I’ve just taken a look at the first answers back on my Summer Newsletter Reader Survey. I realise I forgot to place the link on my blog , so here it is if you would like to take part:
Click here to take survey
I’ll post a full breakdown of your responses and what I’m going to do as a result of your feedback in a week or so. But for now I want to pick up on a theme I noticed emerging.
Many of you asked for more information about personality tests and how they can help in the search for work that’s right for you. So here’s a short list of my favourite assessments, all of which I’ve taken myself and found useful….but please keep reading to the end, where I mention an important caveat!!
1.http://www.self-directed-search.com
This questionnaire measures interests and abilities, and as well as making job/career suggestions, also sheds some light on the work environment that suits you best. You can take it yourself online for $4.95.
For more info and a quick and dirty version of the test that you can do for free see this old post.
2. Strengthsfinder
Another do it yourself test. This one identifies your top 5 strengths/traits (e.g. empathy, positivity etc) and describes how you could use them in the world of work.
Each book comes with a unique code that you then enter online to take the questionnaire. You can buy the book through Amazon here
3. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
This is (in my view) the “gold plated” personality assessment indicator. The MBTI establishes your preferred way of taking in information and making decisions and indentifies your personality “type” (out of 16 possibilities). There is a lot of research you can access which describes the types of role and environment to which someone of your personality type is usually drawn.
I took the MBTI shortly after leaving commerical law and immediately understood why that world had not been a good fit for me. It was a huge relief to know it wasn’t my personal failure, but a misfit that would have been shared by many others of my “type”.
There are various websites that offer the MBTI, at quite a range of prices. Just be aware that the lower the fee, by and large the more automated the process. It’s worth paying more to ensure you get one to one feedback with a trained practitioner. More on how I run the MBTI here
4. Ask friends, family and colleagues.
Ok this isn’t a scientific test but it’s a very good way to get some free and instant feedback on what others see as your greatest strengths and skills….which should provide reassurance on existing career ideas and/or give you some new ones. See this former post for details.
CAVEAT!!
Personality assessments are excellent for feeding back to you in a clear, intelligible, manageable format, key aspects of your personality. If you’re feeling in a muddle, they can help enormously in identifying the wood for the trees.
But there is a danger that we expect too much from them. No personality assessment will tell you categorically that you should be a brain surgeon, or a gardener (or at least, no good one!).
Yet in the midst of career uncertainty, we often hope for these sorts of simple answers.
Here are 2 approaches I’d recommend when embarking on “self discovery”:
1. Don’t spend too long on the theory
I’d use one or more of the tools above to get a general picture, and then refine this with action.
There’s no substitute for actually trying stuff out to know if it’s for you not.
2. Get comfortable with a degree of not knowing
During a discussion on our organisation’s emerging corporate strategy, my fun focussed former boss once startled me by declaring: “I’m very comfortable with ambiguity”.
It had never occured to me that it was POSSIBLE - let alone desirable - to feel no pressure to dot all Life’s i’s and cross its t’s.
His words have swum into my brain on many occasions since. It’s a cliche, but viewing our winding path through life as a journey rather than a series of goals we must execute with unfailing precision does seem to me to be the wiser and happier perspective.
So I’ll leave you with this passage by Kahlil Gibran from the Prophet:
“And a man said, ‘Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.’
And he answered, saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always know in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.
And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’
Say not, ‘I have found the path of the soul.’ Say rather, ‘I have met the soul walking upon my path.’
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.”
