Part 1: The Cafeteria Experiment

Now that you have sense of how Holland has defined his work personality types, here is an activity that will help you determine which of these types are relevant to you. The following is an activity designed to help define your work personalities and was adapted from “The Party Exercise” from What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Bolles.

The Experiment

Make an empty list with three spaces numbered 1 through 3.

Imagine that you are in a cafeteria, where different groups of people are sitting at six separate tables. Each table is labeled with one of the personality types from this chapter: R for realistic, I for investigative, A for artistic, S for social, E for enterprising and C for conventional. The people at each table have personalities dominated by the labeled type.

You have to choose which table to sit at. You can’t sit in between the tables or in the middle of the cafeteria. Review the personality definitions above and think about which personality type you would most like to sit with. Record this letter next to the number one on your list.

The people you are sitting with at the table all decide they are leaving the cafeteria after fifteen minutes and the table will be folded up and put away. You must choose to join a second table. What would be your second choice now that your first one has been eliminated? List a second choice next to number two on the list you have created.

After fifteen minutes, the people you are sitting with at the second table decide to get up and leave as well. This table will be folded up and put away. You will now have to choose a third table to sit at. Think about the work personality types available, and then think which would be your next choice? Remember, the prior two are no longer available. What table would you choose? List the third choice next to the number three on your list.

Using Mike’s list of work personalities as an example, we see his work code:
1. S
2. I
3. A
His work code is SIA and it shows that Mike’s dominant work personality type is Social.

Now create your own work personality code, which would be your top three choices listed in ranked order. Make a note of your code because it will be referenced throughout the remainder of this process.

Part 2: Work Personality Job Analysis

For this assignment you should think back to your interests, skills and values to see how they relate with your work personality type. Use the work you have done in the other sections to help create a list of five jobs you believe would suit you. Consider all of the areas we have covered up to this point. You should put your work personality type and work personality code at the top, and then list the five jobs.