«What are you doing for a living?» has long been the first question new acquaintances and potential love partners ask on the first date. You job defines you, in a way, but it could be actually the other way around: You have chosen this vocation because it reflects who you are.

The perfect person for a job

One of the dimensions everyone may be thinking straight away when looking for someone to do a job is how introverted or extraverted they are. Some jobs are better suited for people who love chatting to others, while certain occupations require solitude.

Think a car salesman or a librarian, which type of personality would you view as a better fit? The answer is easy.

A recent research by Australian scientists confirmed that people in certain jobs have very distinct personality profiles.

The scholar analysed a vast amount of data from social media profiles to determine whether there are characteristics that unite people in certain jobs.

Are you in the industry that is right for you?

If the values and personality traits typical for the industry align with your own, it’s a better fit than when there is a mismatch.

The researchers were astounded to discover how close people in the same vocations were to each other in terms of these values.

Peggy Kern from the University of Melbourne pointed out that “never before has there been such large-scale evidence of the distinctive personality profiles that occur across occupations.”

3500 occupations typified

To arrive to such conclusions, scientists checked profiles of over 120 thousand Twitter users doing 3,500 various jobs. Such a giant task wouldn’t be possible to complete without involving using the advantages of artificial intelligence and novel approaches to data analytics.

The patterns revealed were distinct.

Openness to experience, one of the “Big 5” personality traits was typical for programmers, web developers, and scientists, while conscientiousness and agreeability defined the personality of a tennis player.

The findings can be used by career advisors, for instance. The precision of such recommendations via AI has achieved 70%.

But even when the system wasn’t perfectly precise, it wasn’t too far off course and offered occupations with similar sets of core qualities, “For instance, it might suggest a poet becomes a fictional writer, not a petrochemical engineer,” Dr Marian-Andrei Rizoui, another author of the research, noted.

Openness to experience, one of the typical for programmers, web developers, and scientists.

Finding that perfect job

In today’s complex world people spend years in training before they are able to work at a certain occupation. Knowing which profession would be the right fit is important.

For instance, such recommendations could be invaluable for a Ukrainian woman moving to a new country to join her husband and thinking updated her qualification to get a job. Finding the perfect fit that helps an individual to realize who they are is an important component of the quality of life and helps the person to feel happier.

In fact, finding a perfect vocation isn’t too different to finding that perfect partner.

Professor Paul X McCarthy of the University of New South Wales in Sydney pointed out that people often view careers in an over simplistic way where only a few high-paying jobs are seen as prestigious. But there is a possibility for a new approach.

“What if instead — as our new vocation map shows — the truth was closer to dating, where there are in fact a number of roles ideally suited for everyone?

“By better understanding the personality dimensions of different jobs we can find more perfect matches.”

Do you reckon your set of values and personality traits matches what you do for a living? Would you like to meet a woman who has similar personality traits?

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