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IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER you learned that there aren’t enough good jobs to go around, that employers are paying less and expecting more, and that you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than to achieve your dream career.
But there’s some good news too (really). It will take planning, persistence, and flexibility, but you can prepare for a paying career that fits your interests and abilities. Maybe you can't be an astronaut, but if you follow these steps, you can launch your best career [38].
In the following pages you will get an overview of the latest research in organizations and careers, complete some useful self-assessments, and discover the array of employment and educational opportunities available to you.
What are your interests?
There is a tiny grain of truth in the advice to “follow your passion,” and it is this: People whose work fits their interests and preferences tend to have happier and more successful careers [39]. It’s risky to stake everything on your dream career. But it’s smart to figure out in advance how much you enjoy (or can tolerate) working with your hands, interacting with people, manipulating numbers, or following a routine.
The RIASEC typology describes to what extent you would be comfortable in Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, or Conventional jobs.
Realistic occupations are hands-on, practical, and often physical. Examples are forest ranger, auto mechanic, and quality control inspector.
Investigative occupations involve analyzing information and working in the realm of the theoretical. Investigative occupations include college professor, mathematician, and computer programmer.
Artistic occupations are intuitive and creative. This category contains dream jobs like photographer, illustrator, and musician. These are called “dream jobs” because if you think you can pay your bills with them, you’re dreaming.
But Artistic types can make a decent living by helping other Artistic types pursue their dreams. For example, photographer Tony Northrup has a number of bestselling books on photography and photo enhancement software; musician Joseph Alexander has sold over 200,000 copies of his manuals on guitar technique; and one of mystery author Nancy J. Cohen’s bestselling books is Writing the Cozy Mystery, an instructional book for aspiring mystery authors.
Social types are energized by working with people and helping them to solve their problems. Occupations in this category include counselor, social worker, and elementary school teacher. Social careers tend to be those that benefit society and help the young and the vulnerable, so they are not very well paid.
Enterprising occupations are those that involve managing, persuading, and making money. Sales, politics, and management careers fall into the enterprising category. These jobs tend to be well paid, and are suitable for thick-skinned extroverts.
Conventional careers are practical and predictable, and best suited to the conscientious and the patient. Conventional occupations include accountant, financial analyst, and IRS agent. If you think of yourself as a “big-picture” person who leaves the details to others, these jobs are not for you [40].
The O*Net Interest Profile, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, measures your interests: mynextmove.org/explore/ip
Once you know your interests, you can search a database of careers: onetonline.org/find/descriptor/browse/Interests
What can you offer?
The RIASEC framework is focused on what you want from a job; the Skills Profiler tool is all about what you can offer an employer. This tool is useful for everyone, but it’s especially important if you are starting out or changing careers. The profiler helps you translate skills you’ve developed into terms that employers understand and value. It also gives you an idea of what kinds of careers use those skills. The Skills Profiler is sponsored by the California Department of Education. Try it here: cacareerzone.org/skills
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability to know and manage your own feelings, and to sense and react appropriately to the feelings of others. It’s a major predictor of workplace success [41-44], and can be as important as cognitive ability [45]. This isn’t surprising, when you think about it. You need to be able to sense the mood of your manager, customer, or coworkers, and to respond appropriately. You should also be able to exercise self-control and avoid emotional outbursts in the workplace.
How emotionally intelligent are you?
One well-known measure of emotional intelligence is the Mind in the Eyes test. The MITE test requires you to read emotions based on a photo of a person’s eyes.
You might think it would be impossible to read emotions from a black-and-white photograph of someone’s eyes, but you may be surprised at how many items you get right. You can try the Mind in the Eyes for yourself at socialintelligence.labinthewild.org/mite/
a. Playful b. Comforting
c. Joking d. Presidential
NOT AN ACTUAL ITEM from the Mind in the Eyes test
Another test of the ability to discern others’ thoughts is this verbal questionnaire that asks you to infer the motivations behind people’s statements. You can take this test here: openpsychometrics.org/tests/EI.php
Can you increase your emotional intelligence?
It seems so. Emotional Intelligence appears to be related to physical brain function [46], but your brain is not unchangeable. Insufficient sleep, for example, can temporarily reduce your emotional intelligence [47]. And education and practice can help. Training managers in interpersonal and conflict resolution skills has been shown to lead to happier employees and higher productivity [48, 49].
How to improve your emotional intelligence
Executive coaching seems to work [50], but it can be expensive and time-consuming. Fortunately, there’s a do-it-yourself solution. It will take a little effort, a lot of humility, and a few patient acquaintances.
