Visualize Team Connections with the Group DNA Dashboard
Recruiting and building teams based on hard skills alone has proven to be an inefficient and incomplete hiring and management strategy in today's world of work. That’s why Talentoday has created the Group DNA Dashboard. It’s a new way to visualize the team profiling and talent matching tools first introduced by Group DNA (GDNA).
Now available in the Talentoday Manager platform, this powerful analytics tool leverages soft skill data to paint a complete cultural picture of a team, company or position. Users can also compare this key information alongside individual profiles to draw important connections between teammates.
Here’s how HR professionals can use the Group DNA Dashboard to power better decision making.
Discover the Group DNA Dashboard
Talentoday’s Group DNA Dashboard helps HR leaders visualize three key areas of people analytics: Culture Fit, Behavioral Diversity and Remote Work.
First, the new dashboard assesses culture fit, a key indicator of potential employee retention rate. This is done by evaluating how an individual matches with the predominant poles of the GDNA, zeroing in on personality traits and motivations that reflect the core values of the targeted team or company.
Second, the tool provides an analysis of behavioral diversity. This is a representation of the potential prevalence of diversity of thought, varied opinions and creative viewpoints in the workplace. To calculate this percentage, the GDNA Dashboard calculates the extent to which an individual diverges from the non-predominant poles of the Group DNA. The higher the percentage of distance, the more an individual can bring balance to the behaviors of a targeted team or company.
Finally, the GDNA Dashboard was built with today’s workplace in mind, dedicating space for key remote working insights. Individual profiles are compared against the results of our Remote Worker Group DNA profile to identify which teammates may excel in a work-from-home or hybrid environment.
Personalizing Your Results
In addition to visualizing these results all at once, users can also sort any matching results according to culture fit, behavioral diversity or remote working ability. This ensures that your decision making process can be as granular as you want it to be.
For example, a design team may be most interested in building their team around creative thinking. In this case, users could use the dashboard to maximize behavioral diversity matches.
On the other hand, a technology team may put more emphasis on boosting retention rates in a tight labor market. To attract the right talent with the skills needed to succeed, this might mean focusing on offering work flexibility and remote work opportunities. Therefore, this team’s dashboard may filter for remote work abilities to find the top matches in these asynchronous environments.
Visualize Team Connections with the Group DNA Dashboard
Interested in seeing how the Group DNA Dashboard helps leaders identify soft skills connections on their teams? Contact our Talentoday team today to learn more about how our latest feature is changing the way teams visualize and act upon soft skills data!
3 Misconceptions About Soft Skills
You would be hard pressed to find companies that are not investing in soft skills today. Organizations of all kinds are now recognizing the qualities that formal education and technical training cannot capture within a workforce. Personality traits, motivations and behaviors of employees have taken center stage as employers race to find new ways to attract and retain top talent.
Unfortunately, there are also plenty of misconceptions about soft skills. No, it’s not enough for a company to ask for “team players” with “great communication skills” in a job description; soft skills are much more personal than that. Cultivating a culture centered around empowering individuals to express their true, unique selves requires time and attention.
To get serious about soft skills, it’s time to dispel some of the top myths surrounding them, including that they’re based on gut feelings, less valuable than hard skills and best understood by placing people into groups.
You can't measure soft skills.
How much can a gut feeling really tell you about a person? Due to the influence of a variety of biases, it turns out that the answer is not much! From hyperfocusing on one trait to gravitating toward people like ourselves, human beings can’t help but fall into cognitive traps. Yet, many hiring managers still rely heavily on first impressions and the idea that soft skills are mysterious concepts, incapable of being captured.
Thankfully, this notion is incorrect. By applying the principles of sound science steeped in people analytics, hiring professionals and managers can measure and apply soft skills during the hiring process and when building team management strategies. Personality assessments, when administered thoughtfully, can provide insights that go far beyond gut feeling alone. The best way to cut through unconscious bias in hiring is to provide quantifiable results that can be compared in order to build better teams.
Hard skills are the only requirement for certain jobs.
