Holland's Codes
Sunday, November 24, 2013
You know when you are in a job you like. You
also know when the task you're doing just isn't right for you.
What lies behind our feelings of work satisfaction or dissatisfaction
are our fundamental work interests: These are the things that we
enjoy doing, whatever the industry or the job title. The trick to
finding career satisfaction can be to identify those core interests
and match your job to them.
For example, if you're a science person, you may not be happy working
in a job that needs quick decisions, or where you need to use your
"gut" to guide you. Likewise, artistic people would be driven mad in
a profession that has lots of rules and procedures, or which demands
a lot of number crunching.
In a perfect world, we would all choose careers that suit our core
interests. However this is not a perfect world: For all sorts of
reasons, we can find ourselves in positions where what we're doing
just doesn't suit our natural interests and abilities. This is where
understanding how job and personality fit together can help you
change the situation for the better.
Ability and personality are the two main things contribute towards
job satisfaction. You're likely to find that jobs that suit your
ability and personality are much more rewarding than those that
don't. Here we look at your work interests – an important part of
your work personality.
Understanding the Theory: Holland's Codes
In the 1970s John Holland developed a popular theory of interest
development based around these six personality types:
1. Realistic (R)
These are people who like well-ordered activities, or enjoy working with objects, tools, and machines.
Realistic people:
See themselves as mechanically or athletically talented, but may not
be good with people.
Value concrete and tangible things like – money, power, and status.
Avoid "social" activities, those that need interaction with other
people.
Common traits:
Hard-headed, inflexible, persistent, materialistic, practical, and genuine.
2. Investigative (I)
Investigative people like activities that involve creative
investigation of the world or nature.
Investigative people:
See themselves as highly intelligent, but often lack leadership
skills.
Value scientific endeavors.
Avoid activities that seem mundane, commercial or "enterprising".
Common traits:
Analytical, curious, pessimistic, intellectual, precise, and
reserved.
3. Artistic (A)
Artistic people like unstructured activities, and enjoy using materials to create art.
Artistic people:
See themselves as talented artists.
Value aesthetics.
Avoid "conventional" occupations or situations.
Common traits:
Idealistic, complicated , introspective, sensitive, impractical and
nonconformist.
4. Social (S)
Social people enjoy informing, training, developing, curing and
enlightening others.
Social people:
Perceive themselves as helpful, understanding and able to teach
others.
Value social activities.
Avoid activities demanded by "realistic" occupations and situations.
Common traits:
Generous, patient, emphatic, tactful, persuasive, and cooperative.
5. Enterprising (E)
These people enjoy reaching organizational goals or achieving
economic gain.
Enterprising people:
See themselves as aggressive, popular, great leaders and speakers,
but may lack scientific ability.
Value political and economic achievement.
Avoid activities demanded by "investigative" occupations and
situations.
Common traits:
Extroverted, adventurous, optimistic, ambitious, sociable, and
exhibitionistic.
6. Conventional (C)
Conventional people enjoy manipulating data, record keeping, filing,
reproducing materials, and organizing written or numerical data.
Conventional people:
See themselves as having clerical and numerical ability.
Value business and economic achievement.
Avoid unstructured or "artistic" activities.
Common traits:
Efficient, practical, conscientious, inflexible, defensive, and methodical.
The Model
Holland then arranged these six personality types into a hexagon (see
figure 1, below) organized according to people's preference for
working with different stimuli at work: people, data, things, and
ideas. Holland's theory is that people with different personality
types prefer working with different work stimuli, and that the
distance between work personalities indicates the degree of
difference in interests between them. For example Artistic people are
least like Conventional people and most like Social and Investigative
people.
Reproduced by special permission of the Publisher, Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc., 16204 North Florida Avenue, Lutz, FL 33549, from Making Vocational Choices , Third Edition, Copyright 1973, 1985, 1992, 1997 by Psychological Resources, Inc. All rights reserved.
Holland's conclusion was that for any personality type, the career
most aligned with that type is most likely to be enjoyable and
satisfying. For example, a Realistic person would be best suited for
a Technical job and least suited for Social job. Jobs with
Conventional or Operational characteristics would be the next best
choices.
The way that this works in practice is that people use a
personality test to identify their three top personality types. This
gives their Holland's code (for example, ESA). This is then matched
against the Holland's codes of people typically found within
particular careers.
How to Use Holland Codes Career Model
There are two good ways of using this model – either in helping you
choose a career that suits you, or in helping you shape your existing
job so that you maximize your fulfillment. To find your ideal career
according to this approach, just complete steps i and ii below. To
shape your job, use our complete process.
Using Holland's Codes is a straightforward process, which is made all
the easier by some useful online interest evaluation sites.
Part One: Identify your work personality
Step i: Read through the brief descriptions given above and find the
one you most identify with. You may want to take an official Holland
Code Assessment – you can do this by taking the Self-Directed-Search .
