Occupational

Personality Type-
casting: Breaking the
Mold

Almost every big company today requires employees to take personality

tests that will allow managers and human resources officers to perfectly peg

all new hires – or avoid making what could be major staffing mistakes.

The problem with this is that some managers have developed formulas – or

adopted formulas from books -- that require a team to be made up of specific

numbers and combinations of personality types. That could mean that if you

get pigeonholed in a certain category, you may find it difficult to find a place

on a corporate team.

An interview becomes much less of a guessing game for hiring professionals

if they have been given a predetermined, positive, opinion of you. Having

your reputation precede you is definitely a feather in your cap; you’ll have to

go through a lot less prerequisite paperwork than a candidate who shows up

on a company’s doorstep with no personal references.

 You can work to break stereotyping personality molds by branding yourself

to surpass them. With the advent of such enterprising online resume services

as VisualCV, job seekers can write their own ticket down the career path. The

service provides such a wide variety of presentation platforms – traditional

resume, portfolio staging, and video – that employers who view CVs from this

site may feel that specific candidates are already acquaintances. That could

help you bypass many of the traditional “getting-to-know-you” rigmarole

utilized as a weeding-out tool by many employers.

Adding keywords – industry and job-specific buzzwords that are used in

writing employment ads – also serves to give employers a better sense of

who you are before you walk through their doors.

Certain industries rely on specific personality types to get ahead. Some

information technology jobs will require methodical, detail-oriented

personalities, while advertising agencies will want creative-thinking, results-

oriented personalities. A company hiring a receptionist may look for a social

personality type that can make visitors and callers feel welcome.

Your best bet for success is to determine the personality type most sought

by employers in your industry. Understand the outcome of successful work by

such a personality type, and determine how to achieve superior results with

your own temperament and skills. This will require you to carefully analyze
your ability to achieve goals and to write an equation that will allow you not

only to meet expectations, but to surpass them.

Dave Saunders helps people stand out and "Be the Brand" as a personal

branding and marketing specialist. Manage your career online: Create,

Enhance and Share a better resume, free at VisualCV.com