Finding Your Dream Job

Teresa Pangan, PhD, RD

Your dream job flows directly out of all of the elements of your personality type. By determining your personality type it will become clear why some past jobs were not a good fit and others you were much happier at. The personality type assessment provides a systematic way to evaluate your strong points and areas to stay clear of (things that drain you). It is a relief to discover your personality as it puts meaning to why some things in the past you dreaded and others felt so natural and easy.

If you reflect on your work career, the different positions and activities you have held, when did you experience an instance where you felt on top of your game, you felt in tune with the activity and proud of how you performed? Chances are, in that moment, you were operating from the strengths of your personality trait (other factors may have been in concert too, like values and skills). According to many psychologists, we are happiest and feel the most fulfilled when we are using our strengths.

Each job I have held I so badly wanted to do it “right.” I would pour myself into it, loved the challenges that came with it seeing them as character builders. I had always held the belief if I just worked hard enough, I could do it. I always thought those things that came harder for me were my intelligence flaws.

I was always an A student in school, but more on the side of 90 to 95 through doing all the homework and extra projects… You know what I mean. My younger sister was one of those that excelled at everything, she could catch on quickly to everything. In my thinking she was the super intelligent one and I had some smarts, but nothing like her. I tell you this because we all know someone like my sister -- high A’s came naturally for. It never occurred to me that maybe I was wonderfully different than her. That my personality was different and these things that came harder to me were not intellectual flaws but instead areas that were a stretch for my personality.

This also goes for jobs I have held, I look back and the activities that were more of a stretch for me, activities I had to plan for and analyze and even in some cases practice how to achieve were tasks that were not in my personality type. Those things that I did not have to even think twice about, those were activities oozing my personality.

A common question is Am I different at different times or do I change some as I age? – maybe by life experiences or working on strengths. The answer is “NO.” All of us are guilty of acting differently at work, home, church, in the car…. But people do not change their basic personalities with each hat they are juggling.

Your personality type will give you direction on what brings you energy and what drains energy from you. Many of us are great at adapting and may have for many years functioned very well in an environment or job that is very different than our personality type. However, what if these same people were instead in careers that they effortlessly accomplished and gave them energy constantly – jobs matching their personality type? Their enjoyment and productivity would sky rocket.

The Personality Type concept is based on the MBTI® (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) test instrument, a detailed test to measure psychological type. Following is a condensed concept of this instrument from the original test that requires a trained professional to administer. Here you will determine where you fall in each of the four dimensions of the Personality Type. The first time I saw MBTI® in a condensed version it was for parenting. There is a great book for mothers I recommend called Mother Styles: Using Personality Type to Discover Your Parenting Strengths. It helped me understand what I needed to do in order to put my best self forward to my kids and stop fretting about not being the super mom. The concept was dead on for me.

If you are interested in learning more after doing this condensed assessment, I recommend you contact a trained professional in giving and interpreting the MBTI® which has been verified through research many times. An excellent resource for "qualified" persons is the Association for Psychological Type. Through their web site at www.aptinternational.org you can learn about APT chapters and members in your area.

Taking the personality assessment will indicate which one of sixteen different personality types you match up with. Individuals with the same personality type will not be identical. Instead they will share a lot in common. They should not all pursue the same jobs either. The best fit for a job is determined by your strengths, skills, interests, values, and personality type. This assessment will give you a great start to pointing you in the direction of where your dream job lies.

I have taken each of these sixteen personality types and listed activities and jobs in and outside of food and nutrition that would be good matches and some job tasks to minimize. Jobs in reality are mixes of activities so working in activities in your personality type 100% of the time is not realistic, but over 80% or even 90% of the time is possible.

Does this mean you should switch jobs, or careers? No, instead, think about these ideas:

• Once you know the activities that come naturally to you, rearrange your work schedule to do more of these and less of those that are in outside your personality trait.
• Meet with your manager and find ways to delegate to others more of those activities that are outside your personality trait and take on more activities within your personality trait. Sell them on the idea that you will then be more productive and have more satisfaction for your work.
• Start asking for projects or roles on projects/teams that are within your personality type. This is where you will shine and become noticed. You will then be asked to take on more and more work within your personality type.
• Look for promotion or lateral opportunities that focus on your personality type traits.
• Go the entrepreneurial route and create a position that will help the organization’s goals that does not already exist – write your own job description and capture your personality trait activities in it and sell it to your manager.