As I write this the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is announcing the largest mass layoffs of workers in history. Employers dumped 299,388 workers in a single month. The unemployment rate is 8.5 percent and the number of unemployed is 13.2 million. Under these conditions many people are searching for career information. I performed an online search for career information and after several hours had to give up because there's little useful career information available.
The first thing that you need to consider when investigating a career is what type of work you're compatible with. I found hundreds of career personality and career aptitude tests, many of them very complicated, convoluted, and entirely worthless in my opinion. What credentials make my opinion valid?
“ When I work with my hands, I have to deal with reality and as I always say, 'reality sucks'. ”
I was the manager of an electronics engineering department for many years. I worked with people at all levels. I worked with technicians who had high school diplomas. I worked with development engineers who had bachelors and masters degrees. I worked with research engineers who had doctorate degrees. I'm very familiar with workers career personality types.
Although there are an infinite number of worker personality types, I found that there are only four personality types that apply to which career an individual is compatible with. Listed below are the four types.
• People who like to work with their hands
• People who like to work with people
• People who like to work with symbols
• People who are artistic
People who like to work with their hands are great craftsmen. They love to work with tools and materials and they take great pride in their work.
To people who like to work with people, the actual job task just provides a reason to get together with other people. Because of the many contacts they make, this type of worker usually knows how to get things done within an organization.
When I say "people who work with symbols" what I'm talking about is writing, where strings of characters represent information. I'm talking about mathematics, where digits and operational characters represent physical properties.
People who are artistic fearlessly combine shapes, colors, textures, and sounds in ways that produce an emotional result.
Each one of these personality types are compatible with specific occupations. For example, people who like to work with their hands will be most successful in construction or mechanical occupations. They also make great horticulturists, surgeons, or any career that requires manual dexterity.
People who like to work with people will be successful in sales, politics, teaching, psychology, coaching, management, police work, or any career that requires personal interaction.
People who like to work with symbols will be successful writers, mathematicians, and programmers. People who are artistic will be successful in advertising and design occupations.
In reality you can't pigeonhole people into a single personality type. Everyone has attributes of all four personality types, but each individual tends to excel at one or two aptitudes. I'll use myself as an example.
I prefer to work with symbols, although not as much as some people who seem to enjoy being constantly puzzled by complex symbology. I like to think I'm also artistic, although I don't do enough artistic stuff to get good at it. I like to think I'm good working with my hands, and I can usually produce good results, but the fact is I hate working with my hands.
When I work with my hands, I have to deal with reality and as I always say, "reality sucks". When I work with symbols I can try different things and fix my mistakes by just deleting and typing over. If I cut a piece of wood in the wrong place, I can't just delete and saw over. And without going into detail, I'll just say that I'm lousy working with people.
An interesting combination of career personality types is a fiction writer. They express two personality types that you think would be opposites, working with symbols to create strings of characters, while at the same time being artistic in developing story characters, the scene, and the plot.
You'll notice when I define the four different personality types that I'm describing natural ability. I'm not saying that an individual can't improve their weak areas with education or training. With training you definitely can improve your ability in any area. But if you combine training with a natural ability, you have the condition for real success.
However, I've seen situations in the arts where training actually seemed to stifle an individuals creativity. An untrained artist doesn't know that there are certain correct and conventional ways to do things. Many times creativity comes from doing something unconventionally.
If you receive career counseling, you'll probably take an aptitude test. There are hundreds of different career aptitude tests. You may learn something about yourself from a career aptitude test. But these tests always involve answering questions. I've never seen a career aptitude test where they provide tools and materials to see if you're crafty or artistic. I've never seen a career aptitude test where they provide people to you to see if you're good with personal interaction.
And what if the aptitude test results are, for example, that you're good working with symbols but you're not artistic? Should you base your life's career on the results of an aptitude test? I doubt that any career aptitude test can accurately measure your career personality type. So don't put too much value in the results of any career aptitude test. A career aptitude test might help you learn something about yourself, but you probably already know what type of work you're compatible with.
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