In many ways, the rise of remote work has been a blessing and a curse. Employers have seen their hiring pool expand now that candidates can come from anywhere thanks to the power of technology. However, a new fallacy has led to a number of failed hiring decisions - “Who needs softs skills when you only work from home?”
This flawed line of thinking can apply to any number of technical roles that might not include some of the outward-facing hallmarks many people associate with soft skills, such as customer service interactions. Contrary to popular belief, soft skills encapsulate the entire scope of personality - from critical thinking to empathy and the need for structure. In short, soft skills are meaningful no matter the role or workplace setting.
Everyone is a type.
You’re probably familiar with personality tests that group individuals together in categories or types. If you’ve ever taken a Myers Briggs, Enneagram or “Which Hogwarts House Do You Belong To?” quiz, you’ve experienced soft skills through what is known as “type theory.”
At Talentoday, we have a saying - show your traits, not your type. Sure, grouping people together in neat categories like ENFJ or Hufflepuff can be a convenient shorthand, but people are more complex than these types give them credit for. When it really comes down to it, individuals most likely land on a scale of gray area than these rigid, black and white designations - and that’s okay! For employers, there’s value in understanding complexity when building teams. This not only improves the ability to get the best work out individuals, but also helps determine the best way for managers and colleagues to work together to achieve goals as a team.
Rethinking Soft Skills
For too long, misconceptions about soft skills have led to poor decision making in team building and management. If businesses are serious about committing to reshaping their workforce, it’s time to ditch gut feelings, stop downplaying soft skills for certain roles and move past type-casting their teams.
Are you ready to start hiring better with science-driven people analytics? Learn how Talentoday’s MyPrint assessment can provide a deeper understanding of your employees personality traits, motivations and behaviors.
3 HR Trends That Will Define 2022 and Shape the Future of Work
Employers entered 2021 with cautious optimism. After a year of pandemic-induced uncertainty, there was hope that improved safety measures, including the widespread availability of life-saving vaccines, would bring back a sense of stability to the working world.
Unfortunately, as our plans for the workplace evolved, so did COVID-19.
And so, 2022 begins with familiar themes for employers and employees alike. COVID variants are forcing many to maintain or step back into hybrid and fully remote settings. Organizers of team building events, training and onboarding sessions, industry conferences and other in-person plans must once again adapt, reschedule or prepare to shut it all down entirely.
Will the year ahead be a repeat of the last one? Not quite. Three HR trends are poised to define 2022 by building upon concepts that have had a positive impact on working teams struggling to find their footing in a pandemic world: Skills-based hiring and retention efforts, workplace wellness programs and DEI initiatives.
Emphasis on Skills-Based Hiring and Retention Efforts
The only phrase that may have appeared in more headlines than “COVID-19” in the last year was “The Great Resignation.” Eye-popping numbers, such as a record 4.3 million workers quitting their jobs last August alone, confirm that this reshuffling of the workforce is more than just a passing phase. Now, employers are embracing the fact that the old ways of hiring and retaining talent are not cutting it anymore.
- Hiring: For one, skills-based hiring has gained new attention as the talent pool tightens. Recent reporting from AARP indicates that most employers (76 percent) say they prioritize skills over other factors, such as education, when hiring. 66 percent say their organization needs to go even further in emphasizing the importance of skills above everything else. However, the skills needed for work in an increasingly hybrid and remote world are different from those needed in previous settings. In fact, an evaluation of thousands of Talentoday MyPrint assessments - our proprietary questionnaire scientifically designed to explore individual personality traits and motivations - taken prior to the onset of the pandemic compared against data collected in the months that followed revealed a rise in the prominence of certain soft skills (autonomy, recognition and responsibility) and the decline of other soft skills (structure, empathy and grit.) In short, the way we work is changing, but organizations have been slow to match their hiring practices to this shift. For employers, it’s time to catch up or risk missing out on top talent.
- Retention: While getting new talent in the door poses a challenge for employers, keeping them in the room is even more difficult. To cut down on climbing turnover rates, employers are going beyond increased compensation and unique benefit packages to entice employees to stay put. The new word in retention is growth. HR teams are redesigning their training programs to make upskilling a priority. First, organizations are evaluating their current workforce to identify where skills gaps exist. Then, managers must implement flexible action plans tailored to individual and team availability. An investment in people today can pay dividends in the months and (hopefully) years ahead.
