Imagine this: You’re 6 months into a new job. You went through 3 interviews, 2 days of onboarding, and bought 4 new work outfits. But despite your initial excitement, now you’re borderline miserable. This position requires you to sit behind a desk all day, and although you knew that going into the role, to your surprise, you dream about being out on location talking with customers. You’ve always enjoyed interacting with people, but you assumed that the phone contact you’d have in this role would be enough to keep you motivated. It’s not.
Also, the shine of the new job has started to fade, as its newness wears off. You don’t feel challenged by the position like you did at first, and now you are wondering if you can wait the expected 2-3 years that your manager told you is the typical timeline for advancement. “But how was I to know?” you ask yourself. Jobs are a crapshoot, and you can’t know if you’ll fit well into a role until you’ve actually been in the position for a while, right?
Wrong (thankfully!) Though a job search involves taking many factors into consideration — your experience, education, skills, interests, and location among other things — understanding your personality type can give you a solid indicator of how well you’ll mesh with a given job’s responsibilities, even before day one. Working in a position that aligns with many or most of your personality dimensions, which encompass your traits, behaviors, and motivators, can help promote engagement and productivity because you are, essentially, doing what comes naturally. In the right position, your innate characteristics can complement your job efforts to help you succeed.
On the flip side, a role that requires you to work against your intrinsic behaviors can cause frustration and discontent. For example, competitive and goal-driven traits could propel an individual to thrive in an outside sales position, but the same traits might need to be reined in for a service role that involves strong collaboration and a focus on meeting others’ needs. Sure, a “square peg” person can make themselves fit into a “round hole” job for a while given the right incentive or a significant need. For instance, a parent may take whatever job they can find to put food on the table for their children. But extreme circumstances aside, who wants to swim upstream against your natural characteristics day in and day out in a job? That’s a recipe for low morale and burnout.
Understanding your personality can help you narrow down which jobs to apply for.
If you are someone who is patient and wants to know what to expect every day when you log on to your computer, you should move on from job postings that advertise a fast-paced culture or a company where “you never know what to expect.” Instead, zero in on job ads that express a need for someone who is routine oriented and who demonstrates strong follow-through.
A person who wants clear procedures to follow and is detailed and meticulous with their work may want to veer away from positions that “let you be your own boss” and want a “big-picture thinker.” Rather, look for roles where it is important to comply closely with protocols and that require someone who is detail attentive and quality conscious.
And the benefits don’t end with a job search. Once you’ve targeted the right position for you, nailed the interviews, and accepted the offer (because why wouldn’t they hire someone who fits so perfectly with the role?), understanding your personality and behavioral characteristics can help when you are in your job too.
Understanding your natural behaviors also means understanding how to self-manage them.
You may innately know how to navigate the facets of the position that align with your traits, but most jobs will also have a few aspects to them that do not conform exactly to your personality dimensions. But understanding your natural behaviors also means understanding how to self-manage them. You know that you are a fast-paced person who has a tendency to rush through projects you find tedious. Having several short-term activities to work on is much easier and more motivating for you than one long task. So when you are given a lengthy project to complete, you know that you can manage it by breaking up that project into segments rather than trying to finish the whole assignment at one time. You also know that incorporating checkpoints within the project helps you stay on track and feel an ongoing sense of progress that keeps you inspired.
Personality and behavioral assessments are a great way to learn about your intrinsic traits. Omnia’s CareerMaze is an assessment that is accurate, easy to take, and especially suited for new grads who are embarking on their career path. This report gives the participants insights into their natural behaviors as well as a list of jobs that may align well with those behaviors. It’s an informative, helpful tool for someone who is new to the job market as well as for anyone considering a career change.
Omnia is here to help during all phases of the employment life cycle — from selecting the right candidate to developing employees to succession planning. Our suite of reports and supportive, knowledgeable Customer Success Managers are second to none. Contact us today to put our expertise to work for you.
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