How Your Personality Type Affects Your Career Choices

Personality tests and types have been around for a long time now. And for years, the buzz about it has not died down yet. Its success can especially be attributed to people with career hopes and aspirations, who feel like they have no sense of direction of what to do yet. They may take it because they genuinely believe their future lies in the balance of their personality type. While some of them take the test for the hell of it. But we’re here to answer two main questions. Does it actually help? And if it does, how does it help your career?

To answer these questions, we first have to go back to the people who are partly and majorly responsible for this. Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers. The year was 1917 when Briggs noticed an interesting dynamic and interaction between her daughter Isabel Myers and her Fiancé. As Briggs and Myers themselves became intrigued by this, they started to dive in deeper to the “anatomy” of the human personality, how it differs from person to person, and what causes the variety. Harrell (2021) states that the Myers Briggs Test Indicator produces a personality output revolving around perception (sensing or intuition), judgment (thinking or feeling), attitudes about how they build energy (extroversion or introversion), their orientation to the outer world (judging or perceiving). This has led to millions around the world who have taken the test, since its invention.

Knowing that the test is meant to, at some level, assess a person’s perception, judgement, energy-building, and orientation toward the outside world, does it help a person’s career and business savvy? Well, the short answer is…Yes! Why do we say this? Simply because a better understanding of yourself, will allow for career and business decisions that better suit your needs and capabilities as an individual. Even though your personality type may not exactly determine and tell you what you are meant to do, it’s supposed to give you some sort of an idea. Still don’t get it?

Let’s take some personality types and see how they fit into different occupations. An ESFP personality type for example, reflects someone who is spontaneous, energetic, and enthusiastic. Keeping this in mind, we may be able to think of a couple occupations that are perfect for this personality type, such as actors or comedians. Let’s do one more. Take an ENFJ personality type. Someone who is charismatic and a leader-type. Some people with this personality type may be completely suited for jobs as a business owner, or even the president!

So keep all that in mind the next time someone mentions a personality test. You may be able to discover things about yourself that you did not know before. The world is waiting for the new discovered you, now go get them!