assessment comparison, MBTI comparison or CliftonStrengths comparison.

It takes about five minutes:

1. Rate each workplace condition. Kanso shows one question at a time, across Cultural, Professional, Personal and Financial areas. You can go back and change any answer.
2. Use five to eight credits. Marking a condition Highly Important or Truly Essential uses one credit. Other ratings do not. You can submit after rating every condition and using between five and eight credits.
3. Review your results. See your priorities, tensions, priority map, blind spots and deep dive explanations for free. You also get three Kanso Coach messages.

A Trade-off Profile is Kanso's name for your results. It shows which parts of work you put first, where your priorities may conflict and what you may have room to compromise on. It includes:

• Key drivers: your strongest priorities and the tensions between them
• Priority map: all your workplace-condition ratings
• Blind spots: lower-rated conditions that may still affect a higher priority
• Deep dives: explanations of the conditions you rated most highly

These explanations are free. Sections marked Playbook add decision consequences, practical steps, interview and manager questions, countermeasures, screening criteria and a PDF report.

Your results are an AI interpretation of the ratings and comments you provide. They can raise useful questions, but may miss context or draw a conclusion you disagree with. Check important points against your own answers and what you learn about the role before acting.

Kanso Coach is an AI conversation tool that uses your results as context. Your free results include three messages; Playbook includes 50 and guided prompts.

You can use Kanso Coach to:

• decide what to ask before accepting an offer
• think through something that feels wrong in your current role
• prepare wording for a conversation with your manager
• compare the compromises in two options

Kanso Coach can make mistakes or read too much into your answers. Treat its suggestions as a starting point to check, not professional advice or a decision made for you.

Kanso does not sell your personal data or use it for third-party advertising. Service providers process some data for hosting, authentication, analytics, error monitoring and AI features, including outside Australia.

See the Privacy Policy for details. Avoid putting highly sensitive information into open-text answers or Coach messages.

Yes. The assessment and results are free, with no credit card required. That includes your key drivers, priority map, blind spots, deep dive explanations and three Kanso Coach messages.

Playbook is an optional one-time $14.99 purchase. It is not a subscription.

About five minutes.

Your free results include your key drivers, priority map, blind spots, deep dive explanations and three Kanso Coach messages.

Playbook adds the action sections: decision steps, interview and manager questions, countermeasures, screening criteria, a PDF report and 50 Kanso Coach messages.

Yes. You're welcome to share your results with a career coach. If you have Playbook, you can also download and share the PDF report.

Yes. Kanso can help you name the conditions you value, so you can check whether your role still provides them when work changes or another opportunity appears.

Yes. Use your results to decide what to ask, which claims need evidence and which answers would change your view. Kanso will not tell you whether a role is a match.

If you're stuck between two offers, read our guide on how to decide between two job offers.

No. A career coach can understand your wider situation, challenge your assumptions and work with you over time. Kanso can help you arrive with clearer priorities and questions.

Kanso was built by Steve Tapley, a product leader and software engineer in Perth, Western Australia. He has spent 30 years building software, including a decade working across teams, hiring and organisational design in small businesses. He kept meeting capable people who knew something was wrong at work but could not name it clearly enough to act.

Connect with Steve on LinkedIn →