Why Career Personality Test?
Our career personality test will help you find out what kind of career animal you are! Human beings stereotypically associate different animals with certain types of behaviors, so this is a really fun and yet science-based exercise to find out our personality style. “But what’s the point of that?” you may ask.
Understand Your Own Style
From a very early age, we start to form certain behavioral styles. By using a career profile assessment you get to understand different styles, you get to leverage your strengths and avoid situations that require too much effort in areas where you are weak. Using career personality test to understand these styles will give you awareness and the opportunity to become highly effective and successful in every facet of your life: personal relationships, career success, health and fitness, finances, and more.
Identify Other People’s Styles
Upon completing the career personality test, you will also receive a free workbook developed by the renowned DISC personality assessment expert Dr. Tony Alessandra. The career personality test will help you to learn more not only about strategies for your own career success but also about how to identify the styles of others. By knowing others people's personality types and personal strengths, you can maximize your effectiveness in working with others and achieving goals.
Do unto others as they would have you do unto them
We have all heard about the Golden Rule: “do to others what you would have them do to you.” Well, it turns out that others prefer that you do to them what they would like done to them. When you think about that, it makes perfect sense. The problem is that most of the time we have no clue what others want done to them, so we go to our default, relying on what we know: what we would like done to us. That’s how a husband could end up thoughtlessly buying his wife his favorite set of wrenches for her birthday.
The application of this seemingly obvious principle can be fun, not to mention life-changing. But since we are in the business of career success, we will focus here on some of the applications that are more relevant for job seekers. We want them to get the best return on their investment of time and money when they submit their resume or have an interview. And one day you will be sitting on the other side of the table interviewing candidates for your opening. Let’s start with that scenario and work backward.
Ask interview questions tailored to each personality
Imagine you have mastered the art of speed-reading other people’s personalities by listening to job applicants’ answers to your questions. Also, imagine you have already done your homework about what kind of person can truly flourish in the position for which you are hiring.
For example, you have determined that your position requires someone who will follow strict guidelines with little room to be creative in how things get done—or the opposite. Or that the position requires ongoing interactions with others where being amenable and eager to build relationships is more critical than analyzing data and developing detailed, analytical reports.
Can everyone learn or be trained to meet these requirements? Of course. Can everyone feel energized and motivated to do work that is not in line with their style? Probably not. Using career personality test you have now a bit more insight as to whether you could keep this employee happy and motivated for many years to come and whether your position would best leverage their gifts.
Ace interviews
As a job candidate, you can do exactly what was described above. Using the right interview questions, you can do your own career personality test of your future supervisor. Having studied the personality types, you have a good understanding of what would be the best way to motivate and sell your ideas to this person. You can decide how exciting and fun it would be to work with this kind of person—or not!
If you want the job, you are now much better equipped to build rapport and appeal to all those values that are key for their personality type. In the remainder of your interview, you will do to them as they want to be done to them! Chances are good that you will significantly increase the chances of getting the offer this way.
Build and lead high-performing teams consisting of all personality styles
As a manager, team leader, or business executive, you do not have the luxury of only hiring people who are like you. And thank God for that. If only we were so perfect that all we needed were our own replicas!
The fact of the matter is that, irrespective of the level of a person’s expertise, every personality type comes with certain workplace strengths and certain weaknesses or blind spots. Can you imagine if everyone in your team had the same blind spot? Watch out! A surprise is en route—usually a nasty one that can destroy your organization. Other than the fact that you don’t want to hire only people like yourself, with the specialized nature of so many jobs, someone's expertise may be so critical that their personality type may take a back seat.
Of course, everything else being equal, you do want to hire people whose personality type is a great match for their roles. But then again, sometimes you are hired and given a deck you have to play with. You may not have the authority, money, and time to hire or replace your team.
What are you going to do? By using career personality test you want to find out what kind of career animal each member is. Not everybody is motivated by money. Not everyone cares about a supportive boss. Not everyone is driven by the mission. You need to find out what makes each person tick, what language they hear and listen to, what level of supervision or autonomy they need, how much you need to reach out and talk to them, etc. Once you can match your treatment of them to what they need, you have set the foundation to engage and win with them.
