Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Personality Type Hardcover – January 1, 2001

As a fairly recent college graduate, I found myself experiencing the dreaded quarter-life crisis...I knew I didn't like my job and really had no idea to fix it. Up until reading the book I just sort of had fantasies about other jobs that I didn't know much about and in general had no idea how to make a decision. I was frozen in fear both unhappy but fearful of making a bad career decision. I overheard a coworker talking about the book and made a mental note and ordered it on amazon shortly thereafter.Pros:1. MBTI description instead of test...a couple reviewers said this was a con. I absolutely disagree. The test relies on your own accounts of preferences/behavior and can be influenced by who you want to be and not who you actually are. It does not ensure an accurate result. The book warns about this and if you're honest with yourself the book is more than enough to get you to the right answer because it describes actual real-life behaviors that are easy to identify with. For example, I tested as a Judger in a Myers-Briggs test because it means you're organized and on top of things but after reading the book, I could not deny being a Perceiver after reading a recount of how both personalities react to a pile of mail. It really forced me to face reality and I found it to be much more accurate than a test!2. It gives you the ten most important things to people with your personality type. Its a great way to evaluate a new position you're considering and helps you refine the questions you need to ask your interviewer and yourself before you consider taking the job.3. It also gives suggestions of how to make your current job more enjoyable if you are not as fulfilled as you could be and do not have the ability to change positions.4. It gives you a list of jobs to consider and you can use this with another resource (such as the book discussed below or a career counselor) to whittle down to the jobs that are the best fit for all dimensions of you as a person (including values, skills etc).Cons:There are two dimensions in this book that are covered in others:1. In addition to your personality, there are a number of other dimensions that are important in finding a career that will last including, skills, values etc. that other books cover in a very comprehensive manner.2. It does not give very comprehensive advice about going about your job search as compared to other more comprehensive resources.I think this book is great to lead you in the right direction and help you learn about yourself and then once you have the ball rolling, a great resource as a supplement is The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success. This book is writen by a career counselor and takes the reader through the exercises he would do with his clients. It covers how to separate needs from wants, identifying your skillset and the sorts of jobs that would be a good match etc.It took me awhile after getting these two books and reading them, but in the next couple years I actually transitioned into a new career and I could not be more happy. After doing a job that is natural and comfortable to my personality I could not even imagine going back to my previous career! Really great read and I recommend it to anyone who has the fortune (or misfortune) of talking to me about careers!

If you enjoy people, and love learning what makes different people tick (or why some people are so "weird"), this is the book for you. Beyond just Meyers-Briggs testing, the authors go into other nuances of personality to give further insights. Two people who have the same personality type are still different and unique because their temperaments can be different. Many personality typing systems tend to put people in a "box." The problem with that is, we don't fit into "boxes." Life events and various circumstances bring out different elements of our personality, and can change us. This book takes those things into account. A friend let me borrow her copy of this book. I had to buy one so I can mark it up! I see my friends and family members in its pages and will be sharing some insights from the book with those who are unhappy with their jobs/careers and can't seem to find their next pursuit.

This book suggests that it'll help you with career choices, which may be true to a point... but if you've spent any time reading MBTI profiles, then you basically already know and have read more than once just about everything that's in this book.I was looking for more concrete, day to day guidance on career-building. Instead, this is once again a "here's the type of work that you'll be interested in" treatment, without invoking specific job titles, companies and corporations with the right cultures, day-to-day tactics in the office for working through the power structures to get where you need to be, or anything else that's actionable beyond "I am an X so I should 'become' something like a Y at a company that's like Z."Well, gosh, that's great—now how do I get there in the real world, given my own personality and the personalities of the others that I have to work with. Which companies are the right ones? What's the right strategy to work through bosses, superiors, educators with opposite personality characteristics? What concrete actions are likely to be self-defeating and what's the best way to play to my strengths, day-to-day, along the way?I mean, sure, I already know I'll be interested in "jobs that..." I have that personality. I don't need a book to tell me that those sound good to me. What I need is help with the journey from square-peg-round-hole to square-peg-square-hole, not just the notion that "hey, you're a square peg, you'd probably like a square hole."I'm not sure precisely what I was expecting, but I suppose I was expecting something more than what's already widely available if you Google for a few minutes.Still, if you haven't yet gone down the personality vs. jobs rabbit-hole, this book could well be useful for you as a first exposure to the concept that particular personality types tend to appreciate particular careers—though beware that since it treats a number of different personality types, the percentage of the pages that actually apply to you will be a sliver of the total page count.

Good book

If you've done any Myers Briggs questionnaires before then this won't tell you anything you don't already know. Was useful as a reminder though