How Can a Personality Test Affect Your Career Options?

Can a Personality Test Affect Your Career

Can a personality test help you find the right career? Will taking a personality test limit your job options?

Personal development and career exploration go hand-in-hand. Personality tests and assessments help career hopefuls and hiring managers determine a best fit for different roles and careers. But what are these all about and how do personality tests affect your career?

Personality tests can serve as a guide in your career pursuit, offering insights that can help you navigate your professional journey. There are a seemingly endless range of options from MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), the Big Five, and CliftonStrengths to what color or animal are you. All of these assessments different levels of insight into the strengths, preferences, and potential areas for growth in one's career. However, while these tools can be incredibly insightful, they also come with certain drawbacks that might limit your potential. Let’s dive into how personality tests can both enhance and complicate your career options.

The Upside: How Can a Personality Test Affect Your Career Options Positively

1. Understanding Personal Strengths and Weaknesses
​Personality tests can provide a clear picture of your personal strengths and weaknesses. For example, if an assessment reveals a preference towards detail-oriented tasks and structured environments, you might find fulfillment in roles such as accounting, project management, or data analysis. Conversely, if you're identified as a visionary thinker who thrives in dynamic settings, careers in entrepreneurship or creative industries may align better with your personality.

Quick Action Step: Reflect on a time when you were successful at something that required a lot of personal effort. What strengths or abilities supported your success?

2. Enhancing Career Satisfaction
When you choose a career path that resonates with your personality traits, you’re more likely to experience job satisfaction and engagement. Research has found a significant correlation between how much an individual uses their strengths and their overall level of satisfaction and work engagement. For example, introverted individuals may excel in roles that allow for deep, independent work, while extroverts might thrive in collaborative environments with frequent interpersonal interactions. Personality assessments can guide you to the roles where you're more likely to be at your best, which can then improve your overall career happiness.

3. Identifying Potential Career Paths 
Personality assessments can identify careers you might not otherwise have considered. If a test indicates you have strong leadership qualities and enjoy problem-solving, you might explore management roles or team leader roles. If your experience supports this, you can capitalize on this and demonstrate your natural talent and preference alongside your work history. Personality tests can affect your career search by giving you the tools you need to understand different options and opportunities..

The Downside: How Can a Personality Test Affect Your Career Options Negatively

1. Pigeonholing Candidates 
One significant drawback of personality tests is the risk of pigeonholing individuals into specific roles based on their test results. This can work against the candidate and the employer. While these assessments offer valuable insights, they are not definitive measures of a person's capabilities or potential. Many of the more reputable assessments argue that personality tests should not be used in hiring for this very reason. Over-reliance on personality tests can lead employers to overlook candidates who might bring unique perspectives or skills that are not captured by the test. Beyond this, you might not look at jobs in which you would excel because you have put too much stock in what your assessment has identified.

2. Limiting Career Exploration
When individuals or employers heavily focus on personality test results, there is a danger of narrowing career exploration too early in the process. For example, a test might suggest that a person is not suited for a high-stress environment, potentially steering them away from challenging yet rewarding opportunities. If someone is particularly gifted in strategic thinking abilities, this should not limit the individual to fields where this is the primary focus. Otherwise, there may be great opportunities that are passed over for so-called "better fit" options. 

3. Eliminating Valuable Candidates 
Another potential pitfall is the risk of excluding talented candidates based on personality test results alone. For instance, a candidate who scores as a less conventional fit for a team role might be overlooked, despite having exceptional skills or innovative ideas. In fact, many outside-the-box candidates might help increase the diversity of ideas and create new ways of achieving success. This can lead to missed opportunities for both the employer and the candidate, as the true potential of the individual is not fully explored.

Using Personality Tests Wisely in the Career Search

Finding ways to use personality assessments to help your decision making and knowledge of self can be invaluable ways to achieve personal and professional growth. Finding ways to use these wisely, striking a balance between the benefits and downfalls, is key to this process. So how do you do it? 

Use Tests as a Guiding Tool
Consider personality tests as a starting point, rather than an end, for self-discovery and career exploration. As you dive into useful assessments (and be careful here - not all assessments are built equally), combine your insights with other sources of feedback, such as professional experiences, mentorship, and personal interests.

Encourage Open-Mindedness
For employers, it’s important to remain open-minded and avoid letting personality test results dominate your thinking around potential candidates. Instead, consider each assessment result as clarifying information rather than evaluative information. Instead, evaluate candidates holistically, considering their experiences, skills, and potential contributions.

In the end, personality tests can be a valuable tool in uncovering your strengths and aligning your career path with your natural inclinations. However, they should be used thoughtfully and not as the primary influence on your process. By integrating personality insights with a broader perspective, you can make more informed and fulfilling career choices, paving the way for long-term success and satisfaction.

To dive deeper into who you are, consider hiring a coach who has experience with assessments. At DeGraaf Coaching, we have extensive experience and expertise in using CliftonStrengths (one of the leading and most research-backed assessments) with individuals and teams. If you want to dive deeper into who your team is and how they can function at their best based on who they are, contact DeGraaf Coaching for a quick conversation about how we could partner to make you and your team function naturally at their best.