Personality Type and Career Choice

How Knowing Your Personality Type Can Help You Make a Better Career Choice

Are you trying to decide what career to pursue? Then you should find out what your personality type is. Certain occupations are more suitable for particular personality types than others are. However, personality type should not be the only factor you consider when choosing a career. A self assessment should also look at your values, interests and abilities, in addition to your personality type. These four factors taken together serve as a better indicator of career success than any one does alone.

A career development professional will use a personality inventory to identify your personality type. This instrument will measure your individual traits, motivational drives, needs and attitudes. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality inventory that is widely used to help people make career-related decisions.

The MBTI, which is based on Carl Jung's psychological theory, was developed by the mother-daughter team of Katharine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers. Jung categorized or "typed" individuals based on their preferences, or the way they choose to do certain things. Jung said an individual's preferences remain consistent throughout his or her life. He theorized that there are four pairs of opposite preferences that indicate how an individual:

• energizes (Extroversion v. Introversion),
• perceives information (Sensing v. INtuition),
• makes decisions (Thinking v. Feeling) and
• lives his life (Judging v. Perceiving).

Four preferences — one from each pair — make up someone's personality type. This is indicated by the four letters that refer to each preference (note the letters in bold type above). There are 16 different personality types in all:

ISTJ, ISFJ, INFJ, INTJ, ISTP, ISFP, INFP, INTP, ESTP, ESFP, ENFP, ENTP, ESTJ, ESFJ, ENFJ, and ENTJ

Each personality type is unique. It is the combination of the four preferences that make you who you are, not the sum of them. Being one type, rather than another, does not bring with it any special status. It is not better to be an ISTJ instead of an ESTJ, for example. An ESTJ may function better in certain environments than an ISTJ would, while the opposite would be true in others. Many career planning experts believe that when you know your personality type, as discovered through using the MBTI, you can make better decisions about your career.

The MBTI must be administered by a qualified career development professional, psychologist or other mental health professional. The Center for Applications of Psychological Type (CAPT) administers the test online for a fee which also includes a one hour feedback session. Isabel Briggs Myers, co-creater of the MBTI, was also co-founder of CAPT.

The professional who administers the MBTI and provides your results will give you a report that includes your four letter code. The report should also give you a definition of all 16 codes. If you are using the MBTI to help you with career choice, be aware that while the entire code is important to know, the middle two letters (indicating how you perceive information and make decisions) are the most significant. You can also receive a career report that includes a list of occupations that are most popular for those with your personality type, as well as those that are least popular.

^{Sources:
The Myers-Briggs Foundation Web Site.
Baron, Renee. What Type Am I?. NY: Penguin Books
Zunker, Vernon G. and Norris, Debra S. Using Assessment Results for Career Development. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company}