Career Assessment
Holland Type Description | Assessment | Career Search

Holland's personality types and career choice

The Career Key™ is based on John Holland's theory of vocational choice. At its simplest, this theory proposes, "Birds of the same feather flock together." In other words, people like to be around others who have similar personalities. In choosing a career, it means that people choose jobs where they can be around other people who are like them.

It is the best known and most widely researched theory on this topic. Many career counselors use it. Understanding it will help you make sense of your Career Key scores and how they are related to career choice.

The theory can be summarized in six statements:

1. In our culture, most persons are one of six personality types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional.
   
   
2. People of the same personality tend to "flock together." For example, Artistic people are attracted to making friends and working with Artistic people.
   
   
3. People of the same personality type working together in a job create a work environment that rewards creative thinking and behavior — an Artistic environment.
   
   
4. There are six basic types of work environments: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional.
   
   
5. People who choose to work in an environment similar to their personality type are more likely to be successful and satisfied:

   You   Your Personality Type		Career Compatible Work Environment

   Realistic     Investigative     Artistic     Social     Enterprising     Conventional

   Matched with

   Realistic          Investigative          Artistic          Social          Enterprising          Conventional

   will likely lead to success and satisfaction

   
   
   
6. How you act and feel at work depends to a large extent on your workplace environment. If you are working with people who have a personality type like yours, you will be able to do many of the things they can do, and you will feel most comfortable with them.

How is this related to the scores you receive on the Career Key?

It means that you probably should choose the occupation whose type is the same as, or similar to, your personality type. For example, imagine that your highest score on the Career Key is for the Realistic type. Looking at the table below, you can see that the most compatible job environment is Realistic. This would suggest that you choose from the jobs that are in the Realist group. Or, you might choose from the jobs that fall in the Investigative or Conventional category.

Compatibility Type
Your Personality Type	Most Compatible	Compatible
Realistic	Realistic	Investigative & Conventional
Investigative	Investigative	Realistic & Artistic
Artistic	Artistic	Investigative & Social
Social	Social	Artistic & Enterprising
Enterprising	Enterprising	Social & Conventional
Conventional	Conventional	Enterprising & Realistic

Most people, in reality, are a combination of types like Realistic Investigative, or Artistic-Social. Therefore, you will probably want to consider occupations in more than one category.

According to the theory, then, you are most likely to choose a satisfying job if you choose one that fits your personality type.