A few weeks ago I filled out two tests at my College’s Career Center in preparation for a meeting with a counselor that was supposed to help me with finding out what career would be the best for me. I didn?t have high hopes, but was wondering whether they can tell me anything I didn?t know already. I had the meeting today and I learned a few more insights but nothing earth shattering.
The first test was called “Strong Interest Inventory“. It was measuring my likes and dislikes. Based on that it recommended jobs that I may like and ones I would dislike. It based its recommendations on interview with people in 109 occupations, what they dis/like. The evaluation of the test was divided into several sections. According to the first and most important one my highest interests are Artistic (A – creating and enjoying art), followed by average interest in the Conventional (C – accounting, processing data) and Social (S – helping, instructing) areas. And according to this test I displayed little interest in the Investigative (I researching, analyzing), Realistic (R – building, repairing) and Enterprising (E – selling, managing) areas. I will refer to these capitalized letters (A, C, S, I, R, E) later here, just as the tests results did. The second set of results took the top 5 of 25 possible interest areas. Based on this I have high interest in Religious Activities (participating in spiritual activities), Writing, Mathematics, Music/Dramatics (performing or enjoying music/drama) and average interest in Computer Activities. The third results were the “occupational scales” that “measure how similar my interests are to the interests of people who are satisfied working in those occupations”. My interests are very similar to that of Librarians (A), Technical Writers (AI) and Translators (AI). They are similar to Sociologists (AI), College Professors (IAS), Computer Programmers (IAR), English teachers (ASE), Geographer (IA), Musicians (A), and Marketing Executives (EA). Then we went into the specifics of the 6 areas. Within each of them I was measured in 3–5 subcategories on a scale from 0 to 100. Here are my results in descending order:
Artistic-A (55) Writing 60 Music/Dramatics 59 Art-52 Applied Arts-49 Culinary Arts-40
Conventional-C (51) Computer Activties-56 Data Management-51 Office Services-42
Social-S (44) Religious Activties-60 Social Service-51 Teaching-38 Medical Service-34
Investigative-I (42) Mathematics-59 Science-45 Medical Science-32
Realistic-S (41) Military Activities-42 Mechanical Activities-40 Nature-35 Agriculture-34 Athletics-33
Enterprising-E (38) Public Speaking-50 Law/Politics-50 Organizational Management-39 Sales-38 Merchandising-37 The next part of the evaluation of this test was about how much I “share both the likes and dislikes of people in that occupation” and “whether I “would probably enjoy the day-to-day work in that occupation.” In the third set of results above I already highlighted my top 10 ideal occupation so now I will just add some other interesting points. I managed to get 7 negative points here, I really don’t want to do any of this work:
Horticultural Worker (R-12), Electrician (R-2), Vocational Agricultural Teacher (R-3), Athletic Trainer (S-9), Physical Education Trainer (S-13), Agribusiness Manager (E-1), and Buyer (A-3). The last section was about personal styles: 4 scales, each from 0 to 100. Each of them had descriptions of two distinct styles at the end of the scales. At the last two of these I scored almost in the middle, so my preferences are not too strong in those regards
Learning environment: 64 points towards this style: “prefers academic environment; learns by lectures and books; willing to spend many years in school; seeks knowledge for its own sake.”
Leadership style: 34 points in favor of: “not comfortable taking charge of others; prefers to do the job rather than to direct others; may lead by example rater that by giving directions”.
Work style: 41: “prefers to work alone; likes to work with ideas, data, or things; accomplishes tasks by independent action or thought.”
Risk taking/adventure: 43: “dislikes adventure and risk taking; likes quiet activities; prefers to play it safe.”
The results from the other, the Myers-Briggs test slightly contradicted the first one. I am clearly an Introvert and Judging type and moderately an Intuitive and Feeling type. I didn’t like the Judging part but made peace with it when read the official description. (“Tends to like planned and organized approach to life and prefers to have things settled.) I was surprised by the Feeling part but based on the explanation (“tends to base their decisions primarily on values and on subjective evaluation of person-centered concerns”) it may have some truth to it that I am less of a Thinking type, no matter how much I would like to “think” of myself as such. Overall I am an INFJ: “Quite, friendly, responsible, and conscientious. Committed and steady in meeting their obligations. Thorough, painstaking, and accurate. Loyal, considerate, notice and remember specifics about people who are important to them, concerned with how others feel. Strive to create an orderly and harmonious environment at work and at home.” The evaluation also gave me a list of 50 occupations INFJs select the most often. Here are some interesting ones in the order they suggested: psychodrama therapist, rabbi, English teacher, drama teacher, psychiatrist, social worker, research assistant, librarian, publicity writer, dental hygienist, and speech pathologist. They also provided 20 least likely candidates including police officer, school bus driver and coal miner. I also got a 3 page description on how INFJs gather career information, make decisions and plan/take actions. It was interesting to read.