Reflective Post #9: My Professional Personality

After reading chapter 2 of Portfolios for Technical and Professional Communicators, I began to consider how I would like my final portfolio to represent my professional personality. The chapter, titled “Creating a Portfolio Identity,” encouraged me to consider my own strengths in the workplace as well as my preferences in work environments. The chapter suggests that students take an online personality and career test. Therefore, I decided to take the Keirsey Temperament Sorter assessment to discover more about my personality will be influential in my future career.

According to the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, I am an idealist. Idealists are “passionately concerned with personal growth and development.” As stated by my Keirsey Temperament Sorter results, “idealists strive to discover who they are and how they can become their best possible self – always this quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement drives their imagination.” I feel that this assessment is a very accurate description of my professional personality and my motivation to pursue a career in technical communication. The results also say that “idealists are naturally drawn to working with people.” I think that this is very true about my own working habits. Although I am sometimes shy when working with individuals that I am not familiar with, I am eager to interact with others and I enjoy working within friendly, social environments.

The chapter also encouraged me to consider how I see myself as a professional. I view myself as a highly motivated and enthusiastic professional. I am eager to learn, and I seek out opportunities to study topics that are new to me. I also think that I strive for success and I enjoy the sense of accomplishment I feel after completing a task or an assignment. I have also recently realized that I prefer to work on assignments that allow room for creativity. During one of our earlier class meetings, we discussed the importance of bringing our own creativity to our work as interns if possible. Prior to the start of my internship, I was somewhat nervous as to how I would take a creative approach to my writing. However, I now feel that my portfolio will provide me with an opportunity to creatively present my work and to demonstrate my acquired skills. I feel that as I enter the professional world, I will strive to continue to take creative approaches to my work. In terms of work environment, I think that I would like to work in an organization where I would interact with other people but also work independently. However, I am very flexible and would be willing to work in a variety of environments.

Smith, Herb J., and Kim Haimes-Korn. Portfolios for Technical and Professional Communicators. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2007. Print.