Individual Personality Profile of Human Resource Management - Term Paper Example

Individual Personality Profile Introduction There is no other task difficult for me on this planet than describing my own self despite the fact that I have seen 23 winters until this point in time. Being a student of third year of university, I am very dedicated to my studies and always try my best to make sure that my result should show that the degree of effort that I put in for my work. (This place is for you to write something personal about you, such as hobbies, or anything personal in 2-3 lines) This paper mainly focuses on my explorations about my own self. The first section of this paper contains my results of Personality tests, namely “Big Five Personality Model,” Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Self-monitoring test, and more importantly RIASEC test. The next step includes presenting these results in such a way that the reader can understand and draw an overall picture of mine in his or her mind. Moreover, analyzing those results, finding co-relations and contradictions within them is also an important agenda of the fist section of this paper. The second section of this paper would jump from my specific personality to my career that is very much Human Resource Management. The rest of this section would be discussing HRM as field, the knowledge, abilities, skills, other characteristics required for an HR job. This section would also shed some lights on the general job specifications, job design, and job descriptions of an HR person. At the end of this section, the reader would be have an absolute idea about what HRM is, and more importantly, about the requirements of this job. The third and the last section of this paper would be all about the incorporation, integration, and combination of the two former sections of this paper. This section would try to relate my personality, based on the personality test results, to my job requirements. This section would try to explore the degree to which my personality suits the HR job requirements. Moreover, it would also highlight the areas and elements where there is match or mismatch between my job and my personality. Moreover, the section would also include highlighting of my key strengths and challenges faced regarding the job requirements. In addition, this section would also describe some ways of overcoming these challenges. Lastly, under the same heading would be the insights gained from this project, which would also close the paper, as it would be also be the conclusion for this paper as well. Section 1 – Understanding Yourself Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) This is the most commonly used psychometric test in form of a questionnaire that helps the evaluator to conclude that how the individual perceives and judges people, his or her decision making process and the overall make up of personality. This test actually tries to classify individuals as either Extraverts or Introverts (E versus I), either Sensing or Intuitive (S versus N), either thinkers or feelings (T versus F), and either Judgers or Perceivers (J versus P). The results can be one of the sixteen personality types (Bayne, pp. 14-16). My result for this test indicated that I am an “INTJ” personality type, that is, I am an Introvert, Intuitive, thinker, and judgers. These people are imaginative and respect originality, knowledge, competence, strategic planning, in their own ideas and purposes. In fact, experts view this personality type as most independent as compared to the rest of the fifteen types. Since these people are introverts and rely on their intuition, they put a lot of their energy in observing and outside world and generating new ideas. They not only keep on making associations about those ideas but also continuously generate new ones as well. However, due to the judging element present, they tend to jump onto conclusions. Moreover, they tend to spend most on their time in applying those ideas foe usefulness of others rather than thinking and understanding it. In addition, INTJ have all the potential of becoming good leaders but they prefer working from the back until and unless there is an immense need of them stepping and taking the charge. Despite the fact that INTJ leaders would not be much sociable, happening and expressive but they still prove out to be great leaders because of their quality of absorbing and understanding outside knowledge and generating new ideas from them. In addition, they can absorb difficult technical and theoretical material (Wilson, pp. 112-123). As said above, they are great performers since they are always logical and rational. However, on the darker side of the picture, people may have problems in understanding an INTJ. Since they do not tend to express much, people may perceive them as stubborn and rigid (Paul, pp. 68-74). Moreover, extreme stressful situations can lead them to sensation activities, drug abuse, or over-drinking. Quite understandably, the profile of an INTJ fits best for scientists, lawyers, engineers, teachers, corporate strategists, military leaders, business managers, and computer analysts (John, pp. 29). Amongst the leading and famous INTJs are Plato, Isaac Newton, James K. Polk, Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, Calvin Coolidge, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Chester A. Arthur, Collin Powell, Albert Speer, and others (Knights & Willmott, pp. 14-18). Self-Monitoring Test Ask people about their first day at school, college or may be their job and ask them how long it took them to adjust into that new environment. People who tend to adjust quickly face fewer problems and the ones who fail in the same and are the ones who are the “problematic” ones. In the rapidly changing world of today, adapting to newer situations, disguising appropriately with changing environments and having low correlation between “what you are” and “how you behave” is