This article is aimed at helping individuals, particularly youths in making the right decisions regarding their careers. Especially with the uprising in tech careers, individuals need to be aware of how their personalities could play a major role in choosing one they will succeed at and find fulfillment in.
Introduction
Remember the good old days of elementary school when we'd be asked what we'd like to become when we grow up? Many of us come up with various career options that sounded, you know, cool to us. We come up with various careers like a lawyer, nurses, doctors, and engineers.
Well, while many of us realize we couldn't become these things for one reason or the other, this is where career development starts, and it spans throughout a lifetime. Now, a host of factors influence this change in career choice, but none has played a major part in it as personality.
This is because your career is all about you, and you are all about your personality. We'll look into the reason why your personality matters so much to your career development, and how you can assess your personality for your job fit. But first, let's examine what a personality test is about.
What is a Personality Test?
Historically, personality tests emerged in the late 18th century and gained ground in the 19th century, but its name back then was 'phrenology'. This traditional method involved the measurements of pumps on the human skull, which were then tagged with specific personality traits. Of course, this strange technique has been overrun today by the advent of modern science and technology.
Subsequent propositions have been introduced by several psychologists in an attempt to discover the number of personality traits in existence. For instance, Gordon Allport proposed that there were more than 4,000 personality traits. Another psychologist, Raymond Cattell utilized a statistical method known as factor analysis to whittle down the list to just 16, while Hans Eysenck narrowed it to just 3.
So, what's this personality test? Well, we can derive the meaning from the keyword- 'personality'. Personality refers to the combination of traits that form an individual's unique characteristics such as prototypical thinking, feelings, interests, and behaviors. Consequently, personality tests are tools used to assess human personality constructs (motivations, preferences, interests, emotional make-up, and style of interaction).
For this article, they are techniques designed to elicit information about the characteristic pattern of traits people exhibit across various situations and match it up with suitable career roles. These tests can take the form of interviews, in-basket reviews, and self-report inventories (questionnaires).
Another term we should be acquainted with is: Personality Job Fit
This refers to how well an individual's personality traits are suited to his or her work role.
Read more on personality-job fit here.
What is Career Development?**
Career development is a process of self-knowledge, exploration, and decision-making that shapes one's career. It requires successfully navigating your occupational options to choose and train for jobs that suit your personality, skills, abilities, and interests.
Career development is directly linked to an individual's career goals and objectives. It starts with self-actualization and self-assessment of one's interests and capabilities. The result of such self-analysis will then give the analyst an inkling of the roles and industries that match these skills and interests.
Career development is so important to a person's career choice for many reasons:
Career development is so important because it has everything to do with an individual's growth and satisfaction in their career (this is why it should be managed by the individual and not left to the employer).
Career development helps an individual grow both professionally and personally.
It gives an individual insight into areas they need to improve on in their career. For instance, a person could realize that they need to improve on their communication skills, and will take the necessary training for that purpose.
Why Your Personality is the Most Important Factor in Your Career Development
A person's career development is influenced by multiple factors, but the most important influence is a person's personality.
Our characteristic (personality type, interests, aptitudes, and work-related values) makes us who we are. These personal characteristics play a significant role in career development since they influence which occupation, we'll find satisfactory, as well as the type of work environment we're most likely to succeed in. For instance, an individual who's non-assertive may be unhappy in an executive role, while extroverted individuals may be dissatisfied with working in a role that involves minimal human interaction. This is why the first stage in the process of choosing a career is to do a self-assessment of oneself.
This is where a personality test comes in. It'll assist an individual in finding their personality using a combination of personality traits or dimensions and linking it with various career options so they can have a successful and fulfilling career. A person's personality shouldn't be measured by simply tapping into a specific trait, but rather, it should be measured by combining all the personality scales.
How to Take Personality Tests
There are many approaches to personality today but the most popular and widely used in career development is the **Big Five theory of personality. The theory suggests five broad personality traits for testing: extroversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, emotional stability, and agreeableness. For more on these traits, check this page.
Today, a wide variety of personality tests are carried out based on these theories. The two major types of personality tests are self-report inventories and projective tests.
The self-report inventories involves a test-taker reading out questions about personality traits and rating how well the question applies to them.
Projective Tests involves presenting the test-taker with the vague scene, object, or scenario and then asking them to give their interpretation of the test item. Other types of personality tests include the Myer Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), and the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire.
Pitfalls Of Personality Tests**
While Personality tests is useful, it has many drawbacks to it, some of which includes:
People tend to engage questions deceptively especially for the self-report inventory tests.
People are not always good at describing their behaviors.
Tests can take a long time to get over, and several hours in some instances.
Results could be inconsistent, invalid, or unreliable.
Conclusion
Career development involves the assessment of one's skills, abilities, and personality and matching them to a suitable career. Many factors influence a person's career development but the most important factor is personality. This is because it's the first stage of career development, plus it determines one's satisfaction, performance, and success in the career. These personalities can be discovered by taking a personality test.
After taking these personality tests, the next stage in career development is to assess one's career options and find the right fit. Then, you can go ahead and secure the necessary training, and acquire the skills needed to thrive in the career.