Wellness Programs are Here to Stay
Of course, 2020 was a wake up call for many companies. Employees were faced with a global crisis and made it clear that they were not okay. In response, a reported 94 percent of companies made investments in well-being programs, including support for mental, physical and financial health. Unfortunately, that same reporting reveals that less than 40 percent of employees have taken advantage of these programs being offered by employers. Does this mean that these programs where just another addition to the list of failed HR trends or is there something else going on here?
Moving forward, HR professionals will need to find ways to better engrain these offerings into company culture. For example, coupling formal benefit offerings with practices such as mental health time off and personalized recognition offerings can transform these initiatives from window dressing into core practices tied to everyday work activities.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in a Hybrid World
Finally, there’s a new digital divide emerging between the in-person workforce and those working in remote settings. According to Harvard Business Review, managers are more likely to promote employees who come into the office compared to those who don’t, regardless of performance. The same data shows that women and people of color are preferring to work from home at greater rates compared to white men. This could mean that marginalized groups will once again be excluded from key opportunities.
The irony is that the very same hybrid and remote work opportunities that have expanded talent pools for many organizations may now be contributing to gender wage gaps and a lack of diversity in leadership positions. After a period that has brought so much attention to diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, employers must find a way to double down on these efforts in an increasingly hybrid world.
The Future of Work and These HR Trends
It’s impossible to predict what the future holds when it comes to factors outside of our control, including the changing nature of COVID-19. Yet, organizations can take control of the ways they attract, retain and empower the talent they employ. These HR trends are more than just the hot topics of the moment; they represent a significant shift towards valuing what matters most in any workplace settings - the health, wellbeing and growth of people.
Meet the moment by addressing these HR trends for the year ahead with the power of people analytics. Experience how MyPrint can uncover a better way to hire and retain a top team by clicking here!
Goal Setting Guided by Soft Skills
While there’s never a bad time to set new goals, there sure is something about a fresh new year that boosts motivation! As you take a look at your plans for personal development this year, get a fresh perspective on where you could be going by using your soft skills to guide your goal setting.
Reflect on Where You Currently Stand
When it comes to tackling big goals, it’s important to start with small steps. In order to see how far you have to go, take a look at where you are right now. The skills you possess and the resources you have available can impact the way you set and achieve your goals. Take inventory of what you already have at your fingertips, and keep that into consideration as you determine where you want to go.
Setting Goals with Soft Skills
Next, it’s time to make a plan for what you want to achieve and how you’ll get there. While there are a lot of the goals that might seem like they only require hard skills - such as a certain level of education or required certifications - the truth is that soft skills are the power behind these achievements! By simply being aware of the soft skill strengths you possess, you will be able to better understand how you approach situations and what motivates you, as well as be better equipped to set and reach attainable goals.
Let’s say you want to grow your professional network in the year ahead. Before committing to this goal, it’s important to ask yourself questions about your personality. Are you an introverted person or do you tend to seek a spotlight? If you take the time for self reflection, you can determine what a realistic goal looks like for you and better plan the necessary steps to reach it. For example, if you take a while to warm up around new people, you might make a goal to connect with a certain number of people on LinkedIn each month. However, a more extroverted person might look up conferences or large virtual events that provide an opportunity to dive right into new relationships. Although the end goal is the same, to grow your network, the path to get there might look different from person to person.
Develop a Clear Path Forward
Now that you have a better understanding of where you currently are, take a look at where you want to be and determine a clear path to get there. If you can’t see a plausible way to reach your goal, reevaluate how to set realistic goals in the right direction.
After all, the soft skills you have today can empower your growth tomorrow! Understanding the way you structure your day or what motivates you can help you determine the best way to create a path to your goal. Other goals can be reached by developing soft skills you may not currently use as much. For example, if you have a professional goal to move into a management position at work, you might want to develop some of the most in-demand skills that businesses are looking for when hiring for leadership positions. According to The Balance Careers, these areas of focus can include communication skills, empathy and flexibility.
