What's your Career Personality?

It's a funny thing about passion. When you love what you do, it doesn't feel like work! After interviewing the author of The 50 Best Jobs for your Personality for a piece I was working on for ClassesUSA, I couldn't help but wonder. It's all so obvious but sometimes blatant things are sometimes the most obtuse: our career personalities are really extensions of our own personalities. They're one and two in the same. And when people are unhappy (aside from things like having a bad boss or being underpaid), maybe it's the actual job. It may not be a fit with the true you. Or it may be the environment. Or it could be both.

The career personality aspects (the book actually outlines jobs to match personalities) provides an introspective look at personalities, essentially equating to our own careers for optimum happiness and success. Based on John Holland's theory of personality types, there's the artistic type (self-expression), enterprising (desire to start and carry out projects), social (helping careers - think teacher or social worker), conventional (following set routines and procedures), realistic (practical, hands-on jobs like agriculture or airline pilots), and investigative (think engineers and economists).

For instance, Mena Suvari who I interviewed simply loves loves loves being an actress. While she falls into the artistic scenario as she's worked on a photography project in conjunction with limited edition scarves, it's still in the same family of self-expression.

For another source I interviewed, a chef, suffice it to say he thrives on creativity cooked up in the kitchen. Others seek structure like finance-oriented jobs.

Here's the kicker: it's not unheard of to have multiple personalities since jobs often have multiple dimensions. For instance, a teacher may be a social personality wanting to help people but by virtue of grading and having lesson plans, it's a hybrid with the conventional personality. As a writer I definitely fall into the artistic realm which fabulously fuses with the enterprising type. While I love networking, as a recruiter the job may be considered a hybrid of social and conventional, yet I thrive in an enterprising environment yet again. (Though a few years ago in a different HR job I was stuck with the task of calculating year-end accruals and ick! I couldn't have been more miserable with the number crunching, color inside the box mentality, so not a fit with my personality. Completely makes sense.)

Plus, it all seems so clear when I look at who I typically click with best: movers and shakers, people on the go, carving their own path in life. Then I started noticing other people I know and their circle of friends/colleagues, typically they're within the same profession or if it's not the same profession, essentially it's the same personality type.

Interestingly enough I wrote the piece several weeks ago and as it went live yesterday on AOL I relived the self-exploration I enjoyed while initially immersed in working on the piece. People who love what they do, people whose personalities are on the same page as their careers, seem to be happy. Success often follows suit. You and I, well, we are who we are. As our personalities shine, so do our careers to match.