Career Personality Test
Make the Best Career Choice for Your Personality

Ensuring a good career and personality match is an important step in building a satisfying and fruitful career. Unfortunately, when it comes to making a career choice, too many people are inclined to over-simplify the process and make career choices that are not the best fit for their personality.

Some people look no further than "expert" listings of the hottest jobs of the moment for career choice guidance. That strategy might work if one of those careers happens, by chance, to appeal to you and meet your needs. However, understanding the labor market is a lot more complex than reviewing a list of the 10 hottest jobs for the year, and ideally career choice should involve factors beyond a superficial labor market analysis.

One strategy for ensuring a fit between your career and your personality is the use of a valid career personality test or interest assessment. Some people are skeptical about the value of using a test for choosing a career. Perhaps they have only experienced tests in fashion magazines that are just for fun, and not scientifically developed and tested for validity. Maybe they've completed a valid personality test but didn't have the guidance of an experienced career development professional to help them understand and apply the results to make a good career and personality match.

A good career personality test is developed through vast amounts of objective scientific testing and volumes of psychological research. It is not put together in an afternoon by a magazine writer whose primary aim is to entertain readers.

Also, ideally the personality assessment processes will include a follow-up with a professional who is qualified to assess the results of the test. This person will communicate the results to you, answer your questions about the results and help you to understand what those results mean in terms of your self knowledge and your career choices.

A poor fit between career and personality can hold you back in your career success. Imagine the difference between a sales professional who is extroverted and agreeable and one who is introverted and indifferent. Different jobs demand different personality profiles, so the extroverted and agreeable sales professional will be more inclined to be a top performer on his or her team and truly enjoy the work. On the other hand, the introverted and indifferent sales professional would more likely struggle though inferior job performance, job dissatisfaction and possibly even career burnout.

Years of careful research has shown that a good career and personality match does have a positive impact on job performance (Goffin, Rothstein, and Johnston, 1996). You invest countless hours of your time and years of your life in a career, so it makes absolute sense to invest the time it takes to ensure a good career and personality match. To make good career decisions, you need good information about yourself as well as your potential career options.