Career Fits for All Personalities

By: Olga Hermans

You can read the article about your own unique personality type by clicking here.

The cheerful Sanguines enrich the world with their natural charisma, that’s for sure. They usually make excellent salespeople. You might have heard the cliché: “he could sell refrigerators to the Eskimos.” If you ever want to the Sanguine in action, just visit your local used-car dealer. About two-thirds of the salesreps seem to be  Sanguines.

In addition to being good at sales, Sanguines make good actors as well, entertainers, and preachers (particularly evangelists). They are outstanding masters of ceremonies, auctioneers and sometimes leaders (if properly blended with another temperament). Because of our mass media today, they are increasingly in demand within the political arena, where natural charisma has proved to be a great advantage.

In the area of helping people, Sanguines excel as hospital workers. Most sick people respond to a Sanguine nurse question “How are you today?” by saying, “Fine,” while nurse Melancholy can ask the same question and would probably receive the a pity answer like, “”miserable.” People might be on the verge of death, but when Dr.Sanguine walks into the room with his bubbly personality; before he leaves the room the spirit of the patient is lifted for sure.

Sanguines are never moderate about anything. They should choose careers that allow them extensive exposure to people. I think their main contribution to life lies in making other people happy. I guess we all know Sanguines ad after reading this, you might even appreciate their personality a little more. I have a friend and I can tell you, the moment she opens her mouth I start bubbling up on the inside and she always leaves me with pain in my cheeks from laughing. I have always told she should have been a comedian. Right now she is the pastor of a gangster church in Joplin MO, where the tornado hit almost 2 weeks ago, a job that fits her well…just an awesome lady.

The Career of the Choleric

Cholerics might consider careers that require leadership, motivation and productivity. They do not require too much attention to details and analytical planning. Committee meetings and long-range planning bore the Choleric – a doer. Rarely will you find a predominant Choleric as a surgeon, dentist, philosopher, inventor or watchmaker. They often supervise craftsmen. They usually enjoy construction work, because it is so productive, and will frequently end up beig foremen or project supervisors.

A Choleric is a developer by nature. When they drive through the countryside, he envisions road graders carving out streets and builders construction homes, schools and shopping centers.

I really believe that most cities and suburbs were first envisioned by a Choleric. They do well by hiring a melancholic as the architect with the analytical and creative ability to draw the plans for what he wants to build. The choleric person thinks it is enough to draw a few lines on the back of end of an envelope to gain the approval of the city planning department.

So, it is a wise thing to do for the Choleric to hire a melancholic assistant or to go into a business partnership with a Melancholic. Together they make an unbeatable team.

Most entrepreneurs are Cholerics. They are not by nature good delegators of responsibility (although with proper training they can learn). They tend to evaluate negatively the efforts others and end up trying to do everything themselves.

The Choleric is a natural motivator of other people. He oozes self-confidence and is extremely goal-conscious. Associates may find themselves even more productive by following the leadership of a choleric. Their weakness is though that they are hard to please and tend to be rough on people.

If he only knew how others look to him for approval and encouragement, he would spend more time patting them on the back, which would generate greater dedication from them. The choleric thinks subconsciously thinks that approval and encouragement lead to complacency.

The choleric makes a good preacher as well; although he is much less emotional. The world’s greatest generals, dictators, and gangsters have predominantly choleric; the world has benefit and suffered from the cholerics. The difference was because of their moral values and motivations.

The cholerics have that thing what people call a success tendency. That doesn’t mean they are smarter than other people, as is often assumed, but that their strong will and determination drive them to succeed where other; more gifted,  people are prone to give up.

The Career of the Melancholic

Most of the world’s great composers, artists, musicians, inventors, philosophers, theologians and dedicated educators have been predominantly Melancholics. Think about Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner and many others.

Almost every true musician has some Melancholy temperament, whether he is a composer, performing artist or a soloist. When you listen to country-western, you can hear the wail of the Melancholic.

One vocation that seems to attract the Melancholy is acting to the surprise of many, because we tend to identify this profession with extroverts. On stage they can adopt another personality, no matter how much extroversion it requires, but as soon as the play is over, he reverts back to his own introvert personality.

Many melancholics work in the arts, many become craftsmen of high quality – finish carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers, plasters, scientists, horticulturalists, mechanics, engineers, and other professions that provide a meaningful service to humanity.

Almost any humanitarian vocation will attract melancholics to its staff. It almost requires a Melancholic mind to get through the rigors of medical school, for a doctor has to be a perfectionist, an analytical specialist, and a humanitarian propelled by a heart that yearns to help other people.

Any vocation that requires perfection, self-sacrifice and creativity is open to melancholics.

In the building trades, the melancholy may want to supervise construction. But he would be better off hiring a project supervisor who works better with people and then spend his own time on the drawing board. Melancholics become frustrated by ordinary personnel problems with his unrealistic perfectionist demands.

The Career of the Phlegmatic

Phlegmatics seems drawn to the field of education. Most elementary school teachers are phlegmatic. Only they can have the patience to teach a group of first graders to read. A sanguine would spend the entire class period telling stories to the children. A melancholy would so criticize them that they would be afraid to read aloud. Can you imagine a choleric as a first grade teacher; the students might ant to leap out of the windows!

The gentle nature the phlegmatic assures the ideal atmosphere for such learning. This is not only true on the elementary level but in both high school and college, particularly in math, physics, grammar, literature and languages.

It is not uncommon to find phlegmatics as school administrators, librarians, counsellors and college department heads.

Phlegmatics also like engineering. They are attracted to planning and calculation, they make good structural engineers, chemical engineers, mechanical and civil engineers and statisticians.

The other day we had friends over for coffee (we were talking about this very subject); he told me that in the recent years management has discovered that experienced phlegmatics often make excellent foremen, supervisors and managers. Because they are diplomatic and unabrasive, they work well with people.

When given positions of leadership, they seem to bring order out of chaos and produce a working harmony conducive to increased productivity. Hey are wellorganized, never come to a meeting unprepared or late, tend to work well under pressure and are extremely dependable.

Phlegmatics are definitely not risk takers. They often stay with one company. Because they struggle with the problem of personal insecurity, they may take a job with retirement of security benefits in mind.

Therefore, civil service, the military, local government, or some other “good security risk” will attract them. Rarely will they launch out on a business venture of their own, although they are eminently qualified to do so. Instead they usually enhance the earning power of someone else and are quite content with a simple lifestyle.

Ok, this is a short version of the career possibilities of all 4 personality types. I might have awaken your appetite to know more about this. There are 2 books that I recommend: Personality Plus by Florence Littauer and The Spirit-Controlled Temperament by Tim Lahaye. I believe these books will help accept yourself and your personality.

Make it A Daily Choice to build your character and live towards your destiny.