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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 35 no. 19. 3rd August 1972
C. Personality
C. Personality
What kind of personality do you think you have?
How do you think other people see you?
Mark the three items which you think describe you most closely.
- Calm - patient, even-tempered, rarely getting upset, even about exams.
- Comforting - fitting in with what others do, one of the group rather than out of step.
- Independent - making your own decisions and going against general opinion if you know you are right.
- Realistic - down-to-earth, rarely swayed by emotions.
- Self-Contained - generally keeping quite in groups, happy with one ot two close friends, not getting too involved in other peoples lives.
- Outgoing - finding it easy to make new friends, enjoying parties and social activities.
- Sensitive - aware of people's feelings and quick to notice if other people are worried or hurt.
Your scoring indicates the relative importance which these aspects of work have in your mind.
Take each one in turn:
| Money— | If this was your highest total you must now consider what you want the money for. To some people, money means security, to others a comfortable life. A very small minority find that earning more money is one of the pleasures of his job. Think about it, and decide what it means to you, and remember that your lifestyle at University has got nothing to do with it. Be sure to get rid of misconceptions. The most highly paid job is as a salesman for an Encyclopaedia firm. Insurance selling is not often a way to make money (the best insurance salesman is the sort whom you think you can trust at first sight). Salesmen usually get a salary, a bonus and the use of a company car, all of which adds up to about the same as the straight salary that the Public Service was willing to pay you. |
| Security— | A secure job is one in a conservative stable organisation, which has a reputation for never firing people. If you work in an organisation like this, you will have the warm feeling that even if you prove that you're incompetent, all that will happen is that you get moved to one of the branches in a country district. Rather dull but if security is important to you, you wont mind the routine. Again, get rid of the misconceptions. The Public Service is secure, sure enoug, but not nearly as secure as some traditional family based native New Zealand Firm, and certainly not as conservative. |
| Of course there are other forms of security but these involve subjective evaluations based on the satisfactory combination of personality, job and working conditions. | |
| Social— | Social satisfaction comes from working with people you like, and feeling that what you do is really worthwhile. Think about your future employer and what line of business he is in, and think carefully. Think about the size of the organisation in general, the bigger it is, the more transient your contacts with people and the leu your chances of getting to know somebody. And, about the organisations objectives: remember there are two ways of defining everything e.g. you can say about an organisation that they're just trying to con people into buying toothpaste or you can say "they're really concerned about tooth decay". |
| Most important, the people you work with: If you are about to start work with an organisation, you might do worse than first to ask whether you can meet a few people working there. Most employers will be happy you showed interest. | |
| Work Itself— | We haven't said anything about the kind of job yet. For a very few people it doesn't matter, so long as the're too busy to think. What you actually do in a job will be satisfying if it fits the kind of person you are - the pattern of traits that are part of you. (These are classified further on into main types.) Besides all this, your personal objectives matter. Graduates in their first job who complain about the routine of wrapping parcels are generally those who aren't committed to the job. Those who are committed don't notice routine, they get satisfaction out of achieving the objectives. |