How the Myers-Briggs test gives clues to potential careers
Sometimes, it can be hard to know how well your personality can gel with a career you’re thinking about. It can be even more difficult if you aren’t even sure what career you may want to pursue. Which is why it’s a good thing that we have something like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator through the Charleston Southern University Career Center.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a personality assessment that judges how you prefer to use perception and make judgments. If you’ve ever taken one of the personality tests that give you a four-letter personality type at the end, then you’ve taken it before. But the Career Center offers the test and gives students the chance to talk about it in-depth in regard to your future.
To take it, all you have to do is email the Career Center (thecareercenter@csuniv.edu), and let them know that you would like to take the test. You should get an email soon after that will give you a link to a website that will let you complete it.
After taking the test, the results will be sent to the Career Center, and you will meet with the Center’s director, Shallon Mims, in order to find out the results and to learn about how it applies to you. All you have to do is go to Handshake and set up an appointment from there. An option for it is under Career Conversations.
Once you get to the meeting, that’s where you and Mims will talk about the personality types. She will talk about each part of the personality type and how it plays into a situation at a job. She will ask you which type you think you are more like, and once you’ve answered them all, then she will reveal your results.
The results should align well with what you said during the appointment. You will get a description of what your personality type means, and how it likely applies to any situation at a job. You will also see a graph that shows how close you leaned toward one aspect of a personality.
From there, that’s when a discussion on more specific aspects of working begins. Mims will describe what your personality type’s preferred work tasks and environments usually are. From here, she recommends that you can use resources to find careers that can apply to these conditions that would favor you. These resources include the Career Center itself as well as O*NET.
But in general, you will then get the rundown of the strengths that your personality has for career development and exploration. And you will see the challenges that you may face with your personality within these areas. However, Mims will offer suggestions on how to face these challenges and be successful despite potential weak spots.
She will then show you a chart of the most attractive job families for your personality. If a career type you’re interested in is a lower score, that isn’t a big deal. This report just shows what other people with that personality tend to prefer. The same applies to a list that is also shown that shows more specific occupations that are the most popular for your personality, as well as the least popular.
But after that, that’s when you can start to talk to Mims about how it can apply to you specifically. You can tell her what jobs you’re interested in and see how it gels with your personality. She can talk about the strengths that you may have and how you can use them in your future career. And it’s something that you can always discuss with her, even after the appointment; she is always willing to talk about it with you later on.
Ultimately, the assessment and meeting with her are to make you feel more comfortable with who you are and what you want to do. It can point you in the right direction in terms of showing what kind of job you may work well in and how you can excel. It is a great way to validate how you want to proceed with your life, passions, and potential career.
Justin Brennan is a senior Charleston Southern student, interning with the Marketing and Communication office.