Try it: Does the assessment say what you thought it would? If it doesn't, ask yourself why: Often we choose a personality type that
reflects who we want to be, not who we really are. (If so, learn from
this!)
Tip 1:
Do try the online test – it will show you the careers and professions that most suit your code once you've completed it. This can save you a huge amount of painstaking research!
Step ii: To further explore your "true" work personality, ask
yourself, "How would my spouse, family, and friends categorize me?"
Show some of your friends and co-workers descriptions of the types
and ask them to categorize you. Here again, explore any differences
between your assessment of yourself and theirs.
Part Two: Analyze your job in terms of your interests
Step iii: Look at your main tasks and responsibilities. Are they
aligned with your work personality?
Step iv: List those responsibilities that are aligned in one column
and those that are not in another. Use this to decide whether your
job is a good fit for your interests or not.
Step v: For each of the job roles where your interests are not well
matched, work out at least one way of bringing the two sides
together. For instance, if you are a "Conventional" person working in
an administrative position, many of your roles will be in-line with
your interests. However, if you were asked to organize the Christmas
party, you might be very uncomfortable about deciding about
decorations, entertainment, and so on. These are more Artistic
responsibilities, which are directly opposite to your Conventional
ways. One strategy to deal with this is to delegate the Artistic
tasks and assume responsibility for making sure the tasks get done.
You maintain the Administrative duties and get rid of the Artistic
ones.
Part Three: Set goals to bring your interests and responsibilities in
line
Step vi: The best way of making sure that something gets done is to
set a specific, time limited goal. Identify two or three of the most
important problem areas, and set realistic goals to change things.
Tip 2:
Remember that this is a model – it's a useful way of looking at
things, but it can't possibly capture all of the complexities of the
ways that people behave at work. Make sure that you interpret any
conclusions with common sense.
Tip 3:
Also bear in mind that as you develop in your career you'll need to
extend your skills into new areas. In particular, as you take
responsibility for people and then move upwards within an
organization, you need to develop the "Social" ability to work with
other people, as well as other skills that normally go with other
personality types (if you're going to be a CEO, there's a lot of
"Conventional" work that you just have to do, and do well.)
Key Points
Holland's Career Codes provides a useful framework for exploring your personal interests and the careers most likely to suit you.
Every occupation requires a particular set of characteristics. By identifying your particular interests you can quickly uncover the parts of your job that give your satisfaction. Likewise, you can identify areas of dissatisfaction and help you plan how to address these. This helps you develop your career in the right direction – one that will be a source of long-term fulfillment.
Tags:
Career Skills, Skills
also know when the task you're doing just isn't right for you.
What lies behind our feelings of work satisfaction or dissatisfaction
are our fundamental work interests: These are the things that we
enjoy doing, whatever the industry or the job title. The trick to
finding career satisfaction can be to identify those core interests
and match your job to them.
For example, if you're a science person, you may not be happy working
in a job that needs quick decisions, or where you need to use your
"gut" to guide you. Likewise, artistic people would be driven mad in
a profession that has lots of rules and procedures, or which demands
a lot of number crunching.
In a perfect world, we would all choose careers that suit our core
interests. However this is not a perfect world: For all sorts of
reasons, we can find ourselves in positions where what we're doing
just doesn't suit our natural interests and abilities. This is where
understanding how job and personality fit together can help you
change the situation for the better.
Ability and personality are the two main things contribute towards
job satisfaction. You're likely to find that jobs that suit your
ability and personality are much more rewarding than those that
don't. Here we look at your work interests – an important part of
your work personality.
Understanding the Theory: Holland's Codes
In the 1970s John Holland developed a popular theory of interest
development based around these six personality types:
1. Realistic (R)
These are people who like well-ordered activities, or enjoy working with objects, tools, and machines.
Realistic people:
See themselves as mechanically or athletically talented, but may not
be good with people.
Value concrete and tangible things like – money, power, and status.
Avoid "social" activities, those that need interaction with other
people.
Common traits:
Hard-headed, inflexible, persistent, materialistic, practical, and genuine.
2. Investigative (I)
Investigative people like activities that involve creative
investigation of the world or nature.
Investigative people:
See themselves as highly intelligent, but often lack leadership
skills.
Value scientific endeavors.
Avoid activities that seem mundane, commercial or "enterprising".
Common traits:
Analytical, curious, pessimistic, intellectual, precise, and
reserved.
3. Artistic (A)
Artistic people like unstructured activities, and enjoy using materials to create art.
Artistic people:
See themselves as talented artists.
Value aesthetics.
Avoid "conventional" occupations or situations.
Common traits:
Idealistic, complicated , introspective, sensitive, impractical and
nonconformist.
4. Social (S)
Social people enjoy informing, training, developing, curing and
enlightening others.
Social people:
Perceive themselves as helpful, understanding and able to teach
others.
Value social activities.
Avoid activities demanded by "realistic" occupations and situations.
Common traits:
Generous, patient, emphatic, tactful, persuasive, and cooperative.
