Can Your Personality Determine Your Job?

Posted November 5, 2013 & filed under Uncategorized

Studies have shown that a person’s personality doesn’t affect his/her skills relating to job functions. However, certain personality types are conducive to certain industries, companies, management styles, and job tasks. Ask any manager or employee and they can even give you a list of the types of personality traits they want to see in a future employee or coworker. Below are some examples of commonly found personality traits in different industries and positions.

• Big, extroverted personalities are ideal for anyone pursuing employment in Sales, Retail, or Food Service.
• Mellow, introverted personalities can be ideal for positions in Engineering, Information Technology, and the Sciences (though extroverts are not completely out of place in these positions).
• Management can be a combination of the two, depending on the exact industry and the amount of face time with clients and/or vendors.

Ultimately, every company culture is different, so just because you’re in the Engineering or IT industry doesn’t mean you’re only going to encounter meek individuals. While it could happen, you might be just as likely to see an IT Manager walking down the aisles getting people pumped up to finish the latest feature or software patch within project deadlines. Other times, these positions require a large amount of concentration for the highest performance, so a strong management personality in this example is one who can accommodate both introverted and extroverted employees.

On the other hand, positions like Sales, Retail, and Food Services should have bigger and more outgoing personalities. These extroverted personalities are not required, but definitely help the person to be more successful in that position. For example, if a Retail Associate is trying to market a new sweater they are not going to plainly tell you to get the shirt. In most cases, they are going to be upbeat, energetic, and fully knowledgeable about the specific details of the product in question. The success of these positions is based on “customer satisfaction”.

Again, personality depends on the industry, company, managers, employees, and job tasks. Personality type/traits shouldn’t be compared to how the person is going to perform in a position.

By: Kaitlin Daniel