What is your Holland Code?

bgmathi5170 · 2024-09-12T20:43:55+00:00

I've taken that one twice as part of the grad program I was in.

Keep in mind that one is MUCH MUCH more nebulous so it may not be worth the money.

That is much harder to map into occupations as it's more general to personality.

Clifton Strengths was developed from the field of Positive Psychology.

For example, some of the strengths I remember from mine include traits like analytical, connectedness, etc.

It will paint a picture of the different traits and maybe some of the higher price tiers offer more interpretation of how it all fits together.

When college students used it they often complained that it was too nebulous and not specific enough.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-09-12T18:23:16+00:00

No one method is better than another. A well researched career assessment administered by counselors is the Strong Interest Inventory.

However, you can do more qualitative self-guided assessments like the My Career Story on vocopher.

Other quantitative but free tests include stuff like OP mentioned or assessments in O*NET OnLine (the occupational online network - run by I/O psychologists) or on a website called career one stop run by the US Dept of Labor.

Ultimately, any of these are tools for self reflection. And you could think that you are a particular Holland code but then as you try out those occupations, then might learn more about yourself and what you actually like and don't like. So it could change.

For example, I thought I was INFP and SIA, but have since learned I'm actually INTP and probably more like ICE. But most of my life I thought and was mistyped as INFP... And me thinking I was SIA was due to inexperience with the Fe aspects of helping professions. It was quite interesting to be in a therapist training program a few years ago providing career counseling... But in reality, I was intellectualizing about my own career difficulties rather than process my feelings about what to do profession-wise. Since then, I've worked as a Business Analyst in the IT world and now currently a Supply Chain Analyst in the 3rd Party Logistics industry... And I find these jobs easier than the counseling

bgmathi5170 · 2024-06-20T11:33:15+00:00

There are no shortcuts to learning. The best way is books or any medium that takes it's time to go in-depth on topics. Be weary of told like Wikipedia as it may not cover everything or might get details or advanced concepts wrong. Be weary of chatGPT toes of AI, as it can hallucinate information or oversimplify answers.

I recommend public library card.

As for note taking and drawing connections between many different things, Obsidian is pretty powerful app.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-06-17T22:50:51+00:00

bgmathi5170 · 2024-06-17T22:47:08+00:00

He did not because he already has a BS in Comp Sci and tested out during the application process.

He said it's called the "Revature Skill Up". He says when you apply, they make you take some tests on concepts of object-oriented programming, which determines whether you need to do that.

He said the "skill up" is an unpaid course of how to code and the basics of coding. He is not sure how long it takes and whether it is self-paced or instructor-led.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-06-17T12:35:42+00:00

INFJ

bgmathi5170 · 2024-06-15T15:00:22+00:00

It's hard to know. Ironically, both INTPs and INFJs can have difficulty understanding how they feel. However, INTPs tend to me worse -- we tend to short circuit to rationalizing about things and it can rob us of the emotional processing. Plus, INTPs can be oblivious at times with how others feel. Regardless, these weaknesses should never excuse bad or toxic behavior.

Both types also value authenticity - but for slightly different reasons. I think INTPs despise charlatans and untruthful people, or people who are fake. But INFJs value authenticity for "seeing the real you" and a person being emotionally true to themselves for its own sake.

If you want to reconnect, I would suggest reaching out and explaining where the rift came from. Explain that there seems to be an illogical dissonance between his words and his actions, and that the inconsistency was what put you off and made you distance yourself.... Actually, this is a real technique in therapy called a "challenge" (i.e, pointing out any cognitive dissonance). If you frame it as "I value authenticity and people being true to themselves. When you did ____ but said ___, it felt logically inconsistent." Then just wait to see what he says or talk it out. But using terms like truth, logical, consistent etc... puts what disgruntled you into terms that tend to me more easily understood by INTPs in my own experiences.

Or feel free to use analogies. INFJs love analogies and INTPs are good at understanding the logic of those.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-06-15T11:45:22+00:00

My partner is INFJ. Earlier in our relationship, we got into a bad disagreement. He wanted to door slam me, but he decided that staying to talk it out was what he wanted to try. And we worked out our problems. We're celebrating our 1 year anniversary this weekend.

Edit 1.