5. Enterprising (E)
These people enjoy reaching organizational goals or achieving
economic gain.
Enterprising people:
See themselves as aggressive, popular, great leaders and speakers,
but may lack scientific ability.
Value political and economic achievement.
Avoid activities demanded by "investigative" occupations and
situations.
Common traits:
Extroverted, adventurous, optimistic, ambitious, sociable, and
exhibitionistic.
6. Conventional (C)
Conventional people enjoy manipulating data, record keeping, filing,
reproducing materials, and organizing written or numerical data.
Conventional people:
See themselves as having clerical and numerical ability.
Value business and economic achievement.
Avoid unstructured or "artistic" activities.
Common traits:
Efficient, practical, conscientious, inflexible, defensive, and methodical.
The Model
Holland then arranged these six personality types into a hexagon (see
figure 1, below) organized according to people's preference for
working with different stimuli at work: people, data, things, and
ideas. Holland's theory is that people with different personality
types prefer working with different work stimuli, and that the
distance between work personalities indicates the degree of
difference in interests between them. For example Artistic people are
least like Conventional people and most like Social and Investigative
people.
Reproduced by special permission of the Publisher, Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc., 16204 North Florida Avenue, Lutz, FL 33549, from Making Vocational Choices , Third Edition, Copyright 1973, 1985, 1992, 1997 by Psychological Resources, Inc. All rights reserved.
Holland's conclusion was that for any personality type, the career
most aligned with that type is most likely to be enjoyable and
satisfying. For example, a Realistic person would be best suited for
a Technical job and least suited for Social job. Jobs with
Conventional or Operational characteristics would be the next best
choices.
The way that this works in practice is that people use a
personality test to identify their three top personality types. This
gives their Holland's code (for example, ESA). This is then matched
against the Holland's codes of people typically found within
particular careers.
How to Use Holland Codes Career Model
There are two good ways of using this model – either in helping you
choose a career that suits you, or in helping you shape your existing
job so that you maximize your fulfillment. To find your ideal career
according to this approach, just complete steps i and ii below. To
shape your job, use our complete process.
Using Holland's Codes is a straightforward process, which is made all
the easier by some useful online interest evaluation sites.
Part One: Identify your work personality
Step i: Read through the brief descriptions given above and find the
one you most identify with. You may want to take an official Holland
Code Assessment – you can do this by taking the Self-Directed-Search .
Try it: Does the assessment say what you thought it would? If it doesn't, ask yourself why: Often we choose a personality type that
reflects who we want to be, not who we really are. (If so, learn from
this!)
Tip 1:
Do try the online test – it will show you the careers and professions that most suit your code once you've completed it. This can save you a huge amount of painstaking research!
Step ii: To further explore your "true" work personality, ask
yourself, "How would my spouse, family, and friends categorize me?"
Show some of your friends and co-workers descriptions of the types
and ask them to categorize you. Here again, explore any differences
between your assessment of yourself and theirs.
Part Two: Analyze your job in terms of your interests
Step iii: Look at your main tasks and responsibilities. Are they
aligned with your work personality?
Step iv: List those responsibilities that are aligned in one column
and those that are not in another. Use this to decide whether your
job is a good fit for your interests or not.
Step v: For each of the job roles where your interests are not well
matched, work out at least one way of bringing the two sides
together. For instance, if you are a "Conventional" person working in
an administrative position, many of your roles will be in-line with
your interests. However, if you were asked to organize the Christmas
party, you might be very uncomfortable about deciding about
decorations, entertainment, and so on. These are more Artistic
responsibilities, which are directly opposite to your Conventional
ways. One strategy to deal with this is to delegate the Artistic
tasks and assume responsibility for making sure the tasks get done.
You maintain the Administrative duties and get rid of the Artistic
ones.
Part Three: Set goals to bring your interests and responsibilities in
line
Step vi: The best way of making sure that something gets done is to
set a specific, time limited goal. Identify two or three of the most
important problem areas, and set realistic goals to change things.
Tip 2:
Remember that this is a model – it's a useful way of looking at
things, but it can't possibly capture all of the complexities of the
ways that people behave at work. Make sure that you interpret any
conclusions with common sense.
Tip 3:
Also bear in mind that as you develop in your career you'll need to
extend your skills into new areas. In particular, as you take
responsibility for people and then move upwards within an
organization, you need to develop the "Social" ability to work with
other people, as well as other skills that normally go with other
personality types (if you're going to be a CEO, there's a lot of
"Conventional" work that you just have to do, and do well.)
Key Points
Holland's Career Codes provides a useful framework for exploring your personal interests and the careers most likely to suit you.
Every occupation requires a particular set of characteristics. By identifying your particular interests you can quickly uncover the parts of your job that give your satisfaction. Likewise, you can identify areas of dissatisfaction and help you plan how to address these. This helps you develop your career in the right direction – one that will be a source of long-term fulfillment.