Whether the path forward utilizes existing skills or is developed with soft skills growth in mind, it’s important to write everything down. Committing to goals mentally is a great first step, but putting them to paper or a digital space helps to make them real. Include checkpoints at regular intervals throughout your journey in order to track progress and adjust goals along the way.
What Are You Waiting For? Get Started!
There’s no time like the present when it comes to self-improvement. Take some time to reflect on the strengths you currently possess, then determine how you can use those skills to get to where you want to be.
Ready to discover your soft skill strengths and improve your goal setting this year? Take our free MyPrint assessment today by clicking here!
The Soft Skills DNA of Remote Workers
Remote workers have taken on growing significance in the U.S. workforce. In fact, a recent poll of employees showed that 39 percent would now consider quitting if their bosses did not provide some sort of work from home option. Clearly, employers need to take remote work seriously as they ponder how to build teams with the future of work in mind.
While remote work had been growing in popularity prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global health crisis turned work from home from a nice-to-have option into a necessity for a great deal of companies. The experience highlighted the advantages of a more flexible work environment for many employees and employers alike. However, as with any workplace, some workers adapted more easily to remote working conditions than others. The reason for these differences can be found in the science behind personality traits and workplace motivations.
Remote Work DNA
In an effort to help employers better understand this emerging workforce, psychologists at Talentoday used our Tailored Group DNA tool to create a soft skills model dedicated to remote workers. Users who access this tool within the Talentoday Manager platform will find the predominant personality traits and motivational needs that are necessary for a good adaptation to remote working conditions. Employers can then use this information to compare these benchmarks with the profiles of existing employees and potential job candidates.
Here’s a preview of our findings:
Predominant Personality Traits
- Orderly: When working from home, it pays to stay organized! This group prefers to schedule projects in advance.
- Big Picture: Even if the home office might be small, the goals for this group are big. Remote workers are more likely to have a clear vision of the final goals of their projects.
- Determined: This group sticks it out when the going gets tough, striving to overcome even the most difficult challenges.
- Positive: A shifting work environment is helped by the right mindset. These individuals have strong confidence in the future.
Predominant Motivations
- Taking Personal Responsibility: Remote workers know that they are the only ones around to hold them responsible for their actions. They tend to keep themselves accountable for their work and decisions.
- Self-Reliance: When you work from home, it pays to be able to set your own goals, schedule and pace of work.
- Personal Achievement: Goal setting is essential when it comes to the flexible work environment. Our research shows this group seeking to achieve highly difficult objectives.
- Intrinsic Enjoyment: When you work alone most of the time, you tend to find motivation from internal forces. Rather than being showered with external accolades, these workers prefer to achieve things for their personal satisfaction.
If recent history is any indication, remote work and other flexible forms of employment are here to stay. Employers looking to build the best teams possible need to start considering more than technical requirements for positions. By applying soft skills research to the hiring and team management process, employers can better predict employee success in a given workplace setting.
Are you interested in learning more about Group DNA from Talentoday? Click here to sign up for your free trial of Talentoday Manager, which includes our Group DNA tailored to the needs of the remote workforce.
How to Cope With Empathy Overload at Work
Do you ever feel like people gravitate towards you to vent? If you hear a coworker telling you about how stressed out they are with their workload, do you offer to lend a hand without considering your own priorities? When making decisions, do you carefully consider the potential impact on others?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, chances are you are a highly empathetic person. The past few months have not been easy for the empaths of the world. Between personal circumstances, situations within your close circle and global events, it is easy to experience empathy overload. It's a condition that can have negative consequences in any setting, especially in the workplace.
Empathy at Work
Every workplace needs empathetic people. In fact, it is often considered one of the most important skills for a successful leader to have. The ability to lead and work with others while anticipating their needs and being aware of their feelings has been shown to have a positive influence on job performance. However, without proper self-care, over reliance on a key soft skill can have negative outcomes.