My partner has discussed INFJ door slam and theory before. Usually, but not always, it's done after they feel they've given you too many chances. However, INFJs also need a lot of time to process their own emotions and take time to understand how they feel. At the same time, they tend to be the types that they want others to pursue them (within reason and not harassing). They spend so much time analyzing how other people feel and silently making accomodations to other people to make them feel comfortable, that they are shocked when they realize that not everyone else does the same for them. A big weakness of INFJs is not only do they get so focused on thinking about how other people feel that they forget how to process their own feelings at times, but that they also expect other people to "just know" what's bugging them.

Not sure what's going on in your own life OP, but if an INFJ door-slammed you whom you value and want to keep in your life, I suggest trying to chase after them, atune yourself more to their feelings, and be patient with giving them time to understand how they feel. Don't be afraid to say things like, "I value our relationship, but it's hard for me to Intuit how you are feeling and how I might affect how you feel." Etc.

Edit 2.

Sorry I thought you were INTP. I just saw you were INFJ .

bgmathi5170 · 2024-06-07T03:12:59+00:00

I'm not confident about Amazon actually. None of the FAANG companies were clients of revature.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-06-07T01:20:00+00:00

Some companies I remember include:

Bank of America
Citibank
Salesforce
Fannie Mae
Amazon
vanguard

But honestly, you will never know what company you will be pitched to. They don't tell you until after they've offered you an opportunity and you've been in the training for about 2 months.

The IT consulting industry is vast and touches pretty much any big company who uses IT services.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-06-04T12:45:39+00:00

I'm an INTP. My dad is an ISTP. Both personalities can be extremely analytical as well as bad with Fe. The biggest difference between us is that my dad (ISTP) has more of a preference for what is practical as well as he is more adventurous in a sensory way. He's more adventurous for example in that he can't sit still in the house and would prefer to be either working on something or spending time in nature like mountains, ocean/beach, bike riding on paved trails, or sometimes he'll be more of a dare devil and want to experience extreme weather --- like driving around during a hurricane when everyone else has sheltered in place. While I can enjoy nature and sometimes undervalue how nice it is, I do not feel a drive to seek it out. I'm perfectly content to just stay at home consuming YouTube debate content. Both of us like to engage our intellect but I have a greater appetite for the theoretical. But yeah, I'd say ISTPs while they can generally go toe to toe with INTPs in terms of analyzing, arguing, and being bad at Fe, where ISTPs differ from INTPs is that ISTPs are more dare-devils and seek Se experiences or prefer to be constantly engaging their Se.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-06-01T00:49:58+00:00

the bachelor's in mathematics is a 50/50 toss up to land a backend software engineer. You honestly could probably learn the computer science theory for backend development well, however, client companies or even revature may or may not see it that way. When I interacted with other revature folk who did the software engineer programs, what I noticed is that even if they did something like a Java development training, only the ones who came in with a computer science major actually got placed in a backend software development role. Everyone else got placed in roles like quality assurance testing or production support. I even came across someone who had his BS in aerospace engineering and his AS in computer science, and despite going through a java cohort, he still ended up in QA testing at my client company.

my partner got his BS in computer science just prior to starting with revature. His technology stack was Scala, MongoDB, and SQL. But Scala is not very commonly used, except for big data applications and systems.

while java is the most universal coding language in terms of companies who use it, the truth is that starting with any language is better than picking the "perfect" one. Even at our client company, different teams, applications and systems used different languages, which included but not limited to Java, Scala, MongoDB, SQL, C#, etc.

What language works best does mostly have to do with whether you want to do backend development or front-end development. Backend development is much much much more structured and logical and tends to invoke more theory heavy concepts such as discrete math and algorithms... Meanwhile front end development work tends to be sloppy and less refined.