This method depends on getting people’s candid assessments of your interpersonal skills. This will be painful, but necessary.
We are very bad at judging our own interpersonal skills. Muriel Maignan Wilkins writes, “In my ten years as an executive coach, I have never had someone raise his hand and declare that he needs to work on his emotional intelligence. Yet I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard from people that the one thing their colleague needs to work on is emotional intelligence. This is the problem: those who most need to develop it are the ones who least realize it.” [51]
If you have accepted that your interpersonal skills might need some work, congratulations—you’re already ahead!
Here’s what to do next.
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Recruit friends, family members, teachers, and counselors to help you with this. Choose people who get along well with others. |
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Promise them you will not get mad at them. |
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Find a self-report measure of Emotional Intelligence. You can find some at: eiconsortium.org/measures/measures.html and ihhp.com/free-eq-quiz. |
Or you can use the following five-item questionnaire [52]: | |
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Distribute a paper copy or a link to the friends and family members who have agreed to help you and ask them to fill out the instrument on your behalf. |
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Fill one out about yourself. |
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Collect all the assessments. Thank everyone for their time and effort. |
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Compare. Is your assessment of yourself very different from others’ assessments? If four people who know you have rated you as not very perceptive of others’ feelings, while you have rated yourself exceedingly high, you should consider the possibility that you’re not as perceptive as you might believe. |
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Remember your promise not to get mad at anyone. Be appreciative, even if you are offended by the feedback. Don’t forget, you asked them to do this, and they took the time and effort to comply! |
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Now you are armed with some knowledge and perspective. You have a good idea of how others see you, and where your self-image might be at odds with that. It’s time to act. |
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Practice observing your own feelings in a detached and unemotional way. This is something that people who are high in emotional intelligence do naturally. Their emotion and their self-reflection operate independently. They can step back and observe themselves. |
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People with low emotional intelligence have their emotions all tangled up with their other mental processes [46]. Do your best to “untangle” when you think of it. For example, if you are feeling annoyed, ask yourself, why am I feeling this way? Does this barista/ cashier/ driver really deserve my wrath? Or am I angry because I experienced disappointment today, and this person crossed my path at the wrong time? |
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Practice taking responsibility for your feelings and your behavior. Yes, there are people out there who are mean, or incompetent, or infuriating. And they can frustrate and upset you. Recognize and acknowledge those emotions. They are normal. But these feelings don’t give you the right to make other people suffer. You don’t have to yell, slam the door, or say things that will destroy relationships or careers. |
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Practice empathizing. Try to imagine what it’s like to be someone else, and observe the world through their eyes. The braggart, the know-it-all, or the undermine-y friend can be annoying. You may be tempted to put them in their place. But think about why they are acting this way. They may be insecure, so challenging their already-fragile self-esteem will only make things worse. Or they may be eager to share their knowledge, and unaware that they are dismissing other points of view. Is it really so important to set them straight? |
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Accept that this is a lifelong process. The more you work on it, the more you’ll improve. |
Personality
There are many ways to measure aspects of your personality. These are a couple of the most popular and well-known.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is very widely used. It’s a proprietary test, which means that you have to pay for it and it can only be administered by a qualified professional. Fortunately, there are free tests online that will give you approximately the same results [53]. The Myers-Briggs Type Inventory is not meant to place people into jobs but is only intended to help people understand each other and work together and to aid in self-reflection. The MBTI measures these four preferences:
Extraversion vs. Introversion. Do you get your energy from being around people, or do you need alone time?
Intuition vs. Sensing. Do you think in abstract terms and see connections others don’t, or do you feel more comfortable with the useful and the practical?
Thinking vs. Feeling. Do you make decisions based on facts and logic, or your feelings and values?
Judging vs. Perceiving. Do you prefer structure and schedules, or flexibility [54]?
Here are three sites that will give you MBTI-like results. Try them all and see whether they are consistent:
truity.com/test/type-finder-research-edition
similarminds.com/jung.html
humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
The Big Five
Research has shown that personalities vary along five main dimensions. These are known as the Big Five or O.C.E.A.N. dimensions.
Openness to Experience covers intellect, imagination, and independence.
Conscientiousness is responsibility and dependability.
Extraversion characterizes someone who is talkative, assertive, and energetic.
Agreeableness describes someone who is trusting, good-natured, and cooperative.
Neuroticism is the opposite of calm and emotional stability.
