A work style quiz for how you do your best work

This work style quiz maps six preferences that shape how you like to work: pace, structure, collaboration, feedback, decision style and focus. It takes about five minutes, is free to take and needs no sign-up. You come away with a clearer way of explaining what helps you do good work, and what gets in the way.

Please note that Work Style uses Selfcarta's own questions, which are not yet independently validated. It describes your preferences. It doesn't measure your ability or tell you how well you will do in a job.

What the quiz measures

Each of the six is a scale, not a verdict. A preference at either end can be a real strength in the right setting.

Pace

Do you tend to move quickly and adjust as you go, or take your time to get it right? Fast movers keep things going. Careful movers catch what others miss.

Structure

Do you like a clear plan, or do you prefer room to improvise? Planners bring reliability. Improvisers can respond well when the plan falls apart.

Collaboration

Do you tend to think best with others around, or alone and then share? Both have value, and most jobs need some of each.

Feedback

How do you like to hear how you are going? Some people want it straight away and direct. Others prefer time and privacy to take it in.

Decision style

Do you tend to decide quickly on instinct, or gather more information first? Quick deciders keep things moving. Careful deciders reduce the chance of expensive surprises.

Focus

Do you enjoy juggling several things, or do you need long stretches on one? Knowing this can change how you plan your whole day.

The ideas behind it

Unlike Core Personality, this Expedition isn't built on one established research instrument. We wrote the six dimensions as a practical framework, and our own questions have not been independently validated. We don't claim any accuracy figures for this quiz. What follows is related research that explains why we think the topic is worth your time. It isn't evidence for our test.

There is good reason to care about how well you and your work fit each other. A meta-analysis by Amy Kristof-Brown and colleagues, covering 172 studies, looked at how people fit with their jobs, organisations, groups and supervisors, and found relationships with outcomes including attitudes, performance, withdrawal, strain and tenure.

Personality also relates to performance at work, in ways that depend on the job. Murray Barrick and Michael Mount's classic meta-analysis found that conscientiousness had consistent relations with performance across occupational groups, while other traits varied by occupation. If you would like the established trait picture, the Core Personality Expedition measures the Big Five with public-domain IPIP items.

Teams matter too. Suzanne Bell's meta-analysis found that deep-level qualities of team members, such as personality and values, related to team performance in field studies, and that preference for teamwork was among the strong predictors.

What you can do with your result

Your result is most useful when you share it.

• Turn your scores into a short "how to work with me" note, and give it to your team
• Tell your manager how you like to get feedback, before you need it
• Ask a colleague who works differently what helps them most

Our guide to building a team with different work styles has a simple session you can run. For help on the feedback side, read how to ask for honest feedback. Field Guides can also turn your results into practical do and don't advice to share.

How your co-workers see you

You may think you are flexible, and your team may think you are very particular about how things get done. Both can be useful to know. With Second Sight, people who know you can answer a 12-item version of the Work Style Expedition about you. Friends, family and co-workers stay anonymous, and they are shown only as averages with at least two others. The Partner circle is a named, one-to-one comparison, and your partner is told that before they start.