Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Personality Type [Paperback]

I discovered this book late in my Engineering Executive career. I had experienced most personality types through life's experiences. This book put it all into perspective. With peoples' 16 personality types explained along with their advantages and disadvantages and best fits, it gave me a much better understanding and a new set of tools to fit peoples' strengths and weaknesses into much more coherent teams. And job satisfaction and results soared.

This book remains THE one book I recommend to myself, my kids, and my nieces and nephews. If they're reluctant to read it, direct them to the 10 minute personality test and turn the page to their personality chapter. They're sure to be amazed and comforted by knowing that there's 15 other types all around them, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. And no one can be everything. I believe they need to hear that more today than ever before!

The aunts and uncles also learn something. Hard to imagine a more informed and tolerant set of siblings and in-laws though.

Intéressant pour un professionnel du domaine.Je pourrai proposer des pistes professionnelles à mes clients et leur permettre d'explorer par eux même certaines sections.

Choosing a career based on personality type is not a new concept; in fact, the first edition of DO WHAT YOU ARE was released in 1992 (and I can actually remember reading it when I was a junior in high school). In this, the fourth edition, hopefully even more teens will be exposed to this great resource.

The authors, both experts in personality type and career development, put forth the idea that choosing a career path based on your individual personality will be beneficial to your success. For those worried that discovering your personality type is a difficult process, don't despair, because the authors make it quite easy.

There are four dimensions to personality type:

Whether you are extroverted or introverted.
Whether you notice things by sensing or intuition.
Whether you make decisions by thinking or feeling.
Whether you prefer to live by judging or perceiving.

Once you've discovered the answer to each of these four questions, you'll be able to discover which of the sixteen possible personality types you fall into. Once you do, you can quickly skip to the relevant section in the book.

In my case, my personality is ESTJ - or extroverted, sensing, thinking, judging. According to the authors of DO WHAT YOU ARE, my strengths lie in organization, being objective, working alone, and being a good decision maker. My weaknesses are also outlined, and include impatience with those who don't follow procedures, a tendency to overrun people, and difficulty listening to opposing viewpoints. Some suggestions for careers, based on my personality type, are as a teacher, government employee, sales, supervisor, or a manager.

Of course the above is not a full list of the strengths, weaknesses, or recommended career choices for those whose personality type is ESTJ - the above is merely a sampling. But I can say with truth that DO WHAT YOU ARE can be a great resource for those beginning their search for a career choice. I can agree that ESTJ is definitely my personality type (faults and all!) and have no doubt that this book has the power to help everyone looking to correctly match their strengths to the perfect career.

Reviewed by: Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"