Your self-esteem and personality may determine which job will make you happy.
By
PT Staff, published on September 01, 1993 - last reviewed on June 20, 2006
In a recession, the desperation of job-seekers to accept any
position they can get creates an awful lot of unhappy employees.
Enter Daniel Turban, Ph.D., of the Department of Management at the
University of Missouri. He finds that people with certain personality
traits do better in specific kinds of companies.
Surprisingly, people low in self-esteem do best in larger, more decentralized
firms, Turban reports in the Journal of Applied Psychology. He suggests that, rather than preferring small
firms with less competition, low self-esteemers' lack of confidence in
their abilities leads them to jobs in which they can share
decision-making responsibility rather than take it on themselves.
Folks with a high need for achievement meanwhile seek out a
reward-for-performance environment. They want recognition for their
singular accomplishments—so-called merit pay.
"If there's any choice in the matter, job-hunters should consider
waiting for the right position rather than risk being unhappy, perhaps
for years," says Turban.
And there's another advantage: Knowing their own work styles and
how well they fit within a certain type of company gives workers a more
realistic expectation of potential jobs. "They'll know what to look
for—what they will and won't get—and can hopefully prevent
disappointment and misery."
Tags:
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job search,
job seekers,
journal of applied psychology,
lack of confidence,
performance environment,
personality,
personality traits,
realistic expectation,
right position,
self esteem,
self-esteem,
turban,
unemployment,
unhappy employees,
university of missouri,
work