Coach
By now the message is clear. Coaching—whether it is of employees, clients, or your children—must resonate with the personality style of the person you are working with. The language you will use will help you to open them up to share with you their dreams and desires beyond their initial awareness. This will in turn enable you to figure how to align their personal needs and motivators to where they want to go, or—in the case of being their manager—to where you would like to lead them. Using career personality test to learn what kind of career animal they are will give you so many tools to work with that you will have every opportunity for success.
Manage
While one would wish that every position had a clear job description, the actual job is not always consistent with the job description that was in the position announcement. Each position description should also come with a set of metrics or key success indicators for it. That much is universal and has to be applied to everyone in that position, irrespective of their personality profile.
But what will you do get the buy-in, and what will you do when someone fails to comply with those requirements and/or does not quite meet their success indicators? Is it time to fire them? Maybe. But considering the high cost of hiring a replacement, the first step is to determine if you are applying all the motivators that this person is sensitive to. You may want to put on the hat of a coach and figure out where the blockage is regarding what you may need to do to motivate them to correct course.
Motivate
Hire motivated employees. The truth of the matter is that this is the easiest short cut to success. Coaching and motivating people is much harder. So, contrary to everything you have read here to this point, rather than having to understand every individual’s needs and motivators, hire self-motivated people if you can to save money and effort.
But now you have a new problem! Are your organization and team up to the standards of the highly motivated employee? They better be. Otherwise, the employee will leave or their spirit will start to wane from the organization’s standard in a matter of time. Now, if you are lucky enough to have hired great, self-motivated employees, you want to figure what kind of career animal they are so that you can keep up with their level of enthusiasm and need to progress.
And I have more good news for you: birds of a feather flock together. That means there is a good chance that your highly motivated person has other people in his or her network who share that level of energy and enthusiasm. So your highly motivated employees could also end up being your best recruiters to hire other great employees.
Work successfully with managers of any personality style
How does what we have covered so far apply to your career success as an employee? Wouldn’t it be nice for you to show up with input for your boss right about the time they need it? Wouldn’t be nice, every time you pass their office, to hear them cheering the great job you did? Wouldn’t be nice if, as time went on, they became more and more reliant on what you could contribute to the success of the organization—and by extension their career success? Wouldn’t it be nice to be pulled into their office with the news of an impending raise before you had even asked for it?
All this can start by figuring out what kind of career animal they are. What is their level of need for information and input? What words resonate with them, and which ones irritate them? How you can change their mood like turning on a light switch? How can you make them feel really good about you in their gut, even when they cannot quite articulate why they so much enjoy having you on their side?
Ask for and receive a raise
It’s not about you. Getting a raise is not about you. It’s about your boss feeling strongly about why this is the right time to pull that trigger and make it happen as soon as possible. It’s about the ROI for the boss. It’s about their return, but on what kind of investment?
That all depends on what kind of career animal they are. When you figure that out, you will be able to come up with the type of talking points that will make a raise seem the obvious and right thing for them to do. Once that happens, they will manage to come up with all sorts of logical rationale to justify it for the organization—whereas, in reality, their reasons are deeply tied to the emotional triggers of the career animals they are.
Negotiate
Almost without exception, most people have a formula-based approach to negotiation. This means they approach negotiation with everyone’s following the same approach. However, for two people with the same desires and needs, their personality style will determine how they react to the same set of stimuli. The better you understand the personality of the person you are negotiating with, the better you will be able to make them feel good about your interaction, build trust, and reach a win-win solution.
Delegate
Anyone who has ever managed anyone can tell you that two people with the same level of experience and education may develop a different understanding of what is expected of them. They may also require a different level of detail and supervision, and they may ultimately end up with outcomes that are very different. The more you are aware of personality differences, the better you will be equipped to adapt the environment, your communication style, and the level of detail to help someone achieve your desired outcome.
Conclusion
Let me just conclude by repeating Dr. Alessandra’s platinum rule: “Do unto others as they would like done unto them.” As long as people feel that they are being treated in line with their personality style, resistance will transform into cooperation, and what can be produced will be beyond everyone’s imagination. For job seekers, that means a shorter job search, more job offers, better benefits, and ultimately more satisfying careers and happiness. We hope you enjoy the book and put it into great use throughout your career.