extremely important (Bryon, pp. 74-78). People who do the same are “high self monitors” and others are “low self monitors.” Experts have actually designed a test to measure and comment on one’s self monitoring ability. This contains 18 situations, and the respondent has to identify that whether the mentioned behavior or attitude relates to the respondent’s behavior or attitude in the same situation (Bayne, pp. 74-78). With a specific formula of calculating and awarding the points, the individual gets to know that whether he or she is high self monitor or not. Any score above 12 indicates the same (Carter, pp. 39-41). However, my score for this test is around eight, which indicates significantly low self-monitoring ability. Experts are of the view that these are the high self-monitors who receive higher performance ratings, more promotions and are more likely to occupy central and leadership positions. Despite the fact that this score is not according to my expectations but still it is very much in line and concurrent with the MBTI result of INTJ personality type. Since INTJ’s are introverts, you can expect them to be composed and less sensitive to the external stimuli. Furthermore, their characteristic of being a thinker, judger and intuitive person all of these, to some extent, make them an individual who stays inside him or herself for most of the time and makes lesser contact in terms of adaptation and communication with the outside world. Therefore, my score of eight, which reflects less self-monitoring ability, is understandable in light of MBTI. Big Five-Model Test The Big Five Personality Model is amongst the most “talked” personality tests in the corporate sector. In fact, researchers use it to a lot of extent for describing different dimensions of one’s personality. As the name suggests, this test assumes that an individual has five important dimensions of personality named as “Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability or Neuroticism and openness to experience” (Tosi & Mero, pp. 142-148). People who rank high on extraversion are those who are sociable and prefer to be around people all the time. People who score low on this scale tend to remain reserved, alone and do not like others to spoil their privacy. My score on this part was eight, which is quite understandable since the two of the previous tests have marked me as an introvert person. The second factor is of agreeableness and people, who are warm, compassionate, polite, and cooperative, tend to avoid conflict and are over conscious in this regard score high on this scale. I scored twenty-six on this scale indicating that I am quite an agreeable person. However, INTJs show high levels of agreeableness because they are people who take their time in accepting and using the ideas of others since they generate plenty of their own ideas by observing and being intuitive thinkers. Either this indicates a mismatch from my side or there is inconsistency in these tests. The third factor is conscientiousness means the degree to which a person is well organized, planned, and persistent and strives to achieve the fixed goals. I have a score of thirty-one on this scale indicating that I would like to develop higher job knowledge, work hard and would strive for higher levels of job performance. Neuroticism or Emotional stability is the fourth factor, which indicates the capability of a person to remain, clam, composed, secure, confident, and optimistic under all conditions (Mullins, 29-30). Research has shown that people who show high scores in this regard tend to remain happier than people who have low emotional stability levels. These people seem to be more satisfied with their lives and jobs than compared to the other category and they take lesser stress as well thus increasing their efficiency. Higher scores on this scale show that the individual is highly unstable in emotional regards. My score is around ten thus indicating that I am emotionally stable. However, for people who score less on self-monitoring it becomes difficult to continue these scores on both these scores because eventually one score would have to change. The last factor is openness to experience, which indicates the entrepreneurial ability of a person to be creative, curious, and good adapters of change (Bryon, 24-27). My score on this scale was twenty-three which is very near to the median score of twenty-four. Despite the fact that this score shows low openness to experience but with a self monitoring score of only eight, I was expecting a very low score in this scale as well but twenty four seems to be a little too much. RIASEC Test For the past many decades, recruiters used these personality tests for making their hiring decisions. They usually remained in search of the individuals who match the job tasks. However, more recently, these recruiters have changed their approach (Hoffman, 10-14). Now, they do not want individuals whose personalities perfectly suit the related job descriptions however, now they look for people who have the ability to assimilate and adapt the job descriptions more quickly (Robbins & Judge, 52-57). This shift from “finding perfect match” to “flexibility” is result of efforts of John Holland’s Personality-Job Fit theory. Holland also developed the Vocational Preference Inventory Questionnaire containing around 160 occupations (Robbins & Judge, 52-57). The answers of like and dislike of the questions lead to forming an hexagonal shape having six types of personality on its six sides namely, realistic, investigative, social, conventional, enterprising and artistic. Mainly, this theory has roots in the idea that one needs to find the person with a personality parallel to the occupation in order to increase performance and decrease turnover. My answer for this test was in the order of “SRECIA.” Quite surprisingly, this test tells that I am a sociable person and jobs like teacher, social worker, doctor, and counselor