When empathetic individuals experience a lot of emotional hardships at work, it can lead to burnout. This can come from internalizing the stress of others, having to make important decisions, or even taking on the emotional impact of others’ personal lives. This burnout can lead to a person withdrawing from others, avoiding situations that might create an emotional toll on themselves or even lead to the point of physical distress.
Preventing Empathy Overload
Before getting to the point of empathy overload, take some time to implement some of these preventative measures:
- Practice self-care. Find simple ways to relax and decompress after an overwhelming day. Take a walk, read a book, meditate - find what calms you down and allows you to focus on your own wellbeing.
- Compartmentalize what affects you versus what affects others. It is okay to feel empathy towards others, and it is also okay to take a step back and understand what directly impacts you and what does not.
- Take an objective approach to problems. When making workplace decisions, start by taking an objective look at the facts.
- Be okay with saying no. Empathetic people tend to take on things they cannot handle in order to help others out. It is okay to tell others no sometimes in order to preserve your own energy.
- Communicate your own needs. If you are feeling overwhelmed or burned out, ask for help. Whether this involves pushing back timelines, passing off tasks or taking a day off - let your managers and coworkers know when you need an extra hand.
The World Needs Empathetic People
Feeling like you are overwhelmed by others’ emotions is not a sign of weakness. We need more empathetic people - people who will put the concerns of others first, people who will make others feel seen and heard - in the workplace and in the world. By taking care of yourself and implementing healthy empathy practices, you will be more well-equipped to help others.
Want to learn more about your empathy in a professional context? Take our MyPrint soft skills assessment today at www.talentoday.com.
Ask the Right Questions with Talentoday’s Interview Guide
Resumes are the best tools available to hiring managers for evaluating candidates’ hard skills. However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the likelihood of success in a job is dependent on more than just technical qualifications alone. In fact, according to a LinkedIn Global Talent Trends report, “89 percent of recruiters say when a hire doesn’t work out, it usually comes down to a lack of soft skills.” That’s why Talentoday has introduced our Interview Guide, a new tool designed to improve the job interview process with a candidate’s soft skills in mind.
Introducing the Talentoday Interview Guide
Talentoday’s Interview Guide is generated based on an individual’s MyPrint results. After a job candidate completes their soft skills assessment, hiring managers can now access sample interview questions based on behavioral work styles, including:
- Learning Style
- Conflict Management
- Communication
- Decision Making
- Work Style
- Leadership Style
- Creativity
- Risk Orientation
- Team Participation
- Change Reaction
- Rule Consciousness
In short, our Interview Guide brings together key structured questions for all of the behavioral styles found in the MyPrint results specific to a candidate's profile in one easy-to-use format.
When coupled with a soft skills assessment that’s backed by the science of people analytics, structured interviews have proven to be one of the best predictors of future work performance. A clearly defined structured interview process also ensures that the candidate experience remains consistent and unbiased.
How to Use the Interview Guide
This guide is meant to be used alongside the MyPrint One Pager report in order to provide holistic understanding of a candidate's predominant soft skills and help to inform the interview process.
The sample questions provided allow hiring managers to go above and beyond the analysis of the soft skills results in order to zero in on behavioral takeaways. They can help interviews to identify the behaviors that are most relevant to the job description, then support the process of asking for relevant and concrete examples from previous professional experiences. The questions generated in the Interview Guide can be used both in behavioral and structured interview designs.
It’s important to note that the results provided for each candidate should not be utilized as a coaching tool; it is not for those being evaluated, but for the evaluator! Whether being used to gain insight during recruiting interviews or to support development during the annual review process, the interview guide acts as a tool to support decision making driven by the science of soft skills.
Ready to Get Started?
If you’re ready to gain a deeper understanding of your job candidates and improve decision making by asking the right questions, click here to learn more about Talentoday’s Interview Guide. Then, experience Talentoday’s people analytics for yourself by signing up for a free trial.
Welcome to MyPrint: Understanding Your Soft Skills Assessment
The digital world is full of people creating an online persona to market themselves to others in a certain way. Between social media filters, staged photos, and selective sharing of information, what you see is not always the most accurate representation of what a person is truly like. It can be hard to discover your true, unique self, let alone share it with others! That's where utilizing a scientifically-based soft skills assessment can help.
