Play to Your Strength

There are several different personality quizzes readily available to the job seeker.  They are set up differently but they share the same objective: to put you in a personality category where you can identify potential career choices based on your internal make-up.

Although the Wonderlic and DISC tests are enjoying growing popularity, many professionals in the career consulting industry would agree that the Myers-Briggs indicator is the most effective and accurate rating system available.  It bases its findings on the choice between two possibilities in each of four categories.  The result identifies you as one of sixteen possible personality types relating to career.

The category comparisons are made as follows:
1. Extroversion - introversion:  This is meant to determine where you like to focus your attention.  Extraversion suggests that you like to focus your attention on the outer world of people and things, while introversion suggests you tend to favor the inner world of ideas and impressions.
2. Sensing - intuition:  This category studies the way you like to look at things.  Sensing suggests that you like to focus on the here and now, and on concrete information gained from your senses.  With intuition, you tend to focus on future possibilities.
3. Thinking - feeling:  In thinking, your decisions are based on logic, and objective views, while in feeling, your decisions come from a subjective, personal evaluation.
4. Judging - perceiving:  In judging, you are structured and organized, and prefer a planned approach to life, while in perceiving, you are spontaneous and like to keep your options open.

Various questions will be asked to help determine which of the two possibilities choices in each category more accurately reflects you.  The end result is one of sixteen possible combinations, for instance: introversion, sensing, feeling, perceiving.  The system then dictates a fairly precise personality profile based on that particular combination of results. 

So what is the point of this?  Well, if you are really unsure about a career direction, identifying your personality type may be a good starting point.  From there, you can study what types of jobs or industries are considered to be strong matches.  At the very least, you can eliminate industries or jobs that prove to be completely incompatible with your type, and work from there.

These indicators are widely used, and have proven useful and accurate time and time again.  Since you are giving the answers, there is really no way it can be false.  It’s a minor investment of your time which may end up saving you a lot of time and energy in the end, by steering you away from roles you aren’t suited for.