Career counselor Tom Smith recently counseled a computer analyst who was unhappy in his chosen profession. “He has a skill for putting out fires, so he’s always being recruited for those types of jobs,” said Smith. “But his real interest is in longer-term projects.”
A thorough self-assessment revealed that the man’s passion is for project management and research. Moreover, the self-assessment helped him realize he doesn’t enjoy the short-term, pressure-cooker environment of the jobs he’d always accepted.
Though he hasn’t yet located a project management or research position, he’s committed to finding one. “He’s on the right path now,” said Smith, manager of counseling services with Career Directions in Chicago and Rolling Meadows. “He took the time to sit down and figure out why he was unhappy.”
Smith and other career counselors point out that many people fall into jobs for which they have no particular passion. That’s because they never took the time to figure out what they really wanted to be when they grew up. Only by engaging in such honest self-appraisal, say the experts, can wage earners derive the maximum rewards from their careers.
“Our position is that self-assessment is always good, but particularly good when searching for a job,” said Barbara Barron-Tieger, co-author with her husband, Paul D. Tieger, of “Do What You Are” (1992, Little, Brown). “What things about work do you need for it to be satisfying? Armed with this information, you can make better career decisions.”
In their book, the authors recommend using personality types to better define who you are as a job seeker or changer, and what type of job would be most satisfying. According to Barron-Tieger, four areas of contrasting personality types are worth exploring.
The first pertains to extroversion and introversion. “If you’re an extrovert you need work involving other people and variety,” she explained. “Introverts want fewer interactions of more depth, and work with more focus. They’d prefer to tackle one project at a time.”
The second area distinguishes “sensing” from “intuitive” people. A sensing individual needs work that’s realistic and practical. “These people learn through their five senses and really trust that information,” said Barron-Tieger.
Intuitive people, on the other hand, read between the lines and gather information through their sixth sense. The most appropriate jobs for these people are those that require creativity and variety. “Working on the same project over and over is very draining for the intuitive,” she said.
The third area centers on how we make decisions. Thinkers are logical and objective in decision making, and require work that makes use of their critical thinking and analytical skills. Feelers, by contrast, make decisions on the basis of their personal values. They need work in sync with those values, and have problems with jobs and organizations they can’t believe in.
A final area is judging versus perceiving. “This is about how we organize the world around us,” said Barron-Tieger. “People with a preference for judging like to make decisions. They like things settled, structured and with closure. They’re comfortable in organizations with distinct hierarchies. But perceivers prefer the world to be more open-ended. They don’t like to make decisions because if closes off their options. They’re more comfortable in relaxed organizations where they can keep their options open.”
While understanding these types can move you closer to the right job, Barron-Tieger cautions that there’s no job absolutely right for any one type. “But certain jobs are more satisfying to certain types than others,” she added.
With his clients, Career Directions’ Smith takes another approach to self-assessment. He asks them to discuss or write an essay about their accomplishments in previous jobs or school situations. They then make a list of skills that permitted them to realize those accomplishments.
From a list of perhaps 12 to 15 skills, they identify the most important 5 or 10. Then they make a list of the top values they seek in a job–from how they want to work with other people to the job environment and end product of the organization. The result of the assessment should be a definable goal of obtaining a job matching those values and using those skills.
Identifying this information permits a job candidate to better research the job market, and “once you know the skills, you kind of innately narrow down your options,” Smith noted. After narrowing the options, the next move is seeking out individuals in these jobs and asking them to describe what they do, the people they work with and the trends ahead in their professions. By the end of the process, job hunters following these steps should have a handle on the best possible field or fields for them, Smith said.
Rob Sullivan, a freelance marketing consultant and author of “Climbing Your Way to the Bottom: Changing the Way You Approach Your Job Search” (1997, Pure Play Publishing), notes that self-assessment requires you to downplay monetary goals and others’ expectations of you.
“What it all boils down to is knowing yourself, and most candidates fall apart in that category,” he said. “It requires asking the deep questions. How would you like to be remembered? What is it that you’d really like to accomplish in life? If you take this career direction, would your 20-year-old self be proud of your 50-year-old self?”
These kinds of questions can help you identify a career path matching your passions. Once you have, interview prospective employers in those fields. “Call the companies you’re interested in and find out what they’re looking for,” said Sullivan. “That’s something nobody does. Without that you’re just playing the lottery. And what’s interesting is people will give you their time. They’ll tell you what they need.”
Above all, remember that self-assessment should culminate in identifying career paths that grab and hold your interest.
“It’s not that you can’t do a job that’s not right for you, it’s why would you want to?” said Barron-Tieger. “It’s not a good fit. It will drain you. And any time you have that kind of a mismatch, it will negatively affect other aspects of your life as well.”
