Employment: SELF-EVALUATION

The employment process begins with self-analysis, so start with:

1. identifying your interests
2. evaluating your qualifications

It will help you to realize what you like and dislike, and what kind of job you really want to do. To take this first step, answer the following questions:

1. What are you looking for: money, power, prestige, growth potential, other motivators?
2. How important are salary, environment, benefits and job stability?
3. Do you enjoy working with people, information or things?
4. Is it important to be your own boss?
5. What is your idea of a perfect job, perfect boss, perfect colleague?

Determining your personality type

Before the final choosing of the profession which seems suitable from the first sight, it is necessary to determine whether this profession matches your personality. For identifying your personality you should know to what type you belong. For this purpose there is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The concept of Type owes its existence to the work of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and two American women, Catherine Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs-Myers. Carl Jung realized the behavior that seemed unpredictable could in fact be anticipated. While Carl Jung was taking his discoveries, Catherine Briggs, who had long been intrigued with similarities and differences between human personalities, began to develop her own system for "typing" people. When Catherine read the English translation of Jung's "Psychological Types" in 1923, she realized that Jung had already discovered what she had been looking for. So she adopted his model to her studies. In 1940 Catherine and Isabel Briggs began developing the MBTI test instrument to measure psychological type which has been refined and improved later. As MBTI determined, there are 16 different types, and every person fits into one of them. That is not to say that people are not all unique, for they certainly are. But they also have a tremendous amount in common. By identifying your personality type will help you to discover and learn how to take advantage of it. The Type system is based on four basic aspects of human personality which we call dimensions. Here they are:

Four dimensions of Personality Type

Mark your personality type on the dimensions scale. For this read the description of each of four dimensions below.

 Note: Usually extraverts are interested in many things, but not necessarily at a very deep level. Introverts have fewer interests, but they pursue them in much greater depth.

Now when you have estimated your personality according to four dimensions, write the letters chosen in the spaces, like on example below.
____________        ____________     ____________    ____________
       E/I                            S/N                      T/F                       J/P

The result should read something like ESFP - one chosen letter for each space.
Find in the Supplement ‘MBTI’ your personality type, read about its strengths and weaknesses, then the description of the type applied to the business world. Remember: knowing the particular strengths and weaknesses of your type can give a tremendous advantage in your job search campaign – starting with research of the vacancy, writing your resume, and participating in a job interview. Being able to focus on your assets will make you a successful job searcher.