What's Your Type of Career?

Find Your Perfect Career by Using Your Personality Type

Donna Dunning

• Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781857885538
• eBook ISBN: 9781473644434
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Applied Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Match Your Personality Type to Your Perfect Career—and Find Success! The simple truth is that to be happy and successful in your work, you need a career that not only matches your interests but fits your personality type as well. In this approachable book, author Donna Dunning uses the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) to introduce eight distinct ways of working. Encouraging you to reflect on your own natural preferences—using checklists, exercises, strategies and tips—What's Your Type of Career? provides all the tools you need to discover your own natural preferences and find your ideal career. Are you a Contributor, Expeditor, Explorer or Responder? An Analyzer, Assimilator, Enhancer or Visionary? An Extravert or an Introvert? If you identify yourself as an Extravert and a Responder, you tend to like action, scenarios that are rapidly changing and are not inclined toward a desk job. A profession as an emergency worker, a fi re fighter or a police officer may be for you. This best-selling career guide—now in a fully updated second edition—has been expanded to include the training and educational requirements of a variety of different occupations, and highlights those most in demand. It also includes details on developing type differences later in life, advice for balancing your work and personal life and many, many more preference-based career suggestions.

CHAPTER ONE
Introduction

It All Starts with You

Whether you are just starting out, maintaining work you already have, looking for a change, exploring business ideas, or thinking of retirement activities, this book will show you how to find a career that is both meaningful and rewarding. It will also help you understand how you are likely to grow and develop over your life span. This knowledge will help you manage your transitions, enrich your current career choice, and move into opportunities that will best suit your unique talents. The result will be a satisfying career.

We spend a lot of our time and energy working. It is important to make sure that the work we choose is satisfying. But what makes it satisfying? Work becomes satisfying if it suits you and allows you to do the things you enjoy. Work that is suitable and enjoyable for one person may be totally unsuitable for another. Take, for example, Kent and Linda.

Kent says, “I find it very difficult to deal with details. I find them tedious, since they take my time and energy away from doing interesting things. I like to play with new ideas and do something that has never been done before. I enjoy continually changing and improving things.”

Linda says, “The idea of continually changing things doesn’t sit right with me. I have very high standards, and I like to do things right the first time. I want my work to be clearly defined, and I want to be able to follow through and pay attention to all of the tasks and details. Some people may think I am a bit too compulsive, but I really enjoy planning ahead and being careful and meticulous.”

Kent and Linda approach work in very different ways and enjoy very different types of work. For example, Linda might be attracted to a project management position, where she could organize and deal with lots of details. Kent, by contrast, might find himself overwhelmed or bored doing the same project management work. He might procrastinate or get a poor work evaluation because he finds it difficult or unpleasant to focus on all the details. Kent might be most satisfied working as a designer or in a position that requires him to create or market new ideas.

You too have your own natural and comfortable way of working. If you take the time to clearly assess your work preferences, you will be able to identify types of work that will be personally satisfying. By increasing your self-understanding, you can choose a career direction and take more control in your search for satisfying work. Considering all the hours and years you will spend working during your life, it is essential to expend your time and energy on pursuits that will allow you to do what comes naturally.

Taking Advantage of Your Natural Way of Working

We all have an approach to the world around us—one that comes naturally and comfortably. From the time we are babies, we show definite preferences and ways of acting. At a family gathering, for instance, one child creates a show for all the relatives while another one quietly sits in the corner and watches the action. These personality differences have been the subject of intensive research for more than sixty years. Thousands of studies have been conducted in the area of personality type, providing a wealth of information on how our personality type affects our career choices and work preferences. As researchers studied and analyzed individual differences, it became very clear that we could reliably group people according to their personality types. From this base of personality types, it is possible to define and describe specific ways of working—different natural and comfortable approaches that people use when they are at work. Understanding our personality type provides a useful tool to help us choose satisfying work activities and environments.

This book introduces you to eight distinct ways of working, each with its own natural approach to the world of work. The eight approaches have been studied, validated, and defined in detail. Research has shown us that people use one of these eight ways to communicate, organize and approach work tasks, solve problems, make decisions, lead, and be led. Learning about these ways of working can help individuals define the types of work and work activities that are personally motivating and satisfying. Of course, it would be unrealistic for any book to prescribe one specific ideal job for you. However, understanding which one of these eight natural approaches you use can give you a huge head start in finding work that comes naturally and is personally rewarding.

How This Book Can Help You Find Your Perfect Career Path

Finding the career path that is right for you requires self-understanding, knowledge of possible work options, and a plan for career change and development. This book will help you achieve career success by leading you through a step-by-step process to discover how your personality preferences link to your natural way of working, identify potential areas for growth and development, explore your unique combination of personal attributes, and use a step-by-step process to shape your career.

