Is interest profile level relevant to career counseling?

The extent to which interest profile level reflects response style (e.g., "yeasaying") is reported for 23 diverse samples (10 interest inventories; N = 53,429). Concurrent validity data (2 samples; Ns = 4,645 and 386,836) and longitudinal validity data (1 sample; N = 3,612) were used to determine whether profile level is relevant to career counseling. For each sample, subsamples with high and low interest profiles were formed and subsample differences in profile differentiation and shape were controlled, The degree of match between interest-based Holland-type (J. L. Holland, 1997) and membership in Holland-type criterion groups was about the same for each of the 3 high-low profile pairs. Thus, it appears that interest profile level does not indicate strength of interest. Implications for counselors are noted.