suit me the most. However, all the tests taken above have repeatedly told me that I am an introvert. Moreover, if not social jobs then jobs, which are artistic and realistic in nature, would suit me the most. However, I was expecting my best match to be investigative jobs since they best suit people who are introverts, thinkers, and intuitive people. Section 2 – Understanding your work As far as my work and future field is concerned, I am very much interested in pursing my career in human resource management. Almost every firm these days have human resource department having the four main functions of staffing, recruiting, training and development and reward and compensation (Johns & Saks, pp. 13-15). The have the tough job of handling all the work place related issues in the organization. Right from giving an advertisement in the newspaper to hire an individual until deciding on firing him at any point in time all the decisions come from HR department. They also are responsible for looking into the labor laws, grievances, compensation and salaries and training arrangements for the firm (Johns & Saks, pp. 13-15). It is important for an HR manager to have the knowledge of all the HR and personnel functions firstly. Moreover, it is also important for him to have ample knowledge about management and administration functions, English language, and tricks of trade of customer service, labor laws, and related legislation. Moreover, an HR person should have a great deal of knowledge regarding human behavior, psychology and organizational behavior. In addition, they knowledge of training methods, mathematics and sociology is also vital. Moreover, knowledge regarding technology is also important because recently many HR activities are happening with computer software. HR mangers have to have good communication skills since they have to deal with people. Their job also demands a great degree of listening ability and written expertise as well. More importantly, these people have to work like idea generating machines and must be strategic thinkers. Thinking strategically and viewing the picture in a boarder perspective is very much important for HR people since human resource planning which is an important task of HR people bases entirely on these things. In short, these people also have to good observers since they have to observe the people who are working. Also, research shows that their jobs requires integrity, stress handling capability, good leadership qualities, flexibility, concern for others, and cooperation. Section 3 – Integration and Insights The time has come to actually compare the information from the above two sections. Considering the RIASEC test results, I have the good news that since I deserve a social job, what could be more social than being an HR manager whose job is to deal with people, help, and develop them. However, Human resource management has other elements of strategic thinking and planning which are not necessarily there in either social jobs or the jobs near them, which are artistic and realistic. Therefore, I may encounter a problem in this regard. As far as the other tests are concerned, they prove that I am overall a good fit for the HR management job but I would need to work for my social part a little more as to become more acceptable within the groups. I would most suit the top HR positions because they require more of thinkers and introverts who are good at developing ideas, implementing it and thinking strategically. In addition, HR management requires handling a lot of knowledge, which is theoretical and complex but people who are of INTJ type and score high on conscientiousness do not find this as a problem. Now moving towards the challenges that I would be facing, and how to overcome them, the biggest challenge as MBTI and big five model suggests would be to make sure that I am open to the external stimuli all the times. I will have to make sure that rather than observing the world in should participative in it. Besides, for being an HR, I would have to understand human psychology and make sure that I know that how to deal with people. By allowing my own personality to become a little more outgoing and more engaged with friends, the problem would seem easy to solve. As far as the low self-monitoring score and low score on openness to experience are concerned, the best solution to this would be to make sure that I am open to feedback. With proper feedback, I would be able to adapt my self to the changes occurring in the external environment. Works Cited Bayne, Rowan. Psychological types at work. Cengage Learning EMEA, 2004. Bayne, Rowan. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: a critical review and practical guide. Nelson Thornes, 1997. Bryon, Mike. The Ultimate Psychometric Test Book: Over 1,000 Test Questions with Explanations. Kogan Page, 2006. Carter, Philip. IQ and personality tests. Kogan Page Publishers, 2007Kogan Page Publishers, 2007. Hoffman, Edward. Ace the Corporate Personality Test. McGraw-Hill Professional, 2000. Johns, Gary, & Saks, Alan M. Organizational behaviour: understanding and managing life at work. Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Knights, David. & Willmott, Hugh. Introducing organizational behaviour and management. Cengage Learning EMEA, 2007. Martin, John. Organizational behaviour. Thomson Learning, 2001. Mullins, Laurie J. Essentials of Organisational Behaviour. Financial Times/Prentice Hall, 2008. Paul, Annie Murphy. The Cult of Personality Testing: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies, and Misunderstand Ourselves. Simon & Schuster, 2005. Robbins, Stephen P., & Judge, Timothy A. Essentials of Organizational Behavior. Prentice Hall, 2009. Tosi, Henry L., & Mero, Neal P. The fundamentals of organizational behavior: what managers need to know. Wiley-Blackwell, 2003. Wilson, Fiona Margaret. Organizational behaviour: a critical introduction. Oxford University Press, 1999. Read More