Would you like to learn how to find the best job for your personality type? Well, if so,
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Hi, my name is Michael Gibbs and I'm the founder and CEO of Go Cloud Architects. We're an organization
dedicated towards providing high quality cloud computing education. Today, we're going to
talk about how do you find the right job for your personality. I'm actually making this
video as a request for a user on Reddit that was saying, how do I find something that suits
me? But you know what? We hear this all the time. When we work with new cloud architects
or those that have had one or two or three years of experience and multiple jobs, we
understand why. We've been there ourselves, so we're going to help you find the right
job.
So we're going to talk about finding the job for your personality, we're going to talk
about finding an organization's culture that matches your desires. We're going to talk
about finding the right manager, and then we're going to talk about geographic things
and whether they're an effect on your career potential.
So, the first thing is know yourself. So in the book, The Art of War, they said, know
yourself, know your enemy, you'll always be victorious. They say know yourself and not
your enemy, for every win, there'll be one loss. Do not know yourself, but know your
enemy. For every win, there'll be one loss. So the point is, is the more you know about
yourself and the more you know about the company, the better and more successful you're going
to be. So first, know yourself.
Are you a highly motivated person that likes to be rewarded for the things you do? Do you
like to work alone? Do you like to go to the office? Do you like to work from home? Do
you like to work in teams? Do you like to be involved in lots of meetings? All of these
things about you are going to tell you what you need to know. So, what is your personality
type?
If you are the type that likes to be in an environment that's got a lot of people and
has a lot of meetings and everybody is treated the same, go find yourself a very, very, very
large organization that's got processes and they've got lots of meetings to ensure that
people are involved in those processes, and you will thrive. That's wonderful. If you're
the type of person that needs structure, again, you're going to thrive in this environment.
But what if you're the creative type? What if you're the type that likes to get a lot
of things done and you want the world to notice and you want to be rewarded? Well, now you're
going to have to find yourself a company that's very entrepreneurial. Now, startups tend to
be entrepreneurial and startups tend to be really good for these highly motivated types,
but so can big companies, and we'll talk about that in a minute.
What's good about a startup is you get to do lots of projects, you get to be an authority
on something, because they don't have the support, you're constantly learning. Whatever
you see or do is going to have a direct relationship on either the company's product development
or their selves, and you will be noticed and you will be rewarded. If the company's doing
well, they will financially reward you, they will promote you very rapidly.
These type of startup environments are great for self-starters and highly motivated people,
they're terrible for someone that needs structure. Because in a small environment, you can't
say these are the 42 people that are going to help you with this project. You might not
be able to write your paper and turn it into a professional editor, and there might be
a process that's 10 pages long about what the paper needs to look like and the font
and the margins and the headers and the footers.
So if that's you and you want that structure, again, it's going to be that big company environment.
But if you're looking to go be yourself and contribute to something, and be paid for it
and to be recognized, you're often going to be better off in a startup environment.
Now, there are very large, highly entrepreneurial organizations, and these organizations really
reward people for doing well. They promote them, they pay them more, they give them stock
bonuses, they give them bigger bonuses and it's based upon their contributions. So find
that out, but those types of entrepreneurial companies tend to have no structure.
I worked for a large entrepreneurial company for many, many years and was one of the biggest
and best global technologies in the world, here's what happened. In the beginning of
the fiscal year, I would meet with my manager and he'd say, "These are my five goals for
you this year." He said, "These are the things that I needed to get done this quarter." I
said, "Anything by a specific date?" He'd say, "End of the quarter or the end of the
year." I'd say, "Anything specific that you need me to know about?"
He said, "You're an adult, go figure it out, deliver excellence. I need the customers to
say good things, I need it to be a product that helps this organization, I need it to
be a product that helps the customers. How you get that done does not matter to me, here's
what I need from you. Let's sync up once a week so I know how you're doing, and I can
help you with anything that you need. If you get stuck along the way and you need my executive
authority to go find additional resources for you, call me and I'll make it happen."
