The closer your personality fits the job you do, the happier you’re going to be in that job.
It only makes sense to match your greatest strengths with the duties you do all day long. Why show up every day comparing your weaknesses to other’s strengths?
Often we think we should be able to do any job because, after all, we’re competent people. We can learn!
While this is true, there are some tasks that you are born to do. These are natural areas of strength for you, and building skills around your natural areas of strength adds up to a successful life!
Here are the idea job fits for each personality type
- Dominant personality type: Goals and achievement
- Inspiring personality type: Ideas and persuasion
- Supportive personality type: Doing practical jobs
- Conscientious personality type: Facts and data
The ideal job fits for the Dominant personality type: Goals and achievement
The Dominant person doesn’t really care so much what industry or field they are in. Often a Dominant person is able to jump industries and hardly skip a beat. This is because they are mainly interested in achieving goals, whatever the field.
If this person were on a basketball team, they would play to personally dominate the court. They aren’t playing primarily to help the team. They know that they need a team around them, but often the team can feel more like a nuisance than a source of strength. But like Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls learned, ‘if you’re going to be a superstar, you have to make other people into stars.’
Dominant people fit in roles like:
- Entrepreneur
- Team leader
- Solopreneur
- Executive
- Individual high performer
The ideal job fits for the Inspiring personality type: Ideas and persuasion
The Inspiring person would love to spend their day living in the world of ideas. They love to think about the future, and love being around excited, enthusiastic, and excitable people. They also love to use their strong verbal skills to persuade others.
Often, they will find themselves on a mission to persuade people close to them of whatever new exciting idea they’ve just learned about. Whether the idea is from a book or an audio source, or a video they just watched on YouTube, or something they dreamed about during the night, they’re anxious to bring others along on their path to the future.
As a result, Inspiring people fit into roles like:
- Sales
- Marketing
- Teaching
- Performing arts
- Public speaking
The ideal job fits for the Supportive personality type: Doing practical jobs
The Supportive person doesn’t seek the spotlight. In fact, if you try to think of Supportive people who are household names, the list is hard to come up with. This is because the Supportive person likes to work behind the scenes. They enjoy helping others, and doing practical jobs, especially when they’re doing the jobs in a smaller team setting where they are appreciated for the value they bring.
Supportives love relationships and want to have harmony with others.
As a result, Supportive people fit into roles like:
- Trades
- People jobs: nursing, teaching, counseling, mentoring
- Working on smaller teams
- Inside sales
- Hands on manufacturing
The ideal job fits for the Conscientious personality type: Facts and data
If the Conscientious person had their way, they would work with details and data all day long. The reason for this is that they love predictability and order. Data is always logical and accurate, and fits together like a perfect puzzle.
People on the other hand, are illogical, irrational and unpredictable. So, Conscientious people can be troubled, frustrated, and steamrolled by volatile outbursts of emotion.
Here are some roles that fit Conscientious people:
- Accounting
- Quality control
- Data analysis
- Planning
- Engineering
In summary:
Every person has natural areas of strength and weakness. Matching your natural areas of strength to your job fit is a key component to being successful.
Here are some idea job fits for each of the DISC personality types:
- Dominant personality type: Goals and achievement
- Inspiring personality type: Ideas and persuasion
- Supportive personality type: Doing practical jobs
- Conscientious personality type: Facts and data
Additional resources
Thanks for reading this article on ‘What is the ideal job fit for my personality type?’ Below are additional resources from Professional Leadership Institute, the global provider of online human resources and leadership tools:
- DISC Assessment: Take your free DISC Personalities assessment here: https://www.professionalleadershipinstitute.com/disc-personalities-assessment/
- How to spot someone’s DISC personality type in under 60 seconds https://www.professionalleadershipinstitute.com/resources/how-to-spot-someones-disc-personality-type-in-under-60-seconds/
- More ways to spot someone’s DISC personality type in under 60 seconds https://www.professionalleadershipinstitute.com/?s=more+
- What is the DISC test? https://www.professionalleadershipinstitute.com/resources/disc-test/
Trevor Throness is a speaker, consultant, and author of “The Power of People Skills.” He is also co-founder and senior instructor at www.professionalleadershipinstitute.com
Find more about “The Power of People Skills” here: https://www.amazon.com/Power-People-Skills-Dramatically-Performance/dp/1632651068