Discover How Your Personality Preferences Link to Your Natural Way of Working

We have all encountered people who are obviously happy and satisfied in their work. The waitress who serves you with friendly, helpful flair and the bricklayer who takes pride in creating a solid, straight fireplace are likely using their natural way of working. Perhaps they have other aspirations or goals in mind, but you can tell that they are engaged in and enjoying their current work.

On the other hand, we have all run into people who are not suited to their jobs. That grumpy public official, teacher, plumber, or sales associate may just be having a bad day . . . or perhaps he or she is not doing work that uses his or her natural approach. Perhaps that plumber would be happier designing software, or that teacher might best be suited to working with data, not students. Knowing your natural work preferences will provide you with a link between work and personal satisfaction.

We know that different people are motivated and satisfied by different jobs and activities. Understanding your natural way of working will help you choose suitable work. You can focus your job search and your ongoing work negotiations to ensure that your career choices reflect your personal approach as well as your unique experiences and circumstances. Only you can decide whether you prefer to smell the roses, design new varieties of roses, grow the roses, or perhaps even paint the roses.

Working in the environment you prefer and doing activities that reflect your natural approach is motivating and energizing. Although personality preferences do not link directly to skills or abilities, knowing your personal preferences can help you identify and develop skills that compliment your preferred approach. In Chapter 2, you will start the process of understanding and defining your natural way of working. Once you have identified your natural approach you can read your chapter, a chapter specifically written to help you assess what your ideal work looks like, how you like to lead or be led, the contribution you prefer to make as a team member, and how you prefer to learn.

It is very helpful to acknowledge that you have a unique way of working and to identify its associated strengths. Too often, we find ourselves performing work that might better suit our parents, boss, or others, rather than stopping and truly defining our own personal approach. Your natural strengths may be quite different from those of your family members, coworkers, and friends.

Understanding and appreciating your personal work approach and preferences is a helpful step toward self-acceptance. As a by-product, you will also become more tolerant and accepting of others once you recognize their ways of working. You may find that some of your work conflicts with colleagues are simply differences in approach. Understanding and communicating these differences can be the first step in improving your working relationships.

Identify Potential Areas for Growth and Development

For each of the eight ways of working there are activities that are not usually preferred listed along with the strengths. For example, highly imaginative people may find it difficult, stressful, or unpleasant to manage a detailed budget. A reliable, organized, and conscientious worker may not enjoy work requiring a highly flexible approach. Even when you find satisfying work, you will likely have some challenges and activities that are outside of your preferred way of working.

As well as identifying and working within your natural approach, you often need to learn and develop in areas you naturally don’t prefer. Identifying your areas for growth will help you focus on the skills and strategies you need to learn to be more effective in all of the tasks and duties you perform. In your personality type chapter, you will learn the common challenges for people with your preferences as well as tips and strategies for learning and developing these nonpreferred aspects of your personality.

A person also naturally develops and changes over his or her life span. When you are starting your career, you are beginning to understand and use your natural preferences. Over time, you may choose to gradually (or dramatically!) expand or move into new and different challenges, willingly taking on activities and roles that you might have avoided earlier in life.

This inclination towards growth and development is also part of your natural way of working. In your personality type chapter, you will be introduced to a second combination of personality preferences, similar to yours. The characteristics of this second personality type are ones that reflect the typical developmental pathway for people with your personal preferences. To further define and refine how your personal preferences are influencing your career development, you can compare these descriptions to assess your stage of growth and development.

Explore Your Unique Combination of Personal Attributes

Personality preferences are a key factor in identifying what career success looks like for you. But personality preferences are only one part of the picture. You also have a unique constellation of experiences, skills, interests, and values. By assessing these attributes you enrich your self-knowledge and better define your ideal career path. In addition, you have specific constraints or lifestyle preferences that are important to consider when making career choices. In Chapter 11, you will explore these topics and complete self-assessment exercises to further refine your ideal career path.

Use a Step-by-Step Process to Shape Your Career

Defining career satisfaction is only helpful when you apply it to find suitable work. Once you discover what you need to be motivated and satisfied at work, you can start to shape your career to best meet your needs. Chapter 12 leads you through a step-by-step process for systematically changing your career direction. In that chapter, you will find strategies and tips for generating work options, completing research, making a career decision, and taking action to move your career in a direction that will be personally satisfying.

