Personality traits reflect individuals’ characteristic patterns of feelings, thoughts and behaviours. They imply one’s stability and consistency of their features (Szabó et al., 2021). Five personality traits include extraversion or extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness and neuroticism. Different personality traits influence different workplace behaviours, defining one’s fitness in one job more than the other. Though indirectly, different personality traits manifest themselves differently in the workplace. For example, employees who score high in extraversion are friendly, outgoing and enjoy teamwork.
Similarly, highly conscientious employees are reliable, punctual and detail-oriented. Briggs Myers Personality Test helps individuals understand their personality traits to guide their career choices (Szabó et al., 2021). Upon running the Briggs Myers Personality Test, the results of my personality traits were compelling. The scores were as follows: Introversion vs. Extraversion (25%), Intuition vs. Sensing (12%), Feeling vs. Thinking (31%), and Judging vs. Perceiving (25%). Based on these findings, the paper explores my personality type to determine how I am best fit for a veterinary technologist career (my career of choice).
Personality Trait and Veterinary Technologist Role
The veterinary registry is a vast field involving veterinary officers’ registration and licensing with different specializations. An ideal career in the veteran profession is Veterinary Technologist. Veterinary technologist performs duties such as animal medical tests in a laboratory environment. These tests are used for the diagnosis and treatment of animals. Similarly, veterinary technologists prepare animal vaccines and serums for disease prevention (ONET Online, n.d). The nature of the role involves little socialization in the workplace. However, teamwork is the key to the profession, as the sensitivity of the part requires active engagement to avoid serious medical errors. A veterinary technologist’s role requires unique personality traits.
My personality trait test results showed that I am more of an introvert and less of an extraversion, a crucial personality type for the veterinary technologist career. I enjoy a more social work environment, but at the same time, I value and recharge through solitary activities. While extroverts are talkative, outgoing, and energetic, introverts exhibit more reserved and reflective behaviour. Most people associate extroverted personalities with socialization and love for people, but the trait takes a broader range of situations, including animal care (Sokanu, n.d). The veterinary technologist’s role is dynamic, as it varies with conditions. For example, it may require a social person to engage peers actively through discussion and teamwork. A social person will understand other’s moods and feelings easily and try to generate positive energy for a good cause. On the other hand, introversion might be an essential personality trait in the veterinary technologist role because sometimes the position requires some independence when executing animal medical tests (Kogan et al., 2020). Both personality traits make me the best fit for the role, regardless of the working environment.
Similarly, the topmost personality traits for veterinary technologists are agreeableness and social responsibility. They require an agreeable personality because their role is technical and sometimes requires input from other technicians or experts to achieve effectiveness and avoid diagnosis errors (Sokanu, n.d). It requires inclusive decision-making that incorporates diverse views from the teams. Agreeable veterinary technologists will listen and agree with the opinions of other technicians within the same work environment. They will look for ways to ensure that others feel their views were honoured to achieve the most excellent satisfaction. Veterinary technologists value social responsibility as they strongly desire fair animal treatment outcomes. As they prepare animal vaccines and serum, they are pressured to ensure minimal side effects when administered (Burns & Renda-Francis, 2021). They are susceptible to whether the vaccine will successfully prevent the targeted disease or whether it might have a severe side effect on the animal.
Another critical personality trait for veterinary technologists is openness, which closely interlinks with my profound trait, intuition. The personality test revealed a slight preference for intuition rather than sense. It means focusing more on possibilities and the future than on existing facts. Veterinary technologists’ openness motivates them to do a lot of research, think about coming up with new ideas, and talk about big and abstract ones. They persist in active imagination on the best approaches to better animal welfare. An intuition veterinary technologist would endure trials to find the best strategy or policy to solve problems faced by animals (Sokanu, n.d). Open and intuitive people also exhibit investigative personality traits, which are essential for veterinary technologists. Investigative people live in their minds and prefer reading and studying texts and books to gain insights for analyzing the situation before making critical decisions. Enhancing animal health is crucial, and veterinary technologists must be independent thinkers, insightful and curious to face complex workplace problems with evidence-based strategies (Burns & Renda-Francis, 2021). An intuition veterinary technologist would focus on the future of animal welfare as the guiding force when making complex animal-related clinical decisions.
The personality trait test showed a moderate preference for feeling over thinking. However, both traits are equally crucial for the veterinary technologist role. A sensible choice for feeling over thinking suggests that I rely on personal values and emotions when making decisions, emphasizing the importance of understanding and empathy. It pinpoints my emotional intelligence when dealing with teams, especially in a more stressful workplace environment (Sokanu, n.d). Due to the nature of the workplace environment, veterinary technologists’ work might be stressful since it comes with very sensitive responsibilities. In this case, emotional intelligence will be crucial to avoid misunderstandings resulting in workplace conflicts.
