TypeFocus - What's Your Type and Why is it Useful???

Self-assessments can help you identify likes and dislikes in terms of your interests, skills and preferred work environments. In addition, they can also assist you in understanding your strengths and weaknesses, values and beliefs. They are really the foundation of the career planning process. 

Results from self-assessments allow you to get to know yourself better and can address areas for growth, understand what jobs might satisfy you, improve teamwork, increase self-acceptance, and communicate effectively with others. Self-assessments, such as TypeFocus, help generate job titles and career options based on your interests, values, and personality and provide focus for your job search.  

TypeFocus helps you answer the question “who am I, really?” by providing you with four “type factor” preferences:
 

•       Introvert/Extrovert: what captures your attention (inner vs outer world)

•         Where does your energy come from?

•         Being an introvert, for example, does not necessarily mean you are a shy person. It means that you likely draw your energy from within yourself rather than from others. After a long and exhausting day at work and school, an introvert would want to go home and rest, alone, in a quiet setting. An extrovert in this same situation would likely prefer to go out with friends for the night to unwind.

•         Sensing/Intuitive: how you learn about your world (through your experiences vs meaning behind experience)

•         Thinking/Feeling: how you make decisions (logical, factual vs feelings, consequences)

•         Judging/Perceiving: how you approach life (focus on organized vs spontaneous)

•         Judging in this case, does not mean judgmental. It means that you prefer a planned and organized workplace. In contrast, someone who is perceiving prefers a spontaneous workplace and tends to “go with the flow”

Access TypeFocus through CareerZone under the “Resources” tab and take the assessment to find out your “type” (your 4-letter code). If you are not fully satisfied with your results, or you don’t feel it is a good fit for who you are, read through the other types to see if one of them is more like you. Make sure you are comfortable and satisfied with your “type” and then proceed through the Career Planning process using that “type” as a guide. Based on your results, you can move onto to the “Research” phase of the Career Planning process!

Jami Coughler, Senior Career Assistant

4th Year Public Health [Honours]

BA: Sociology [Honours] '11