Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Personality Type

"Do What You Are" attempts to help individuals plot their own careers based on their own Myers Briggs "Type." Before finding this book, the only other career-related thing I had read was "What Colour is your Parachute," which was terrific. But I loved "Do What you Are" because it stated something that is so rarely said today... that you should find a job and career that suits who you really are. I passed this book around to all my friends and family, and most (but not all) loved it, too.

Something I found particularly delightful was that it affirmed a lot of things I had been thinkingabout my own situation, but had considered "unimportant." My type is "ENFP" (I know it might sound like jibberish to you now, but it will make sense if you read the book). This is a type that thrives on creativity, feels confined by rigid rules, and needs lots of friendly social interaction on the job. But, since I have a high IQ and did well at school, others have constantly tried to push me into "status" fields like medecine and litigation. In my heart, I had always felt those kinds of careers would kill me, but I couldn't really articulate why. After reading "Do What you Are," I was better able to accept my instincts and explored PR, fundraising, and finally settled on a job in publishing. I LOVE my job, and although I think I would have arrived here eventually, I do think that it would have taken me twice as long to arrive had I not read this book.


WORTH READING, BUT ITS MORE THAN JUST PERSONALITY TYPE!   April 27, 2001
Sandra D. Peters (Prince Edward Island, Canada)
105 out of 132 found this review helpful

With a lifetime of experience as a counsellor and teacher in both human relations and business management, I can say this book is certainly worth reading; however, reaching your full potential in a chosen career goes far beyond your personality type. In-depth career planning takes a much greater psychological assessment than simply sitting down and reading a book, no matter how well written the book may be. There are a variety of tests and assessments in use today and given by qualified professionals with a background in career counselling and psychology. Management also use these tests in assessing whether potential employees are ideally suited to the job, and they are given by professionals in the field. Your career is one of the biggest investments of your life; it is not something you fall into simply because your personality is matched to a particular occupation. Following that philosophy any could well lead many people down the garden path into making entirely wrong choices.

It is also critical to remember that regardless of how "well matched" you are to a career, there also has to be an unsatisfied need and demand for what you want to do in the marketplace. For example, you may have an interest in computers and be ideally suited to a career in computer networking; however if the marketplace is already saturated with network technicians and there are more technicians than jobs, you may discover you made an inappropriate career choice. Do you want to relocate and is it viable to do so? Not everyone wants to uproot, especially if you have a spouse or partner who is already employed in a very financially lucrative position. If you are single with no dependents, you have an advantage and more options.

While the book does make interesting reading, I would not rely on it to make career choices. There is a lot more to long-term career planning than meets the eye, and your career choice is a decision that will most likely affect your family and your financial future. There is a lot more to consider in career planning than personality types and e-careers.


Beware......be very ware!   August 31, 2001
65 out of 94 found this review helpful

This book is based on the writings of Carl Jung who in turn developed his theories from William James's discussion of tough-minded and tender-minded types in his work, Pragmatism. James went on to observe that no one conforms to the extreme case but borrows qualities from each. Carl Jung himself warned of the futility of trying to "type" people, calling it a "childish parlour game." His warning apparently has not dissuaded the authors of this book from doing precisely what he warned against.

The objections to typologies have not reached the mass public with the intensity that they should. Here are some key points. The Myers Briggs type indicator on which this book relies makes the assumption that the four dimensions it measures are bipolar dichotomies and views the traits as distinct categories. A sorting process places individuals in a discrete category based on their relative direction from the mid-point without regard to the magnitude of their score. The resulting dichotomy does not accurately reflect the true nature of the underlying trait. An ESTP with a very high S tendency is described in exactly the same way as an ESTP with an S score that barely tipped in the S direction.

There has been a great loss of interest among professionals in trying to type people, owing largely to the difficulty of finding psychological variables that conform to categorization. Moreover, there are attendant dangers: first, that these arbitrary categories are taken to represent genuine divergences in psychological organization, and second, that what are in fact step functions become regarded as continuous functions.

This book might be useful if the MBTI test accurately portrayed the nature of the underlying psychological reality. The test though is too simple to arrive at a "complicated understanding" or enriched view of a human personality. I might also add that it completely ignores the role that motivation plays in human achievement.


This is a great book but there are two things to be aware of   August 5, 2005
Al B. (Rome, GA USA)
55 out of 55 found this review helpful

I had several very smart and successful mid-career changers tell me this was a must-buy book, so I bought it.

I think it's also a must read for anyone putting together a business partnership or management team that seeks personnel that will complement each others' strengths.

I wish I had read this book years ago. The authors have written a book around the Myers-Briggs personality type concept. Many other career advice authors may devote a chapter to this, but the Tiegers have really delved into this more than others. For instance, each of the sixteen 4-letter Myers-Briggs personality types (INTJ, ENTP, etc.) gets a full chapter on that type, including the person's strengths, weaknesses, typical best job fits and 2 or 3 case studies of men and women with those personality types. After I took the test, I found their chapter on my particular type captured me almost perfectly and taken 20 years ago, would have predicted many of the career successes and challenges I've experienced.

The original pioneers of the Myers-Briggs methodology were Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katherine Myers. Starting in the 1920s they identified 4 different aspects of personality (introverted vs. extroverted, sensing vs. perceiving, etc.) to come up with 8 traits. There are a total of 16 possible combinations of these traits and these are the "personality types".

While some may find some fault with Myers-Briggs personality type theory, it's sure good enough to be a powerful, insightful tool. The official Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test has been around for decades and has been thoroughly researched and critiqued as well as widely used by millions.

The Tiegers also cover additional Myers-Briggs material I have not seen in other career advice books. An example is how your personality evolves with age -- certain Myers-Briggs traits become more pronounced at different times in life.

The buyer should be aware of two things, however, when they buy this book:

1. First, this book does not cover other aspects of career planning, self-assessment and job-hunting. It's 95+% personality type material. You'll still want to get another book (or books) on other aspects of career planning and job-hunting.

2. The true Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Test is copyrighted and available only through organizations, counselors and therapists approved by the Myers & Briggs Foundation -- see myersbriggs.org (their site has also has a lot of other useful stuff).

The authors cannot include the test, but they describe each of the 8 traits in sufficient detail that you can estimate what you are -- BUT you may be wrong, as I found out when I took the actual MBTI test. My estimate was very accurate for 3 traits and way off the mark for the 4th. As I read over the material in the book, I could see how I was wrong. I recommend paying the extra money, taking the real test and going over the result with someone certified by the Myers & Briggs Foundation -- they can interpret those results that may surprise you. After speaking with the counselor and re-reading the relevant sections of the Tieger book, I could see how I made my mistake. The meanings of some of the terms -- introverted, extroverted , judging, etc. -- are subtly different in the psychological type world from the way they're used in daily conversation.

There are thousands of people out there certified to do this and many college career placement offices also administer the test to students for free. You can also take the test online using a link at myersbriggs.org site and then discuss the results remotely with a trained counselor. Some of this control may be due to the foundation wanting to preserve test revenues, but it's also driven by concerns about untrained people administering it inappropriately (for instance, to identify some neurotic boss's idea of "bad personality types") or interpreting it incorrectly.

Also, I tried two different on-line free sites that offered seemingly similar tests to come up with a Myers-Briggs type. These tests gave wildly inaccurate and conflicting results -- I recommend staying away from them.