Why are soft skills important?
Here at Talentoday, we love to say that, “Hard skills will get you a job, but your soft skills are what make you great at your job.” Simply said, hard skills are important to get where you want to be in life; earning a degree or certification, gaining work experience, and having the basic knowledge for a position are essential. However, soft skills are the things that will set you apart. How you interact with others, the way you organize yourself and prioritize your work, and being able to adapt to your environment are all examples of soft skills that can lead to career success.
What is MyPrint?
MyPrint is Talentoday’s soft skills assessment that is designed to dive into the personality, motivations, and behaviors that make you unique. The questions are all geared towards the workplace to help you get a better understanding of your soft skills in a professional context.
MyPrint consists of 13 personality dimensions, 11 motivation dimensions, and 11 professional behaviors. The personality and motivation dimensions each have two ends of the scale, called poles, which leads to an output of 26 possible personality traits and 22 different motivators. Each of the professional behaviors has 4 possible styles, leading to information on 44 different behavioral styles. If you’re trying to figure out how many unique results that leads to, we did the math for you: there are over 70.3 trillion possible MyPrint combinations (70,368,744,177,664 to be exact!)
How do I take a MyPrint?
Taking a MyPrint is easier than ever! Simply click here to be taken directly to the registration page. The assessment is free to take, and upon completion you will be able to see your Personality Radar in the application, and your MyPrint One Pager will be available to download.
After you have taken some time to view your results, share them! You have the option to share your MyPrint results to multiple social media channels, including LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
The next time you are looking for a new position, or even looking for more responsibilities or a promotion from your current role, make sure you highlight your soft skills! Use your MyPrint to help showcase the soft skill strengths that make you unique!
Want to learn more about what makes you unique? Visit our website talentoday.com and take a MyPrint assessment today!
How Soft Skills Can Help Students Choose a Major
Making the decision to continue on with your education is a big investment, no matter who you are or what level of education you are pursuing. Even if you are one of the lucky students whose tuition is paid for based on your geographic location or scholarships, the time and work that goes into a successful college career is something that should not be taken lightly.
According to the US Department of Education, 30 percent of students switch majors at least once. Switching majors can be costly and time consuming, so before you just jump into the major that is projected to lead to the highest paying job, here are four steps you can take to make sure it’s the path that is right for you.
Determine which soft skills you already have.
There are so many majors out there that it can be hard to narrow it down. A good place to start is with some self-reflection. Since college is the place to go for the hard skills you will need in your career, one of the best ways to make sure you are choosing the right educational path is to be equipped with the soft skills needed for success.
A good place to start is by thinking of the skills that have made you successful in your previous work and educational experiences. Were you always the organized one in group projects? Maybe your communication skills and patience have helped you in jobs like retail or the service industry. Even the ability to juggle multiple tasks at once can be a key skill that you are already equipped with. Your hard skills will get you the job you are looking for, but those soft skills are what will make you successful in that position.
Which careers need your soft skills?
Once you have taken some time to determine the soft skills that you already possess, a great next step is to find a field or career path that requires those skills. Lucky for you, we have already done some research on this topic at Talentoday! Assessment results from our user database have revealed that there are a lot of soft skills that are transferable across multiple fields. Rather than feeling like your soft skills are narrowing out possibilities, think of them as guiding you in a direction that you will have a natural inclination towards!
Fill in those gaps!
Continuing your education is the time to gain the missing hard skills for your future career, but it’s not too late to develop your soft skills as well. People are dynamic and capable of growth in so many areas of our lives, and your soft skills are no different!
There are a lot of ways that you can work to fill in your soft skill gaps. Being aware of the skills that you want to improve or develop can help you be conscientious about working on those skills. You can also use college to your advantage! Most universities, junior colleges, and online programs offer classes on a variety of topics. Work with an advisor to choose courses that challenge you, rather than opting for ones that already play to your strengths. For example, if you have a knack for research, but have a fear of public speaking, a communication class might be a good fit to begin expanding your soft skills palette.
Take your time.
