We all know the importance of your personality in building and maintaining relationships with those around you -your family, friends, and acquaintances and how every person’s unique characteristics enable different people to react to various situations in many ways.
While we all know about compatibility between people, have you ever wondered how important your characteristics are in your career?
While we all prioritize matching skills and capabilities with work, we often overlook how important it is to build a career that complements your characteristics. The relationship you have with your work can boost your productivity, enhance your performance, and greatly uplift your happiness and satisfaction to improve your overall well-being.
Here are a few traits to look into while choosing your next career.
1.Agreeableness
In short, agreeableness is a personality trait that indicates an individual’s level of cooperation with others. It showcases a person's level of empathy and on how well they get along with others and care for those around them.
People with higher levels of agreeableness tend to be more open, cooperative, and caring towards others and are comfortable putting other’s needs above their own, and those with lower levels tend to be more self-reliant and self-focused and can come across as competitive or pragmatic.
Those with high levels of agreeableness tend to focus on relations with others and would be well suited to people-facing roles or those that require high levels of teamwork. On the other side, those who tend to be less agreeable would be better suited for roles where their success is determined by tasks they perform rather than their relationships with other people.
2.Ambition
Ambition indicates one’s desire to achieve more and constantly grow in their career.
People with high levels of ambition tend to have a desire to achieve more, are more zealous concerning their work, and can also lean towards resourcefulness to achieve their goals. Those with lower levels of ambition tend to feel comfortable with stability, are more easygoing with work, and tend to be more content with where they are.
Those with high levels of ambition would do well in a workplace that supports them to grow and thrive. They tend to do well in dynamic fast-paced environments that provide them with autonomy and freedom to set goals and offer rewards and recognition for their success.
Those with lower levels of ambition are better suited for low-pressure roles, which permit enough work-life balance to pursue goals outside of work and facilitate opportunities that enable job satisfaction. They also tend to work better in more structured atmospheres.
3.Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness indicates an individual’s attitude towards responsibilities.
Those with high levels of conscientiousness tend to be responsible, disciplined, and orderly. Those with lower levels of conscientiousness prefer to work in their own style and are more spontaneous and flexible in their approach to tasks.
Those with high levels of conscientiousness tend to prefer a structured environment with clear objectives, procedures, and guidelines, offering regular feedback and evaluations. With lower levels, a workplace offering flexibility and creativity for performing tasks would be more suitable.
Those with high levels of conscientiousness tend to prefer a structured environment with clear objectives, procedures, and guidelines, offering regular feedback and evaluations. With lower levels, a workplace offering flexibility and creativity for performing tasks would be more suitable.
4.Stress Tolerance
People with high-stress tolerance tend to remain composed and stable in stressful situations and are not easily carried away by strong emotions.
Those with lower stress tolerance tend to be more anxious and tense when it comes to adverse situations.
Those with higher levels of stress tolerance can work well in fast-paced, challenging, and dynamic environments with tight deadlines and tasks with high stakes. Those with lower work stress prefer to work in stable, predictable, and organized environments that offer growth without penalization for failures.
5.Extraversion
In a nutshell, extraversion refers to how one derives energy.
Those high in extraversion tend to gain energy from social situations, and those low on extraversion tend to gain energy from solo activities.
Extroverted people work better in people-facing roles involving communication and interaction with others. Creating an atmosphere that is team-oriented, fosters collaboration, and offers growth to leadership opportunities would be ideal for such people.
Those who tend to be more introverted prefer environments that give them enough personal space to focus on tasks at their own pace and provide tasks that can be completed individually or with few people. They prefer to work on tasks that require creativity, concentration, or thoughtfulness.
6.Openness
Openness refers to the degree to which people seek out new experiences.
Those high on openness tend to be more imaginative and curious, and those low on openness tend to focus on realistic situations and are content with what they know.
Those with high levels of openness work well in roles that foster creativity and encourage them to find new solutions to problems. They are comfortable with frequently changing circumstances and thrive in organizations that offer innovation over standardization. Those who tend to have lower levels of openness prefer to work in organizations that offer established procedures and tangible evidence before trying out new methods. They thrive in workplaces that offer stability, routine, and familiarity.
A key thing to remember is that there are no “good” or “bad” traits!
Everyone has all of these traits in varying amounts, and different situations bring out different traits.
For example, a person may display high levels of conscientiousness when they are passionate about something, but low levels of conscientiousness for tasks they do not enjoy.
It is important to understand yourself to find out what kind of interactions and situations bring out different aspects of your personality.
Furthermore, these traits are not meant to be thought of as a limitation for you - for example, people often tend to assume introverts are not good leaders, but plenty of renowned CEOs like Bill Gates, have excelled in leadership roles!
Understanding these traits is a means for you to learn how you can establish a healthy relationship with your work to build a thriving career.
About the Author
Meghana Ganesh is a Community Manager at Her Second Innings. She is a Computer Science Graduate with a passion for women’s empowerment and equality, and diversity hiring in organizations.
Her Second Innings supports women professionals on a sabbatical in their journey of getting back to work. The mission of HSI is to guide women to achieve financial independence. Support from HSI comes in the form of job interviews, reskilling programs in Automation, and, free Career Guidance Counselling. Sign up with us and complete your profile to get a call from our counselors to know your job fit.
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