My friend John (not his real name) came to me with a work-related problem that could cost him his job. He worked in a multi-national company and his job was to carry out quantitative analysis of equities.

His problem: he was prone to committing mistakes in his work. So much so that his boss had already given him an ultimatum to either improve or leave the job in next few months.

As we discussed about his background, he casually mentioned that he had once taken a personality test and he remembered he was INTJ. The moment he uttered those four letters, I realized how the hidden hand of his personality was causing John all the trouble at the work.

Personality is one of those vague things that we all realize we have but find it difficult to understand it, especially its implications on our career.

Let's look at what personality means, how you can find yours, what is the relationship between personality and occupation and finally, what can you do once you know your own personality.

Four dimensions of personality
Carl Jung, a Swiss psychologist, originally came up with a theory to describe personality. He called it Personality Type. Later, Personality Type was adopted, modified and applied in the real world by an American woman Katharine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers.

According to the Personality Type, there are four dimensions of a person's personality:

1. Extraversion-Introversion (E-I): It is about where a person prefers to focus his attention.
2. Sensing-Intuition (S-N): This dimension indicates how a person prefers to get information.
3. Thinking-Feeling (T-F): This dimension reveals how a person prefers to make decisions.
4. Judging-Perceiving (J-P): This dimension measures how a person prefers to deal with the outer world.

• Take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®) test, which is one of the most widely used tests for assessing personality type. There are several organizations offering MBTI test for a fee. You can get more information on this test from CPP, Inc.'s Web site: http://www.cpp.com. This is the most accurate way of knowing your personality type.
  
  
• Assess yourself through online tests (mostly clones of the MBTI®). Some of these tests are free. For example, you can get yourself tested (for free) at: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
  
  
• Read the detailed characteristics of each of the eight preferences in the books and decide yourself which ones describe you more closely. Here are two good books on this subject:
  1. Myers, Isabel Briggs, and Myers, Peter B. Gifts Differing. Davies-Black Publishing, 1995.
  2. Tieger, Paul D., and Tieger, Barbara Barron. Do What You Are. USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2001.

• Majority of the accounts were ST (sensing-thinking) type. These are the people who prefer to focus on facts and figures (sensing) and use logic and analysis for making decisions (thinking). Incidentally, this is where John was having trouble. He was NT and therefore, his sensing of data/figures was not that strong, resulting in mistakes.
• Majority of customer service/relations professionals were SF (sensing-feeling) type. SF's like to focus their attention on the outer world (in this case people) and also like to employ their feelings.
• Majority of creative writers were NF (intuitive-feeling) type. These people work with their imagination and bring feeling/emotions into their work.
• Majority of research scientists were NT (intuitive-thinking). They like to use their imagination to go into uncharted territories and also use analytical thinking.
• Similarly, it is obvious that extroverts would fit well in roles like marketing, sales, customer service, etc., which allow them to deal with other people. Introverts, on the other hand, would be effective in occupations/roles that leave them alone to work.
• Studies also show that when people enter into occupations that do not suit their personality, they struggle and eventually leave them.

1. Find out your personality type and study closely the characteristics of your type (from books and the Web)
2. Embrace work/situations that match with your personality type.
3. Avoid, if possible, work/situations that do not match with your personality type.