Strong Interest Inventory®: Unemployment and Job Shifts

One interesting thing about the theme codes on the Strong is how they can predict how well people will deal with job changes and unemployment.  As with all statistics, these studies describe groups, and cannot predict how any one individual in a group will behave.  It's possible you've been through this scenario more than once with no major issues, but your group usually does poorly.  That doesn't mean the statistics are incorrect or there's something wrong with you.  It means simply that many people in the group will tend to follow the pattern.

So which types handle unemployment and job changes best?  If everything is equal, such as personal resources, education, job opportunities, etc., from high to low, it's Social, Enterprising, Artistic, Investigative, Conventional, and Realistic people.  This holds true the greater a person's similarity to one personality type is.  For example, if your pattern is clearly Social, it's more likely you'll experience change positively.  The pattern seems to be that Social and Enterprising types have greater interpersonal skills that help them deal with these problems.

How effective a person deals with job change, particularly involuntary job loss (being fired or laid off), depends on how high their type consistency, identity, and differentiation is.  In other words, the more clearly someone identifies with any one type, the more likely that person is to cope with job loss.  So if a person clearly and strongly identifies him- or herself with Conventional jobs, for example, the more likely the transition will go smoothly.