Interest Fit Beyond the RIASEC: The Comprehensive Assessment of Basic Interests—O*NET (CABIN-NET)

Over the past half-century, Holland’s RIASEC model has dominated vocational interest research. Although the RIASEC categories effectively capture general occupational themes, their breadth obscures meaningful variability across underlying basic interests , which are more refined interest scales. In this research, we adapted the Comprehensive Assessment of Basic Interests (CABIN; Su et ., 2019) to be used alongside O*NET for assessing interest fit, resulting in the 60-item CABIN-NET that measures 20 basic interest scales organized under RIASEC domains. In Study 1, we refined items for the CABIN-NET using a nationally representative adult sample ( N = 768). In Studies 2 and 3, we collected extensive reliability and validity evidence using longitudinal samples of graduates from four-year universities ( N = 816) and community colleges ( N = 560). Across samples, results consistently showed that basic interest fit had stronger predictive power for career outcomes compared to RIASEC fit. Overall, the CABIN-NET provides a short, reliable measure of both basic interests and RIASEC interests, offering two ways of assessing person-occupation fit and balancing bandwidth and fidelity. The CABIN-NET also offers a new content-based connection between basic interests and occupational knowledge, providing theoretical and practical implications for incorporating basic interests into person-environment fit research and applications.