Four Factors that Influence Career Choices

Interests, personality, skills, and work values are the four factors that govern one's career choice according to the career counsellor in the career center at UofT. She also suggests that the question I need to ask myself when choosing a career is that WILL MY JOB FULFILL THE REQUIREMENTS DERIVED FROM MY VALUES, MY PERSONALITIES, MY INTERESTS, AND MY SKILLS?

For me, values and personalities have a stronger influence than the rest two. I need a period of time to figure out exactly what my values and personalities are. Luckily, I gained an insightful comments of my personalities by completing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test. Here is a list of requirements of a satisfying job based on my personality.

1. The opportunity to be a leader while interacting with a variety of people, on a variety of projects throughout the day.
   
2. A competitive and challenging environment where advancements are available and promotions given on the basis of demonstrated merit and competence.
   
3. Work that lets me solve complex problems in creative yet logical ways, working with other people I respect.
   
4. The opportunity to do long range planning and develop strategies that will perfect or improve the efficiency of systems.
5. An environment where I am respected for my contributions of ideas and actions, and where I am evaluated and compensated in a fair and consistent manner.
6. Projects that let me constantly increase my knowledge and competence and develop original solutions to new problems.
   

My Personality Test Results

I attended the Career Choice and Your Personality workshop in UofT career center at the end of last semester. During the workshop, the host first guided us to self-select our personalities, and then compared the self-selected results with the results from the standard Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) tests which we had previously completed. MBTI divides personalities by four dichotomies. Each of them indicates the personal preference of the direction of focus (Extroversion - Introversion), ways of acquiring information (Sensing - iNtuition), ways of deciding and evaluating (Thinking - Feeling), and ways of interacting with the outer world (Judging - Perceiving).

My self-selected result is EI/N/T/J. I had a hard time deciding whether I prefer E or I. My reported result is slight E/ clear N/ Moderate T/ Moderate J. And based on the two results, I found my personality analyses. They give descriptions on potential strengths and weaknesses, what I am good at, where might be my pit-fall, what kind of career I might find satisfying, as well as recommendations for the job search.

Since I have a tendency to look at the good side of everything including me, the reported weakness and potential pit-falls are more valuable to me than the rest. Here are some of them.

INTJ weakness/potential pitfalls:

1. Because of their sometimes impossibly high standards, INTJs tend to be perfectionists. They are such complex people that their ideas are sometimes too complicated for others to understand.
   
2. Most interested in their ideas and plans for the future, INTJs can miss some of the important practical concerns or realities that need to be considered to make their plans really workable.
   
3. I need to watch my tendency to lose interest in projects after the creative problem solving is over.
   
4. I need to watch my tendency to be impatient and disrespectful of those I consider less competent.
   
5. I need to watch my tendency to be unwilling to adapt to other environments or work styles.
   
6. I need to watch my tendency to be rigid in my viewpoints, dismissing opposing ones without full consideration.
   

ENTJ weakness/potential pitfalls:

1. Given their strong and authoritative style, ENTJs can easily run over others and take charge of situations that are not theirs to direct.
2. They can be harsh and blunt in their criticism.
3. They sometimes don't listen or finish other people's sentences when they erroneously assume they know what weas going to be said.
   
4. ENTJs run the risk of being all-business and not spending adequate time and energy on their personal lives.
   
5. In their eagerness to move ahead with new challenges, ENTJs sometimes make decisions too quickly, especially missing important practical information or considering how their decisions may affect other people.
6. While they pride themselves on their ability and intellect, ENTJs sometimes do not invite the input or suggestions of other people and can unknowingly communicate a superior attitude that may offend others.
   
7. I need to watch my tendency to consider only creative or unusual approaches to problems.
8. I need to watch my tendency to be critical and demanding with others.
9. I need to watch my tendency to forget to appreciate others or express encouragement.
   
10. I need to watch my tendency to lose sight of the personal side of my life while chasing my ambitions.
    

Do things in order of importance

One of my major problems is that there are too many things I want to do, but there is too little time to do them. I have a list of books I want to read, a list of skills I want to develop or improve, and a list of experiments I want to run. It's impossible to do all at the same time. The only way to solve this problem, I have found so far, is to prioritize things on the lists, and do them according to their priorities.

Be specific of what you want so that people can help you better

We all need people's help. The most effective way of getting help from others, I have found so far, is to be as specific as possible of what I want. Say, when asking Sue for help about the metal work the other day, "I want to connect this tube with this flask". Then she taught me several ways to do so, and solved my problem. Being specific of what I want clarifies my problem, prevents misunderstanding, and consequently makes the communication effective.