Similarly, veterinary technologists empathize with owners, pets, and other animals. Most animal owners tend to feel stressed or sad seeing them suffer. In this case, a veterinary technologist should empathize with the pet and animal owners as they interview them to collect diagnostic information (Gobbo & Zupan, 2020). Showing compassion and a sense of feeling makes the pet owners believe that you care and gain trust with your clinical examination.
Veterinary technologists monitor animals’ anesthetic responses to determine any need for dosage adjustment. That means that they nurse the animal throughout the recovery process. Having empathy or a sense of feelings personality trait would make them more caring as they foster the pain that an animal undergoes (Kogan et al., 2020). Sometimes, they assist the veterinarians in administering animal vaccinations and other medical treatments. In this case, their social responsibility personality informs their duty of care. Combined with a sense of feeling, veterinary technologists would be more cautious to ensure that the animal receives the correct medication and dosage to avoid adverse side effects. Although the personality test showed that I am more inclined to feel than think, my less critical thinking makes me the best fit for the veterinary technologist’s role. The role needs a critical-thinking personality to understand the complex animal disease processes and be able to notice when the regular signs change. Critical thinking helps develop profound problem-solving skills that are much needed for the role.
Lastly, the personality test revealed that I have a moderate preference for judging rather than perceiving, which is not a pertinent trait for veterinary technologists. This trait shows that I will appreciate the structure, organization and planning. I find comfort in having a clear plan and control over my environment. Veterinary technologists are adaptive as they experience different work scenarios that require flexibility (Sokanu, n.d). Judging traits make me stricter on the plan, which might not be responsive to the ever-changing work environment. The veterinary technologist’s role is procedural, and if the procedure changes, the person handling the part should shift from routine tasks to adaptive thinking to modify the plan and guarantee a successful animal treatment outcome. Having a sense of control over my environment would make me rigid to change, and this trait would not fit the veterinary technologist’s role. Sometimes, animals under nursing care behave unexpectedly, and having an adaptive thinking personality would help the caregivers respond effectively to such situations (Burns & Renda-Francis, 2021).
However, judgmental traits might apply in the role, especially during animal diagnosis. For example, veterinary technologists should examine animals’ condition based on the physical signs and symptoms and give a preliminary judgement on the disease before laboratory tests to diagnose it clinically (Sokanu, n.d). This initial diagnosis based on expert review helps provide adequate first aid if an animal is in a critical health condition. To make appropriate animal health judgements, veterinary technologists must have realistic traits and be body-oriented. They use their hands and eyes to solve practical problems by physically examining the pet’s health. Sensible people focus more on the issues they can practically solve using their hands (Gobbo & Zupan, 2020). Laboratory tests for animal diagnosis are a practical exercise involving using hands to perform activities and eyes to observe the results and judge the diagnosis outcome. It means thinking and realist traits come in handy for veterinary technologists as their task involves practical examination and observation of the results for the final judgment.
Conclusion
The paper focused on the critical analysis of my personality type based on the Briggs Myers Personality Test findings to determine how best I am fit for a career as a veterinary technologist (my career of choice). Most employers use personality test results in addition to academic and practical experiences to hire the most appropriate person for the advertised role. This is because not all experienced people can effectively work in specific environments. For example, some work environments, like animal health sciences, are stressful and demanding and require employees with unique personality traits and other qualifications. The analysis of my personality test results against the veterinary technologist role requirements revealed that I am the best fit for the career. However, it is essential to note that no individual can exhibit the 100% personality type required for a specific job. Therefore, the assessment looks further into how best an individual can adapt to the work environment and deliver the expected results.
References
Burns, K. M., & Renda-Francis, L. (2021). Textbook for the Veterinary Assistant. John Wiley & Sons.
Gobbo, E., & Zupan, M. (2020). Dogs’ sociability, owners’ neuroticism and attachment style to pets as predictors of dog aggression. Animals, 10(2), 315. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10020315
Kogan, L. R., Wallace, J. E., Schoenfeld-Tacher, R., Hellyer, P. W., & Richards, M. (2020). Veterinary technicians and occupational burnout. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 7, 328. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2020.00328
ONET Online, (n.d). Mental Health Counselors 21-1014.00. https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/21-1014.00
Sokanu, (n.d). What personality traits do veterinary technologists have? https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/veterinary-technologist/personality/#:~:text=Veterinary%20technologists%20are%20investigative%20and%20realistic&text=They%20also%20tend%20to%20be,to%20be%20a%20veterinary%20technologist.
Szabó, Z. P., Simon, E., Czibor, A., Restás, P., & Bereczkei, T. (2021). The importance of dark personality traits in predicting workplace outcomes. Personality and individual differences, 183, 111112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111112
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