Chapter 12 will also provide strategies to help you manage change by anticipating the future and focusing on lifelong learning and career development. Change is continually forcing us to adapt. Almost everyone is affected by changes in the world of work. Businesses are being reorganized, some jobs are being lost while others are being created, and advances in technology are changing the way we do our work. Our information society is requiring more and more workers to be effective lifelong learners. Thinking, learning, and using change management skills are becoming integral to success in any job.

Sometimes just staying the same can mean moving backward. Things are changing so rapidly around us that simply keeping your head down and doing your work can mean losing ground. Thus, it is essential that you assess your changing situation, your options, and yourself regularly and revise your career path from time to time. Then you can take adaptive action to keep yourself on track to where you want to go.

Your personal priorities, situation, and lifestyle also change over time. For example, changes in relationships, roles, physical and mental abilities, health, and location make it important to reassess your goals and priorities. Understanding your natural approach to work and learning how to shape your career can help you make decisions that allow you to both adjust your career and life path and maximize your personal and work satisfaction on an ongoing basis.

How to Use This Book

In the next chapter, you will learn about personality type. Personality type is the theoretical basis behind the eight ways of working. Once you know your personality preferences, you will fill out a checklist to discover which of the eight ways of working applies to you. The simple exercises and checklists provided will help you define your characteristic way of working.

Once you have defined your approach to work, you can go directly to the chapter that specifically describes your characteristic way of working. There you will confirm your preferences and gain greater insight into what specifically makes a career satisfying or unsatisfying for you. The customized information in the chapter will reveal the secrets of career satisfaction. This information has been compiled from decades of research on personality and work preferences. The chapter will not only suggest specific types of work that will be rewarding, but will explain your characteristic work preferences. Areas for growth and improvement will also be highlighted, along with tips and strategies to help you develop greater adaptability.

In “your” chapter, you will see a summary of data from thousands of people working in hundreds of types of occupations. You will discover how others with your way of working have found career satisfaction. You will find lists of occupations that others who share your way of working have found to be rewarding and meaningful. For each occupation there are several pieces of information, including whether the occupation has a bright outlook, the level of educational preparation required, if the occupation is in an environmentally friendly field, and an interest code describing the characteristic work environment. This occupational information is linked to an extensive database called the O*NET, where you can access more information for each of the occupational choices.

As you work through your chapter, remember that you are a unique individual and that your needs, skills, interests, and constraints will further define your personal choices. Helpful exercises, check lists, and summary charts will show you how to make the most of your exploration. Since the descriptions for each personality type refer to typical characteristics for an individual of that type, it will be important for you to complete and customize the exercises to reflect on how you are the same as (and yet different from) others who share this way of working. This will ensure you are discovering your individual, natural way of working.

Once you have turned the magnifying glass inward and understand your personal approach to working, you can use that knowledge to make informed career decisions. The ongoing challenge is making sure you are choosing and heading down the path that will take you where you want to go. Often, because we are not focusing on where we want to go, we are surprised when we end up somewhere else.

In Chapters 11 and 12, a career-shaping process will help you apply your natural way of working to your current situation. In Chapter 11, you will assess your skills, interests, values, and work needs and preferences to come up with a picture of what, for you, makes a career satisfying. In Chapter 12, you will learn how to generate suitable work options, complete career research, and make a thoughtful career decision. As a result, you will be able to manage your career progress and take action to ensure that you find work that allows you to do what comes naturally. If you are then interested in further developing the specific skills and career strategies necessary to enhance your career success, the companion book, 10 Career Essentials, is a helpful additional resource.

CHAPTER TWO
Introduction to Personality Type

Personality differences are a natural part of what distinguishes us as individuals. For example, we know that some people are naturally more likely to be outgoing, meticulous, structured, or flexible. Various categories and frameworks have been developed to help us un...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter One: Introduction
• Chapter Two: Introduction to Personality Type
• Chapter Three: Responders: Act and Adapt (ESFP & ESTP)
• Chapter Four: Explorers: Innovate and Initiate (ENFP & ENTP)
• Chapter Five: Expeditors: Direct and Decide (ESTJ & ENTJ)
• Chapter Six: Contributors: Communicate and Cooperate (ESFJ & ENFJ)
• Chapter Seven: Assimilators: Specialize and Stabilize (ISFJ & ISTJ)
• Chapter Eight: Visionaries: Interpret and Implement (INFJ & INTJ)
• Chapter Nine: Analyzers: Examine and Evaluate (ISTP & INTP)
• Chapter Ten: Enchancers: Care and Connect (ISFP & INFP)
• Chapter Eleven: Taking Stock
• Chapter Twelve: Shaping Your Career
• References
• Index