¶ … personality type can affect my effectiveness on the job, at least in certain situations. At the heart of this understanding is that each job has its own set of expectations, and there are certain traits that are strongly geared towards the achievement of those expectations. Some situations call for specific ways of thinking, and handling things, and no one manager is going to excel at all of them. Some people will have a high level of emotional competence -- they might fall into the feeling part of the Jungian typology -- and this works great when that skills is needed, but it isn't effective when clear, unemotional thinking is required.
With respect to career, the Jungian typologies make note that certain people are oriented towards certain careers, and there is strong inherent logic in that. For example, some jobs require a high level of interaction between people. Extroverts are going to be better at those jobs because they gain energy from interaction with others. Introverts lose energy from interpersonal interaction, and as a result are going to be less effective at jobs that require a lot of interpersonal interaction. I have seen this myself, with respect to sales jobs. Part of sales is having good sales technique, but part of it is just being able to deal well with people. Extroverts tend to be better, not because they are always natural sales people, but because they enjoy dealing with other people. Introverts, even ones with exceptional sales...
The great sales skills are effectively wasted in most introverts, while an extrovert can succeed at a sales position even with limited natural salesmanship.
The reverse can be said with respect to analytical positions. A financial analyst, for example, needs to have a high level of thinking skills. They cannot use emotion, because the job entail spending hours doing cold analytical work to uncover truths locked in financial data. This is not the work for the emotional person -- there is no benefit to having emotion in this job, but there is benefit to being able to think through the patterns and chains of events that result in the insights to be gained from financial analysis. So there is no question that the optimal career choice for somebody should reflect their personality type. There are just certain careers that appeal to certain people.
There are other facets of personality that can affect one's career arc, not just the Jungian ones. For example, if somebody has a strong musical inclination, they are far more likely to thrive as a musician, or in theater, because those things will come naturally to them. Somebody with no such inclination is well-advised to stick to other fields. People have different levels of creativity -- someone who can write well but has no creativity might make…
