Does Your Career suit your Temperament?

Are you happy in your career?
If you answered "No or Maybe" read on for info on how to fine-tune your efforts at work.
If you answered "Yes" you can still use the information in this article to fine-tune your efforts at work.

How can knowing your personality type help you be happy in your chosen career?
"Do What You Are" a book by Barbara Barron describes how you can use your personality type to find the right job/role most suited to yourself.

Knowing your personality type will help answer the below questions:
What things drive you and motivate you? -
How do you like to make your decisions - intuitively, snap-decisions, think-it-over etc.
What qualities come naturally to you?
What kind of job are you most suited for these qualities?

We NEED you here:
There are job-types and even roles within a given job-type which desperately need YOUR type of thinking. It may be difficult to change your job all at once. But you can always take up a different job role that is more suited to your way of thinking. Or find a way to make the job-change.


On the other hand not knowing your personality type can be quite uncomfortable or even harmful.
There are LOTS of people who're stuck in the wrong job-role.
It's like an athelete-type chained to a desk-job or a professor type trying to deal with business.

It might be much more fulfilling for the athlete-type to take a more people-oriented/travelling kind of job or the proffessor-type to take up the role of mentoring/training people in the business. But then there are different types of athletes and proffessors too. So how do you know which job-role to go for?

Stereotypes vs Personality Types:

We normally describe people by types like - Strong-Silent Type, Sensitive Type, Girl-Next-Door type etc.
Knowing these general personality types doesn't help us in a specific way to identify our job-role.

What we need is a good tool for learning about your own strengths and weaknesses.
Knowing your own personality type can help you

• reduce waste of time and effort
  
• help concentrate on specific areas of improvement

So now you can concentrate on your strengths for short-term gains and weaknesses for long-term gains.

Find Your Personality Type:

MBTI tests (Myer-Briggs Temperament Indicator) test are used by many reputed companies (citations) to find the suitable position for a person. We normally describe people by types like - Strong-Silent Type, Sensitive Type, Girl-Next-Door type etc. Knowing these general personality types doesn't help us in more than a descriptive manner.

Luckily for us, the famous psychologist Carl Jung, and later Myer-Briggs observed these patterns very closely.
During their interactions with people they observed 4 basic qualities recurring every time.
They realised that there were Four Broad Groups of personalities.

The Four Broad Personality Groups are:

SP Artisans, (Action oriented) SJ Guardians, (Stability oriented) NT Rationals, (Thinking oriented) NF Idealists (Ideals oriented)

Reference: Personality Types (from Keirsey.com)

Descriptions of Personality Types (just click on the links below):
I) Artisans
a) Entertainers
Performer (ESPF): MarlynMonroe, Elvis Presley
Composers (ISPF): BobDylan, Cher, Mozart

b) Operators
Crafters (ISTP): BruceLee, MichealDouglas
Promoters (ESTP): Madonna, Roosevelt, Churchill, JFKennedy

II)Guardians
a) Administrators
Inspectors (ISTJ):WarrenBuffet (bill gates of finance),Queen Elizabeth II
Supervisors (ESTJ): US Prez Cleveland

b) Conservators
Protectors: Mother Teresa
Providers: George Washington

III) Rationals
a) Engineers
Architects (INTP): Albert Einstein, Marie Curie
Inventors (ENTP): Walt Disney,

b) Coordinators
MasterMinds (INTJ): Ayn Rand, Eisenhower.
FieldMarshals (ENTJ): Bill Gates, Margaret Thatcher

IV) Idealists
a) Advocates:
Healers (INFP) : Albert Schwiezter, Lady Diana, Richard Gere.
Champions (ENFP): Charles Dickens

b) Mentors:
Counselors (INFJ): Mahatma Gandhi, Jane Godall, Sidney Poitier
Teachers (ENFJ) : Mikhael Gorbachev, Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Mead

Some of the descriptions are so accurate, they point out some really precise things about a person/temperament.

What do the combinations of letters stand for e.g. I/E, S/N, P/J, T/F:

Introvert/Extravert = I/E

Sensing/iNtuitive = S/N

Thinking/Feeling = T/F

Perceptive/Judgemental = P/J

Example: INTJ, ENFP etc.

The personality tests really try to find your range of preference at the time of taking the test.
They ask a lot of questions for different situations and worded in different ways.

Personality Tests:

Let's imagine that there are 4 bowls containing 2 chits of paper with a single letter each.

1)  I or E,

2) S or N, 

3) T or F, 

4) P or J.

A person can choose a total of 4 chits of paper from these 4 bowls.

Then they would get 1 specific combination of 4 letters - say "I S T P"

Using 4*4 combinations we get total of 16 types of Personalities.

Note: The choice from each bowl is not really an exclusive choice. It only reflects you what you chose.

Note: Temperament is not final or clear cut. It is a helpful guideline for better understanding others and oneself.

Range-Of-Preference:
Tests try to identify what is the Range-of-Preference for your choices.
Whether someone is an Intravert/Extraver 70-30 % of the time in different situations.
Imagine a scale of 1-100. Now your Friend's score may look something like this:

I --------------------^----- E (10% Intravert, 90%Extravert)
S ------------^------------- N (50% iNtuitive, 50% Sensory)
T ------------------^-------F (25% Thinking, 75% Feeling)
P --^-----------------------J (80% Perceptive, 20% Judgemental)

So the above test indicates the person is primarily an ESFP.
I/E = What world you focus on - Inner world (I) or external world (E)
S/N = Comfortable dealing with tangible things (S) or abstract things (N)
F/T = How you judge people or things - by your feelings (F) or logical thinking (T).
P/J = How you make decisions - P = Open to changes around you. Make decisions slowly. J = make decisions quickly

Note: The tests are subjective and only record your preferences at time of the test.
Try to only answer with your normal choice and NOT what you'd like to do or like to be.
You can take the test at different times to ensure you get a stable preference reading.

Finally, Take it with a pinch of salt.

See Also:
Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Personality Type by Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron
The DDLI Page (Free multiple choice personality test)
Online test based on Jung - Myers-Briggs typology
Student Learning and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator