Personality, Intelligence, and culture
You may have a specific education, skill set, and job you are aiming for, however because you are a foreigner without a full-time working visa, your top priority is to obtain a full-time working visa. This may mean having to accept a job that you dislike at a company you do not particularly care for in order to obtain it.
Under these circumstances, not only do you have the difficult task of discerning the required personality factors for the individual job you are applying for, but you also have to discern the degree to which personality factors correlate to the individual job in terms of your target culture. Solving this problem will involve:
- Having a thorough understanding of the desired personality factors for the sector of business you wish to work in.
- Thoroughly reading the job description of the job (the announcement itself and inbetween the lines) to understand exactly what the individual company is looking for in a candidate.
- Having a thorough understanding of the desired personality factors acceptable in your target country.
Personality factors and psychometric evaluators
Humans are complex and diverse, and for a company to require you to ‘define’ yourself in a cover letter and a CV, and then qualify/disqualify you based on that incomplete snapshot is unfair. Therefore the job you are applying for should dictate which part of your personality you reveal to the Human Resource manager and the psychometric evaluator.
The specific measurement used to evaluate you will depend largely on the individual psychologist’s educational background and training, his/her psychological preference, and the job you are being considered for. Before taking any psychometric test, you will be contacted by the psychologist who will be administering the test to set up the test date. If prompted, s/he will give you the name of his/her company, telephone number, and email address. Armed with this information, conduct an intelligence gathering campaign against the testing company and its psychologist to understand his/her school of thought. A correctly guided internet search can yield useful information such as the name of the university where the psychologist attended, any awards, certificates, and affiliations, any complaints made against the psychologist or its agency, or anything else that you can use to your advantage.
Determining your personality factors
Using the same or similar personality profiling techniques The best way to determine effectively prepare yourself for your job hunt is to:
- Take the Myers Briggs personality test and the Machiavelli personality test to get an idea of your dominate personality traits.
- Determine the personality factors required for the job/company/country you want.
CAUTION: As mentioned, being a foreigner trying to survive in a foreign country may require applying for and accepting jobs, or employment with companies you may not necessarily like. On the other hand, you must know who you are, what your goals are, what you want out of the experience, and what you will not settle for. It is one thing to be a single mother who has children to feed and bills to pay, regardless of whether she has the job of her dreams or not, but understand that forcing yourself to drudgingly do a job you do not like without having a defined reason or a long term objective for doing so will not only make you miserable, but your lack of enthusiasm and drive will show in your job, and considering the employer paid nearly 1000€ to sponsor your visa, you will most likely be fired.
If you find yourself in a situation where your options are not exactly what you enjoy doing or what you had in mind, ask yourself these questions:
- What are the long term benefits of this opportunity? Are they worth it?
- Does this job/company ultimately move me closer to reaching my long term goal(s)?
If no, would this job/company put you in a better position to move you closer to reaching your goal(s)? For example:
- Upgrade your visa status so you can become eligible for your desired job.
- Increase your salary so you can take advantage of the currency exchange rate and pay off your student loans and other debts in your home country quicker.
- Provide you with more free time after work so you can focus on finding a better job, traveling, pursuing other hobbies and desires, etc.
- Put you into contact with people who can help you that you never would have been in contact with.
- Provide you with invaluable international working experience which will give you an advantage upon returning to your home country.
- Enrich your work experience by working in complimentary business sectors.
- Etc.
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