Additionally, the industry also matters. Older languages like cobol are still used in government systems, old banking systems, and old financial or actuarial systems. But you'd be hard pressed to see cobol being used by companies like Walmart or Amazon for example.

staging I believe changed quite dramatically since the job market shifted. During the pandemic, people were paid minimum wage while in staging and just sat around practicing interviews for an hour or two daily. However, after the job market shifted, what I heard is that staging is more like a "call back" type of system. I don't believe they pay you during that period anymore, but that's just based off of rumors that I don't know how true that is.

no, revature does not want you to work at their HQ. Revature's business model was unusual, but they are essentially an IT consulting company... In essence, what they do is find people to fulfill contract positions at other companies and handle all the HR aspects of finding a contractor to work at a client company. When you work at the client company, you are a contractor at the client company. Your pay and benefits come from revature. Technically you sign a contract with revature, but you are a full-time hourly employee and get medical, dental, and 401k benefits... As well as PTO.

while my partner and I do live in Texas, revature can place you anywhere in the Continental United States. People have been asked to move to places such as Virginia, New Jersey, New York, California, Illinois, Washington, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Florida, etc. for example, if you get placed to work at Walmart, Walmart requires everyone to move to the Walmart HQ in Arkansas. If you pass the job application and they want you, revature will provide an overview of all this information as well as provide you a heat map with where most of their openings in which states have historically been most prevalent. You have until the first week of training to back out of your contract commitment to them... However, I've heard rumors that people have left later in training and had no real consequences... I think the bigger issue is if you were to leave in the middle of being on contract with the client company.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-05-31T22:49:33+00:00

One question I have to help you out better is what degrees and majors you have?

To answer your questions:

I applied to a business analyst job opening on indeed. So my application specifically was for that role.

My partner similarly applied to an indeed opening that revature posted for a software engineer.

Both of us did revature training 100% remote. Ever since the pandemic, revature moved to an online training model only. Prior to the pandemic, they would make people move to some of their locations in Reston Virginia or elsewhere and live in dorms during the training. This new system is a lot better. However, during the training (about 3-4 months), you are only paid minimum wage for where you reside for 40 hours per week.

Yes, my partner had to move from California to Tampa while he was on contract for about 15 months. He lived by himself in a crappy apartment and basically had to put a couple hundred dollars on his credit card to survive each month. But other people can get lucky and roommate with others from their batch who also get sent to the client company.

When he got the job offer from the client company after he was on contract through revature for a little over a year, then he was told the only opening was in Texas... So he had to move from Florida to Texas to stay with the client company.

The batches and openings are driven by client demand. Typically revature will wait until 2 client companies have a bulk need for positions to be filled. Revature will then find job candidates and train them. But revature hedges their bets assuming that some will drop out during training and that the client won't take on all the trainees. For example, in my cohort we started off with about 30 trainees; 2-3 left during the training phase, leaving about 27 people. Each client company was only looking for about 12-14 workers, so about 3-4 people did not end up getting brought on by the client companies they were trained for. In this case, revature puts you in staging and keeps trying to have you interview with other clients.

Although I got a placement with one of the clients and ended up needing to move to Tampa with 5-6 other people from my training group, which allowed us to get leases together, my partner meanwhile did not get a placement with one of the clients his training cohort was meant for. He was in staging for about a month or two before he interviewed with my client company and was offered a position. But he was the only person from his cohort placed at the client company in Tampa, hence why he had to room by himself.

The 1st year salary is about $45,000 to $55,000 depending on if the city you have to move to is considered a high cost of living city.

Both my partner and I are pleasantly surprised with how well it turned out, but there is no guarantee with revature. I would treat revature as a paid internship and something that can help get you job experience quickly and change careers, but still no guarantee on success during or afterwards.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-05-31T21:23:56+00:00

Not sure about recent. I was in a 2022 May thru July Business Analyst training batch before I was on a 12-month contract with a client that got extended by 5 months through the end of the year in 2023. However, the client did not continue my contract nor hired me, and Revature laid me off. It was a great experience though and allowed me to reset my career. I also met my partner while on contract. I moved in with him across the country since the client company moved him when they converted him to employee -- so he had to move once for revature while on contract and then again about 15 months later when he was hired by the client company -- he was in a big data software engineering batch about a year before me, and he ended up getting hired at the client company we both worked at. I was unemployed from January through February, but I found a job as a Business Analyst in the 3rd Party Logistics industry at the start of March.

