If you’re playing tic-tac-toe with career options, hear out Dr. Srividya.
- It was 3 pm on a sunny afternoon in India. Smita (all names of patients changed for privacy), a 14-year-old, was busy. There was a school project that she had to complete. She needed to create a working model and she was putting it together. She loved Science projects.
- In another home, Smita’s friend Ram was busy strumming a guitar. He had forgotten all about his Science project. He loved sitting alone in his room reading and playing music. His mother worried about him and called him a dreamer.
- Jiya, a twelfth-grader, was busy chatting with a cousin who was miserable because she had to stay at home due to the lockdown. So, why was Jiya spending time pepping up her cousin? When she finds a loved one is sad, she reaches out. Nothing gives her more joy.
You may wonder what this narrative of different people and their preferences have to do with careers. The answer is, personality has a lot to do with your future job.
- Smita’s preference for putting together a working model may be a sign that she will excel in careers that require her to think spatially, design products or do research.
- Ram, on the other hand, maybe good at strategising, creating a vision or creating something entirely new from scratch.
- Jiya would enjoy pursuing a people-oriented role or a profession where she is expected to heal and help others.
Sounds logical and intuitive, does it not? Yet, most people do not view careers as natural extensions of their personality. Very often careers are chosen based on the following external factors:
- What my parents say
- What the family business is
- What is more lucrative
- What sounds cool!
- What my friends are doing
- What is traditionally accepted, like Medicine and Engineering
- What course is easy to get into
If you have read so far, you can perhaps guess why so many people are miserable in their careers. A job is something that you do for more than eight hours per day, five days a week and for over 20 years of your life. If you choose a career that goes against your personality type, you may find yourself stressed and confused. So, choosing your career based on external factors without any awareness of yourself is definitely an alarm bell.
Let us look at the research behind this.
In 1921, psychologist Carl Jung suggested a theory of personality that explained that everyone has inborn preferences about how to use their mind. Based on this he described 16 basic personality types.
So, we all belong to one of 16 personality types, each one distinct. By 1943, Myers and Briggs published a personality questionnaire called the MBTI translating Jung’s personality theory into a practical tool. Years of research reveals that there are specific occupations suitable for each personality type. So, if you are stuck in a career that is wrong for your personality type, you will be miserable. So, a person who is ESTJ (Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking and Judging) personality type would be excellent for an administrative or managerial role. The same person will not be as happy in a healthcare or teaching job.
On the other hand, someone who is an INFP (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceptive) personality type would be great in the Creative and Artistic fields. However, they might feel suffocated in an Engineering or Managerial role.
This means that you have clear preferences for certain career choices over others. How do you know what your personality is and what career choices would be more suited for you? A personality test can solve that.
Some weeks back, I had the opportunity of counselling a young woman who was working with a bank. A meticulous and sincere person, she found herself unhappy and incompetent in her job. She had not met her targets in months and was suffering from low self-esteem and confidence. Through assessment and counselling, I figured out that she was a deeply introverted person performing a role that needed high levels of extraversion. She was doing a Sales job.
The job or role she had chosen was completely against her grain. We spoke about other roles she could take on suited to her personality profile. Finally, after two years of working, changing jobs and feeling unhappy, she understood that her job did not suit her personality.
So, my suggestion to the teenagers reading this article is to choose your career after you know more about who you are, what you like and what you will be good at. These are critical questions to answer before you start a career. Use this time that you have for self-reflection, creating that career plan and drafting your dreams based on your inner call. Choose your career with awareness and knowledge.
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