Want Job Search Success? 5 Personality Traits to Match Your Career

Want Job Search Success? 5 Personality Traits to Match Your Career

By Mark Namaswa,
We all would like doing what we love doing. And growing up, dreams were many; doctors, lawyers and engineers are what we mostly wanted to be, regardless of our personalities.

And now for the realty check, most people are going through jobs they found themselves doing; by accident or design. Still others are fortunate enough to find their true calling.

“In most cases, the personality matches and what people actually end up taking on as their careers do not fit as exactly as we would hope them to be in real life,” observes Tabitha Kibe, HR Manager, Farm Concern International.

“This is because jobs tend to be scarce and most people are doing whatever jobs which are available,” she says.
Is your job a means of putting bread on the table and footing bills or is it your passion and source of fulfillment?

Here are basic personality traits you can use to match with jobs in which you can thrive best.

1. The Creative or Artistic Personality
This type of people loves taking charge of jobs that involve creative expressions. They are mostly in design, either web or graphic design. In most cases, these people thrive in workplaces that seem disorganized to others but to them, it seems very okay.

In most cases, their mode of dressing reflects their personality: they tend to prefer semi-casual outlooks. Animators, visual artists, painters, sculptors also belong to this group. They do best where they do not feel guided by tight rules and schedules.

2. The Thinkers
This personality type can cover introverts or people who concentrate and tend to work best alone or in quiet situations.

“If I would give examples of jobs that fit this cluster of personalities, I would say accountants, researchers or software developers,” says Ms. Kibe.

“They are able to spend long hours in concentration and will not get tired with routine work as much as the average person would,” she says.

3.  The Enterprising Personality
Jobs that best suit these people are those involving convincing and influencing the opinion of others. Most enterprising personalities are outspoken individuals or extroverts.

Ms. Kibe says: “They tend to be people-oriented individuals who prefer to do non-routine jobs. Marketers, public speakers, and people in the communication-based professions like journalists fall in this category.”

They also tend to do best in fields where some form of competition is involved. Rather than thinking about getting something done, they tend to go right ahead and act on their impulses ad get it actualized.

According to Ms. Kibe, this type of personality also thrives in occupations which also involve non-routine activities.

4. The Leadership Personality
The lawyers, teachers, business coaches or even entrepreneurs fall in this cluster.
If you are comfortable taking charge of situations, tasks or teams of co-workers, you are probably in the leadership personality group.

5. The Realistic or Hands-on Personality
If you love working with machines or tools and seeing your work take form, then you probably are a realistic or hands-on person. They are also called doers—people who enjoy carrying out practical projects.

Chefs, computer hardware engineers, pharmacy technicians fall in this group.

Still this does not mean that certain jobs are specifically cut for specific people. Human beings are known to be very adaptable to mastering new skills.

“That is why we are also seeing an increasing number of people achieving success I professions where their personality is not an exact fit,” Ms. Kibe says. “You can find excellent marketers who really succeed at their job but on analysing their personality, they are very quiet people. It is a matter of mastering the skills that each job requires

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