Remember the RIASEC career interests? They line up with the Big Five personality dimensions as you might expect them to. Artistic and Investigative types are high in Openness. Enterprising types tend to be extroverted, while those with Social interests are both extroverted and agreeable [55].
The Big Five has never been as popular as the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI), even though the Big Five has more research supporting its usefulness in the workplace [56, 57]. This may be partly because the MBTI was developed and commercialized by two dedicated individuals [58] while the Big Five / O.C.E.A.N. framework emerged from academic research. It may also be that the MBTI is popular with HR departments and corporate retreats because it won’t hurt anyone’s feelings. No matter which MBTI type you are, you can find something positive to say about it. Are you an ISTJ? According to the MBTI, you can be stubborn and insensitive, but you are also responsible and honest. An ENFP diagnosis marks you as emotional and impractical, but also charismatic and creative. Each type has its advantages and disadvantages, and its own place in an organization [59].
A Big Five assessment, on the other hand, might reveal you’re unimaginative, neurotic, disagreeable, or lacking in conscientiousness. Who wants to hear that?
But even the Big Five characteristics have unexpected advantages and disadvantages, depending on one’s situation and occupation. Openness to experience tends to be correlated with high academic achievement and verbal ability, so you might think that higher scores on this dimension are always better. But people with very high levels of openness to experience might not do well in jobs that require memorization or attention to detail [60].
Those high in neuroticism tend to be less satisfied with their jobs and their lives than others. However, neurotic or emotionally unstable people are more prevalent in creative occupations, and this trait can be helpful in generating new ideas. Neuroticism combined with high conscientiousness is associated with better health [61, 62]. The tendency to worry appears to be associated with high workplace performance when combined with high intelligence [63].
Agreeableness helps you to work well in a team, but being too agreeable may work against a leader. Jobs that require you to disagree with or thwart others (labor negotiator, nightclub bouncer, police officer) require a certain level of disagreeableness.
Conscientiousness is a strong predictor of workplace performance [64-66], but even this valued trait can have a downside. Conscientious people may not handle stress and setbacks as well as others. They experience lower well-being after unemployment [67] and may have a stronger fight-or-flight response in stressful situations [68].
If you want to take a Big Five test online and have it scored automatically, you can do it here:
openpsychometrics.org/tests/IPIP-BFFM/
Or you can take a quick paper test of your Big Five personality traits with the Ten Item Personality Inventory [69].
The Ten Item Personality Inventory
On a scale of 1 (disagree) to 7 (agree strongly) write a number next to each statement to indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with that statement. You should rate the extent to which the pair of traits applies to you, even if one characteristic applies more strongly than the other.
I SEE MYSELF AS | ||
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Extraverted, enthusiastic. |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
2. |
Critical, quarrelsome. |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
3. |
Dependable, self-disciplined. |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
4. |
Anxious, easily upset. |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
5. |
Open to new experiences, complex. |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
6. |
Reserved, quiet. |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
7. |
Sympathetic, warm. |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
8. |
Disorganized, careless. |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
9. |
Calm, emotionally stable. |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
10. |
Conventional, uncreative. |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
Scoring (“R” denotes reverse-scored items. To reverse-score, subtract the current score from 8. Seven becomes 1, 6 becomes 2, 5 becomes 3, 4 stays the same, 3 becomes 5, 2 becomes 6, and 1 becomes 7):
Extraversion: Take the average of 1 and 6R. The population average score is 3.98
Agreeableness: Take the average of 2R and 7. Average score is 4.91
Conscientiousness: Take the average of 3 and 8R. Average score is 4.94
Emotional Stability: Take the average of 4R and 9. Average score is 4.56
Openness: Take the average of 5 and 10R. Average score is 5.46.
You can find more information on how other test-takers scored, including sample size and standard deviation by age and gender, at gosling.psy.utexas.edu.
A newer variant on the O.C.E.A.N. model is the six-factor HEXACO, which adds Honesty-Humility as a sixth factor. You can take the HEXACO Personality Inventory at hexaco.org/hexaco-online.
Risk tolerance
Are you willing to bet everything on getting your dream job, or would you rather work toward an attainable career goal? The Goal Motivation and Risk Tolerance Test will help you think this through. You can take it here:
psychologia.co/goal-motivation-and-risk-tolerance-test
How much will you need to earn?
It can be eye-opening to discover how much you need to make to support the lifestyle you want. If you are happy living with a roommate in an inexpensive city with no children, few luxuries, and no vacations, you will have more career possibilities open to you.
Take this quiz to see what you need to earn to support your desired lifestyle.
jumpstart.org/what-we-do/support-financial-education/reality-check/
