Know Your Career Type: Are You a Pioneer, a Thinker, a Defender, or a Drifter?

“You are what you settle for.” -Janis Joplin

I’m on day two of my unemployment odyssey, having left my full time job with no idea what I’m going to do next. I have occasional waves of anxiety, but they pass. I think some of them aren’t even my response to being unemployed—they’re my body’s panicked reaction to a brain that hasn’t yet fully realized that I don’t have work email that I need to keep up with, and if a bunch of terrorists attack Paris again, I’m not going to get the emergency phone calls about it.

For a long time, resigning from my job without another one in place seemed inconceivable to me. Although I’ve left two jobs before, both times I did so because of a great opportunity (who wouldn’t want to move to Estonia for a year?? Or study poetry in San Diego for three years?? I’m in!). Certainly entering a period of unemployment wasn’t a financially comfortable option, but that wasn’t the reason that I didn’t resign sooner. My partner had been pointing out for more than six months that we could make it work if I needed to leave.

The book Risk/Reward: Why Intelligent Leaps and Daring Choices Are the Best Career Moves You Can Make was one of the major catalysts for change. On a Saturday afternoon, I happened across it, by chance, in the “new books” section at my public library. By the time I went to the office on Monday I had finished reading it, and it was dawning on me that I needed to quit my job…and soon. Risk/Reward helped me realize why I continued to stay, no matter how bad things became, and in spite of the fact that finances weren’t a major issue. The book also changed my perspective dramatically by informing me that approximately 1 out of every 10 Americans would consider STAYING inconceivable, were they to find themselves in the same situation I was in. Here I was, thinking that leaving was impossible, and it turns out the world is full of people who would have found  it impossible to stay!

So here’s the deal. According to Kreamer, most people fall into one of four categories when it comes to their career tendencies. We are either pioneers, thinkers, defenders, or drifters. We can have some traits of two or three of these types—and I certainly feel that I do myself—but everyone tends to have an “anchor” type that drives their decision-making. It was recognizing my own anchor type that lead me to understand exactly why I wasn’t leaving my job.

Pioneers

10% of people are pioneers. These are the people who would think that I would be crazy to even consider staying in a job situation that wasn’t working for me. They’re those “you only live once” people. They’re driven by gut instincts. Which isn’t entirely unwise, because apparently the research has been done, and gut instincts are scientifically valid!

Pioneers also understand that they need to thoroughly refresh themselves occasionally. According to Kreamer’s research, pioneers are the only people who are able to periodically do NOTHING AT ALL. Thinkers, defenders, and drifters all report that they have difficulty disconnecting and turning off.

One of the most important traits of pioneers is that of optimism. 90% of them say that if the worst happened, they figure they would still land on their feet in the end. This gives them the confidence to make bold choices.

Thinkers

40% of people are thinkers. This is the group into which most people fall, and it’s definitely my own anchor group. Thinkers are hard-working and reliable, and they like making major changes only if they have a carefully hedged “plan b” in place. They don’t share the pioneer’s blind faith that something better will come along.

Thinkers also have a lot of grit. Apparently that’s an official term, and there’s even a test so you can figure out how gritty you are: sites.sas.upenn.edu/duckworth. As it turns out, I’m extremely gritty. Grittier, in fact, than 85% of the people who have taken the test. That means that I like to stick things out and finish what I started, which is exactly why, in my mind, leaving a job abruptly seemed about as possible as changing a baby’s diaper on a moving roller-coaster.

Defenders

36% of people are defenders. They like the status quo, whatever that happens to be. They tend to view work as a means to an end, not a calling. They just want to show up, do the job, and get paid. That’s simplifying it a bit—they also want things to be in careful order, so they make great accountants, middle-administrators, and clerical workers. Defenders are prone to believing that, because they’ve “invested” years in a job, it would be foolish to leave, and they also despise uncertainty. Even if presented with another job that seems objectively better, they are prone not to take it. After all, the devil you know…. At the same time, most defenders, unlike pioneers and thinkers, unhesitatingly report that they would quit their jobs immediately if they won the lottery.

Drifters

14% of people are drifters. I’ve marveled my entire life at my friends who are drifters. I used to find their decision-making processes entirely opaque. Now, however, I’m starting to see the wisdom in their ways. Kreamer identifies two types of drifters: intentional and unintentional. Intentional drifters consciously choose a free-form, improvisational approach to their career. They often choose part time work over full time, and they tend to believe that the journey is the destination. They usually aren’t chasing specific career goals.

Unintentional drifters are those who end up in unsatisfying jobs because of circumstances that are difficult for them to control (socio-economics, for example).

…deep down in my thinker-soul, there was a pioneering intuition wielding a little bullhorn, trying to be heard

Reading about these career types, I felt like I was being awakened by a bank of stadium lights at close range: “One out of ten people would think I’m an idiot for sticking around another minute, and I think they’re right. I need to just leave!” It scared the hell out of me (it still does), but deep down in my thinker-soul, there was a pioneering intuition wielding a little bullhorn, trying to be heard. I did hear, in part thanks to the happy accident of coming across Kreamer’s book at just the right time

I believe that even a staunch defender should be able to occasionally, over the course of a lifetime, say, “you know what, in this situation, even though it’s going to be incredibly uncomfortable for me, I’m going to do what a pioneer would do.” It’s just a matter of remembering that what we believe to be the only logical response to a situation might be the exact opposite of what someone else believes to be the only logical response. Sometimes that other person’s response might be the one that would be best for us.

Of course, on the flip side, pioneers risk leaping too soon, too often. If you’re a pioneering type, you would do well to consider the thinker’s perspective before making major decisions. In any case, awareness of these biases is the first step toward correcting for them. I’m certainly glad that I made the decision that I did, and I’ve consciously chosen to adopt some of the pioneer’s confidence that somehow it’s all going to work out.

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Coming Up Tomorrow…

A nice, instructive fable about two knights searching a forest for a magical four-leaf clover.