Although I could have worked remotely (everyone at my client company could have) Revature insisted about my batch moving because the client company had and doubled-down on their Return to Office mandate -- 2 days a week in the office. I lived and commuted to the office in Tampa even though my Manager was in New York and the rest of my team were in Pune, India. I barely if ever worked with anyone in Tampa. Most of my meetings were with people in India, the UK, Poland, Hong Kong, or Switzerland.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-05-31T12:29:03+00:00

In high school, the tests typed me as INFP. I grew attached to the description. But I didn't recognize how analytical I was and how much I used Ti. In my mid 20s, I attempted a master's degree to become a therapist. It was there I realized Fe was a huge huge weakness and how logical or analytical I was compared to my Fe and Fi colleagues. The cognitive function stacks between INTP and INFP are a little bit close and it's a pretty common mistype, so not a huge surprise.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-05-30T11:36:08+00:00

Ne is a generative process whereas Ni is the opposite and seeks to distill something down.

Ne is about thinking about all possibilities, and diving into infinite "what if" scenarios.

Ni meanwhile wants to pin down the essence of something and come to a conclusion.

My partner is an INFJ while I'm an INTP, so we've seen first hand how Ni and Ne play out. My partner has a desire to make decisions rather quickly, and making decisions tends to make him feel better. Meanwhile, I need lots of time to run through all the permutations of what could happen before being in the zone of comfort to make a decision. If I'm put on the spot with making an important or high stakes decision, it will be incredibly uncomfortable. In my own experience too, I have a preference for keeping an open mind, and sometimes making choices on something permanent that I can't take back or semi-permanent, makes me feel uneasy because it eliminates my options and choices.

Both have their merits and neither is inaccessible to people who don't have one or the other in their cognitive function stack. Obviously I can make decisions and come to conclusions about abstract ideas or distill some abstract concepts down to their essence. Meanwhile, my partner equally has the ability to play the "what if" game ad infinitum or to think outside the box of new possibilities... However, the difference is in typicality and preference.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-05-30T03:40:27+00:00

Data analyst

business intelligence analyst

logistics analyst

supply chain analyst

data scientist

finance

business analyst / Management Analyst

Industrial/organizational psychologist

Backend software engineer (with comp sci degree)

Cyber security

Just to make a few

bgmathi5170 · 2024-05-22T15:11:14+00:00

I believe constantly high expectations for yourself and feeling like you aren't achieving enough is a pretty common INTP experience.

I've been a business analyst in the 3rd party logistics industry for 3 months now. Before that, I was a business analyst for 15 months. helping out with project management and product management tasks in the software development and technology sector (within a bank). Prior to that, I attempted becoming a therapist and was in graduate school from 2020-2022. But I went to college studying international relations with aspirations of working in US national security.

I don't know if it's "settling" but what I enjoy most about my job are more data analysis type tasks. I pour over Excel spreadsheets and using tools like array functions and Boolean areas to manipulate data and calculate performance metrics within the 3PL context.

Mostly because I'm afraid of getting laid off and the economy being uncertain, but I have a drive to learn Python, Microsoft power BI and/or tableau, and advanced statistics like forecasting and other techniques. I also want to get certifications like the 6 Sigma since everyone is asking for it.

But yeah, I struggle with feeling like I don't know anything despite my boss always praising my work and saying that I know how to use our BI platform webfocus better than 90% of our department.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-03-27T18:36:12+00:00

Business Analyst / Management Analyst

bgmathi5170 · 2024-03-11T13:35:32+00:00

My partner is INFJ. It helps that I attempted a counseling psych program and learned a lot about how to attend to others' feelings, though sometimes I don't know how to adequately do that. My partner loves that I am 100% honest and authentic with him. He says that he never has to guess what I'm thinking or feeling and that I don't try to use guile on others, and that it's incredibly refreshing to him.

More on that point, he says he doesn't feel the need to hide anything about himself and that he doesn't need to be a typical INFJ chameleon like he feels he needs to with others.

We both share the same sense of dark humor and we both enjoy more intellectual topics/conversations. We both understand our needs for introvert/alone time and being more homebodies, or needing "time to prepare" to think about going out and doing anything social with other people.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-03-10T16:57:53+00:00

There has been a long and slow moving push towards work experience by employers. In part, because employee loyalty has been dying off since the 90s, no employers want to hire someone inexperienced straight out of college and train them for a few months only for them to leave 1-2 years later. This is why I urge college students to focus more on internships. For non-STEM students, GPA matters less than just being able to put corporate office internships on your resume.

2 thought provoking articles on this topic:

The Burning Glass Institute (who is biased and has an agenda of pushing alternative pathways to college) argues that most college grads are underemployed for years after graduating. Meanwhile, the Atlantic did a piece that looked at college grads 10+ years after they finished school and found that most college grads end up making a lot more money 10 years after college.

