How could one test possibly discover all your traits? Character flaws, what challenges you the most, and what you do best can all be discovered if you just take one tiny little color personality test. Make sense yet? Probably not. It didn’t make sense to me either.

As I was avoiding the plague of writer’s block, I thought I’d procrastinate a little more by taking a quiz that is contained within one of the many books I get each day at work. As I checked off certain personality traits and avoided others, I kept continuing to each section of the test. I finally ended up with two colors and a personality dimension. I’m a gold/green extrovert (which is actually amusing to me because those are my sorority colors. And I do tend to be rather outgoing in most situations. But that’s neither here nor there). Well, that’s just great. What in the world does that mean?

Career Match: Connecting Who You Are with What You’ll Love to Do (AMACOM, 2007) by Shoya Zichy with Ann Bidou was able to clear all my questions up for me. And let me just tell you, it was creepy how much those couple of pages told me about my own life. All the characteristics of that personality exist within me somewhere. They are my triumphs, my challenges, my strengths, my weaknesses. I’m also apparently happy at my job. Thanks, I didn’t need a book to tell me that one.

Though the book is categorized as a “career/self-help” book (because who wants to admit to using a self-help book?), it proves to really aid you in looking at who you are and to use all of your characteristics to your advantage. It really brings things about yourself to your own attention, including things all about your career. Not only that, you get to see how to interact with other personality types. It will tell you how to approach them and co-exist with opposite personalities in a positive light.

The front of the book says “Take the 10-Minute Quiz That Will Change Your Life!” I don’t necessarily think that it can change your life, but it does give you some interesting tidbits that you may not have noticed about yourself before. I found myself reading the chapter, thinking “Oh yeah! I DO do that!”

After you take the quiz, there are instructions on what to do next. They tell you to read your main color chapter and then to read your individual overall assessment. Then they break it down for what each color might do. The sentence, “Golds will prefer to follow the recommendations above,” made me laugh because I’ve always followed the rules – not because I’m a goody-goody but because I like to have order in my life! And that was just the first of many revelations I had about myself.

I’d say read the book because it can give you a bit of insight on who you are as a person and what you can do differently to better your life, especially career-wise (it may help you make that career switch you need). I wouldn’t say that it’s the gospel truth, but it’s definitely interesting!

For more career advice and articles, visit CollegeSurfing.com today!

-Amanda Fornecker