Holland’s self-directed assessment booklet allowed me to complete an exercise that demonstrated my personality type. The basic premise of Holland’s theory is that work is an expression of people’s personalities, so people will tend to seek work in environments that fit their personality types. Holland’s theory is summarized in the following statements: 1. In our culture, most persons can be categorized as one of six types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, or Conventional. 2. There are six model environments: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, or Conventional. 3. People search for environments that will let them exercise their skills and abilities, express their attitudes and values, and take on agreeable problems and roles.
Behavior is determined by an interaction between personality and environment. (Holland, 1992) The assessment groups people into six personality types; Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, enterprising, conventional. These six types were developed by asking people about their interests, and since interests and personality are closely related, he was able to define the personalities and then build the test to help users select which personality type they were. The assessment allows users to be grouped into more than one category, as most people have some level of overlap in the different groups and uses the three most predominant ones to predict the correct occupational area for the user. I used the test to find out that my most dominating personality trait was enterprising, followed by conventional followed by social.
Personally I found this exercise of little value, but this is most likely due to the career stage that I am currently in. I have been working in marketing management for nearly 10 years, so the majority of my skills and interests lie in this area. Many of