The Best Way to Change Your Job Is to Focus on Your Personality

Starting a new career involves some guessing and finger-crossing. Can you really know if you’ll enjoy 60-plus hours a week as a business owner, consultant, or manager? Mismatches are common. “I get a lot of clients who finished a second degree and then realized they don’t want to do anything affiliated with the degree they just got,” says Ariel Schur, chief executive officer of ABS Staffing Solutions LLC, a recruiting company in New York. A 2014 study by LinkedIn Corp. and PwC put the global annual loss in productivity because of these realizations at $150 billion.

Researchers in Australia have discovered a way to remove some of the guesswork from changing professions. In December they published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that grouped more than 3,500 jobs by the personalities of the people in the roles, the first large-scale effort to trace these connections and let workers pinpoint careers they’re suited for across fields. Art dealers, for example, share personality traits with public-health directors and directors of education; certified financial planners are similar to internet marketing specialists and e-commerce managers.