Lastly, take your time. Although it seems like you need to declare your major immediately, it is okay to do things at your own pace. Most universities will require you to start by taking some general classes of interest before you jump into your declared major. There is no “right” timeline for a decision like this, and it is better to take some time on the front end to make the most of your investment!
Interested in learning more about what soft skills make you unique? Click here to take a MyPrint assessment today!
Are Your Personality Traits Right for Your Career Path?
Long gone are the days of separating “life” and “work” into two separate buckets hoping to achieve some sort of balance. Employers and employees alike are now becoming increasingly aware that the personality traits that make each of us unique at home are the same things that can make us successful in the workplace. This shift has been highlighted as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic further blur the line between professional and personal.
Now, instead of simply checking boxes of required technical abilities and education, job seekers are having to ask themselves deeper questions about their personalities. These questions can include:
“Am I more reserved around new people or do I feel at ease when I’m in the spotlight?”
“Am I comfortable when things are not organized or do I prefer instructions in unfamiliar situations?”
“Do I simply focus on getting a task done or do I take time to focus deeply on the details?”
This amount of self reflection can be overwhelming when there’s a ticking clock for finding work! How can job seekers better understand themselves in order to prepare for the new world of job searching? Thankfully, there is more information than ever to identify which personality traits are more likely to lead to success in a given career path.
Identifying Your Personality Traits
Most job seekers are familiar with the standard questions they’ll likely face in a job interview, such as, “What are your strengths/weaknesses?” However, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of telling meandering stories that are heavy on details but light on proven takeaways.
What hiring managers are really looking for in job interview responses are what are known as, “transferable skills.” These are the types of skills that are not specific to a single industry or role. Rather, transferable skills — such as personality traits — can be used in a variety of settings.
In order to go deeper when identifying your transferable skills, consider taking an assessment backed by science, such as MyPrint®! Supporting anecdotal evidence from your experiences with tools built on data-driven people analytics can add credibility to your claims. Furthermore, the MyPrint assessment evaluates individuals on 13 distinct dimensions of personality, and gives information on 26 total personality traits. Pinpointing your personality traits can help narrow your job search to roles that are more likely to be the right fit for your career.
Popular Fields and Noteworthy Personality Traits
Once you have a better understanding of the personality traits that make you unique, it’s time to connect them to jobs that will allow them to shine! Based on our Talentoday user database, here are the key personality traits that align with 14 of the most in-demand career paths today:
- Administrative: Compliant, Structured, Conventional Thinker, Practical
- Art Design: Imaginative, Spontaneous, Critical-Thinker, Precise
- Education: Empathetic, Modest, Extroverted
- Engineering: Precise, Confident, Determined, Positive, Individualistic
- Finance/Bank/Accounting/Audit: Confident, Positive, Relaxed, Determined, Individualistic
- HR/Purchasing: Positive, Extroverted, Confident, Striving
- Health and Social Care Provider: Empathetic, Extroverted, Imaginative, Big Picture, Striving
- Information Technology: Confident, Relaxed, Positive, Striving
- Legal: Determined, Relaxed, Big Picture, Compliant
- PR/Writing/Editing: Empathetic, Imaginative, Extroverted, Spontaneous
- Production: Positive, Practical, Confident, Extroverted, Striving
- Research Science: Critical-Thinker, Imaginative, Assertive, Big Picture
- Sales: Extroverted, Practical, Positive, Determined, Striving, Patient, Confident
- Security: Confident, Positive, Relaxed, Striving, Assertive, Determined, Practical
Do any of these personality trait groupings sound like you? If they do but you’re currently on another path, it might be the right time to consider a change! With the transferable skills needed for a successful foundation, all that’s left is to fill in the hard skills gaps you may be missing. If you’re currently working in any of the fields above and are lacking some of the soft skills that are prominent in your position, that’s okay too! This is the perfect time to start developing your strengths in the areas critical to your industry.
Are you interested in learning more about the personality traits that make you…you? Click here to take MyPrint and receive a detailed assessment of your unique personality, motivational and behavioral traits! Then, you’ll be able to use that information to connect your unique strengths to today’s most in-demand jobs.