Other than that, it was like it was my own business. You know what? I thrived in that
environment, went through multiple promotions in that environment, but that was good for
me. But if you're the type of person that needs to be told what to do, how to do it,
why to do it and the way to do it, and that's great. With that can come some extremely good
quality, find something big, find something structured. So, be in the environment where
there's structure.
Now, when it comes to projects. In a small environment, it's going to be very nimble.
So, you're going to find yourself being able to design things and test things and do many
more things than you're going to be in a big environment. When you've got 100,000 employees
or 200,000 employees in a company and you've got a network that's supporting them, you're
not going to be doing a lot of experimentation on that network, because it's basically a
service provider. It's actually a cloud computing environment effectively, they're so big. So,
understand what you want to do and the type of company you're going to join and that'll
help you.
So regardless of the organization's culture, are you going to be a cog in a wheel? Basically
one person, part of a giant team, doing things. You do your job, you stay inside your window
and you do well. That's great if you like that. Or is it going to be the entrepreneurial
environment where basically someone's going to give you a task and they're going to say,
"Just get it done." If that's your environment and that's me, I thrive in the environment,
I do not do well when people tell me, "Here's the 42 steps I need you to take that."
That doesn't make it wrong. With process comes quality, but it also stifles creativity. So
if you're a creative person, go to a place with less process. If you are a non-creative
person, but meticulous attention to detail, then find something with process. If you're
like me and you're hard with attention to detail and you really focus on it, but you
still need freedom, find something where you're going to be more entrepreneurial.
Now, the next phase which is going to determine your success in an organization is the CEO
and their views and what their goals are, but also your manager and your manager's manager.
These are the two people that are going to have the biggest impact on your life. Do you
like your manager? Are you philosophically compatible with your manager? Does your manager
agree with the way you want to do things? Is the manager a micromanager? In which case
you like that, that's great. If the manager's a micromanager and you don't like that, and
you want more creativity and you want more freedom, then that's going to be a horrible
job for you.
What if your manager's good, but their manager's manager is not, or they're still very good,
but they're not good for your personality type? Well, your manager can retire or get
promoted, or your manager could get laid off and your manager's manager could be your manager.
So, you need to really know those two steps before you do something.
I hate to talk about geography, but geography matters. Where is the organization located
and is your location going to affect your career potential? I worked for one of the
largest tech companies in the world, it would have been much more advantageous for my career,
at least for many of the years, if I had moved to Silicon Valley where the organization was
located. Lots of the positions that I would have liked to have taken were exclusively
there. I still had a phenomenal position. I was very happy and I was much happier living
in South Florida where I could go to the beach when I wanted to, than I would have been by
being in Silicon Valley, but that's just me.
But realize in certain cases that where you live may affect your organization's potential.
For example, if you're working in another country that's headquartered in the US, you
might not get the kind of visibility that's necessary that you would if you were living
where the organization was located. So geography becomes less and less important as technology
grows, but still technology matters and technology ... I mean, technology matters, because it
improves the communication, but where are the executives?
If you're in an environment where you're closer to the executives and managers and you're
doing great work, it's going to be seen more. So, where is the organization located? I'm
not telling you there's a right or wrong answer, but if you're looking to join one organization
and spend the rest of your life there, chances are you need to be an environment that's closer
to them to have a long-term career potential.
The reason we're going into this, is we find with new people they often change jobs every
six months for the first three to four years of their career. The problem is, is they're
good jobs they're getting, they're just the jobs that don't match them. So, this is how
we recommend you find the right job or the career. Know yourself, know the organization,
and find an organization that matches your personality type and your goals and dreams.
If you do that, you'll be very happy, you'll have a long and successful career. Thank you
so much for watching this video. We hope you've enjoyed it and we'll see when a new video
next Wednesday.