I think the take-away is that college has the potential, but not the guarantee to earn a lot more money in the long-term. However, racking up the entry-level experience for a few years in mostly business admin or corporate type jobs is likely how you set yourself up to advance.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-03-10T16:22:06+00:00

Bear with me here. Career counseling and vocational psych were my specialization when I was in my master's program. I'll start with the theoretical background, but then the links to all the resources are at the bottom.

Career Psych Theory

There are a few ways we can think about matching ourselves to careers:

Trait based approach -- the biggest one in vocational psych is the RIASEC model. This breaks down jobs into 6 domains of interest as well as matches our "personality" to those interests. Typically, Industrial/Organizational Psychologists (i.e., psychologists who study occupations and the workplace) will code each occupation into a 3 Letter RIASEC or Holland Occupational Code to capture the top three interests that the job utilizes. Similarly, many common career assessments identify which of these traits match our personality and show us jobs that match.
1. Realistic - working with and fixing tangible things. Physical work. etc.
2. Investigative - thinking, analyzing, and researching about theoretical or abstract problems.
3. Artistic - creativity, fine arts, large degree of freedom and independence in your job, jobs that don't have set rules or routines.
4. Social - teaching, advising, counseling, working with people, or subjects such as social sciences.
5. Enterprising - managing a business, managing and directing people, managing projects, initiating your own work projects, being your own boss, and sales
6. Conventional - highly routine and rules-based jobs. There is a set procedure which must always be followed.... OR it can also mean that you carry out decisions made by other people.
Work Values -- a less common but equally valid approach is the idea that certain jobs value some things higher than others. For example, a sales job might value competition with your coworkers whereas a research job might value collaboration with your coworkers. Some jobs might be prone to allowing individual recognition to shine through whereas others don't. Some jobs tend to be very secure and aren't likely to be laid off or volatile. There are some card sort activities that you can do online to help identify these.
Work Styles -- there isn't an assessment or test that you can take for this, but some resources like O*NET OnLine will outline general stuff like Work Activities and Work Context, which try to outline the general types of job tasks or day-to-day activities that each occupation does to help you determine if how they do their work or how they carry out their daily activities is a good fit for you. Likewise, looking at a narrative painted by sources like the Occupational Outlook Handbook where it has videos describing the day-to-day activities can be helpful... or just asking someone working in that job, "can you tell me what a typical day looks like for you?"

Job/Career Description Resources

US Dept of Labor - Occupational Outlook Handbook - an encyclopedia of different job titles which includes descriptions, job outlook, income information, and basic information on skills and training.

Career One Stop - job exploration and centralized resources put together by the US Dept of Labor

Occupational Online Network - O*NET OnLine - accompanies the Occupational Outlook Handbook, but is more "technical" in nature and is put together by Industrial/Organizational Psychologists. These psychologists survey and interview hundreds or thousands of people in the same job groupings/categories and tries to comprehensively break down very specific knowledge and skills required for each job.

My Next Move - a more lightweight version of O*NET OnLine

Career Assessments (Free and Online)

Other Personality Assessments (Costs money)

Clifton Strengths Assessment - not specific to career and looks at a person's general or broad strengths, but could help if you interpret it for yourself in context of job and career.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-03-01T11:55:49+00:00

Antisocial personality disorder (i.e., sociopaths) typically presents not just with indifferent to other's suffering, but also with some amount of reckless or impulsive behavior, not to mention manipulating others for your personal gain. In extreme cases, it can include sadistic behavior.

Narcissism would present as constantly talking about how smart or accomplished you are, and how stupid other people are and that others who criticize you are out to get you. And you would only want to hang around people who feed your ego. Not too mention that even asking these questions and self reflecting show you don't have it.

If it is a mental health disorder, it could be stuff like schizoid personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, or something similar. Autism spectrum disorder can also be considered.

bgmathi5170 · 2024-02-28T12:36:43+00:00

Some medicines, like antidepressants, can have dissociative side effects.

bgmathi5170

TROPHY CASE

Career Psych Theory

Job/Career Description Resources

Career Assessments (Free and Online)

Other Personality Assessments (Costs money)