Answers in your Genes: Changing the Face of Career Planning with Genetics

Planning for your career is a long and exhausting process and can be overwhelming for many. With DNA-based skill assessments, however, the career counseling process can be facilitated using key insights drawn from one’s genetic makeup. This blog decodes the profound impact of genetic testing and DNA-based self-discovery on career planning, and how you can use these tools to find your ideal career path.

What you will learn - 

• • What constitutes the process of career planning and why it is essential to have a systematic approach to career selection
  • The effect of your genetic makeup on career choices, educational attainment, and professional success
  • DNA-driven career planning and how you can use genetic testing to evaluate plausible options

Career guidance and counselling are becoming more complex as we move through a technology-fuelled world, with people juggling multiple careers and skillsets. There has been a steady rise in multidisciplinary careers and jobs that leverage focused skill sets, thanks to the evolving work cultures and labour markets. Simply put, career planning is the process of evaluating your skills, interests, hobbies, talent, and values to explore the right career choices or job roles for yourself. 

Career planning isn’t simply choosing a job and sticking with it for the rest of your life. It is anything but that; smart career planning considers your overall personality, short-term and long-term goals, changing interests, and transferable skills, and aligns them with your chosen career path. The process of career planning must begin at the earliest, preferably when one is in school so that they can make thoughtful choices about their areas of specialisation and study. If students are exposed to the right career guidance and counselling at the right age, they get the authority and confidence to make their own decisions governing their career choices. 

Robust career planning can help students find confidence and unwavering motivation toward their chosen goals and career path, and enable them to give their best. 

Why should you concretise career planning?

As mentioned before, career planning is the process of evaluation and choice of interests, academic and career options that best serve your goals and aspirations, and helps you achieve your highest potential. The process includes an understanding of your priorities, academic interests, natural talents and dispositions, personality traits, cognitive and educational capabilities, level of skills and experience, and career goals. 

Career goals constitute the ultimate job that you aspire to have that fulfils you intellectually, financially, and psychologically. This can be any career path that appeals to you and is realistic enough to accomplish. Having a clear career goal is the first step to achieving your professional dreams, and directs your every major decision, including your choice of academic discipline, the college or university you attend, the interests and hobbies you pursue, the certifications and mentors you seek, and more. 

Having a robust system of career guidance and counselling can help you optimise your approach to your dream career, and break down the process into smaller, achievable steps. After all, as important and serious as it is to plan a career, it doesn’t hurt to have fun in the process. 

Genetics - Your pathway to a fulfilling career

Genetics or the scientific discipline of how genes and traits are passed down across generations is proving to be significantly important while assessing one’s career choices. Multiple studies and research have shown the impact of genetics and DNA on job choice. 

There are several examples, one of them being entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs often possess certain psychological and cognitive traits that help them succeed in this challenging career path. These include optimism, risk-taking capacity, sociability, talkative nature, and extraversion, all of which have a genetic component.

Some of the ways genetics affect job choice and performance are - 

• • Choosing a job that ensures high social status can be up to 60% influenced by your genetic makeup
  • An inclination towards mathematics and pure sciences
  • Liking sales is up to 19% genetically determined
  • Your interest in finance, numbers, and investment is up to 36% impacted by genetics
  • Genetic factors influence academic subject choice across a diverse range of school subjects, including second language learning, mathematics, and psychology.
  • 21 percent of the difference between people in their interest in law enforcement is genetic
  • 25 percent of the variation in interest in managerial roles is because of genetics, while family environment influences only 8 percent of this interest
  • Genetics accounts for 29 percent of the difference in people’s interest in merchandising
  • Over 53 percent of categories of interests, such as affinity for adventurous, intellectual, or agrarian work, are in fact genetic.
  • 32 percent of the difference between people with respect to their responses about occupational interests are genetic

With this huge body of research, it is important to question just how much of our career path is actually directed by our DNA. While it remains true that we are indeed born with certain affinities and inclinations towards specific career options and job roles, a lot of our life decisions are determined by our immediate environment and lived experiences. 

Genes are expressed only in certain environments, as is being studied by the emerging science of epigenetics. With the changing environment, different genes may be expressed or activated, while others may remain dormant. This makes it even more essential to first decode what information is being carried in your genetic makeup, and then create the ideal environment for your gifts and talents to bloom into their full potential. 

Planning your career with the help of your DNA

Career planning can be overwhelming without the right guidance and support system. Having an understanding of your genetics can help you start with data and science-based insights about your inherited potential and environmental influences. The information in your genes is powerful and can be leveraged to plan your career path in the most realistic and fulfilling way. 

Scientific skill discovery and DNA-based skill assessments have simplified career planning by helping individuals incorporate their innate traits, gifts, talents, strengths, and interests into their career plans. By first assessing what you aspire to, what your current and future goals are, and what kind of opportunities appeal to you, you can systematically approach your career by leveraging the information drawn from your genetic skill assessment. 

Here are some of the insights you can access through a DNA-based skill assessment test -

• • Special talents such as sporting or athletic talent - Genetics can determine 30 to 80 percent of the differences among individuals in physiological traits associated with elite athletic performance. DNA-based testing can reveal your inherited aerobic capacity, muscle strength, endurance, and other factors governing your sporting talent.
  • Music capabilities - It is true that musical acumen is a highly heritable trait, with as much as 50% genetic heritability. Perfect pitch or the ability to discern and sing musical notes without a reference note is also genetically determined. 
  • Cognitive and intellectual capabilities such as educational attainment, logical thinking, learning from errors, spatial reasoning, working memory, reading, and verbal abilities are all genetically influenced and can be identified through a DNA-based skill assessment test. 
  • Personality traits such as perseverance, extraversion, sociability, flexibility, openness, and hundreds of others all have genetic influence and affect your work life in more ways than one. Genetic testing can help uncover major and minor personality traits that you have inherited from your parents. 

Knowing yourself through your DNA is only the beginning of your career counselling process, but it is a powerful tool to help you navigate the myriad choices that you will face as you grow in your career and in life. By decoding your genetic makeup, you can strategically make career and academic decisions that help you achieve success while fulfilling your innate drives and interests. The importance of the environment cannot be understated here. Once you have access to your genetic information, you can actually have an impact on your gene expression by nurturing and creating the right environment for your career growth. 

Career planning is not about landing a job that pays your bills and helps you survive; it involves making choices that keep your short-term and long-term career goals at the centre, including job status, travelling, exploration, areas of specialisation, industry, job type, and others. Nurturing your inherited talents and potential can only be done in a growth-focused environment, with the right company and guidance, and learning resources that can help you reach the next level of success in your career. 

Career Planning with Genleap 

Genleap, the world’s first DNA-based patented* skill discovery, upskilling, and employability is set to revolutionise career planning with its flagship product - GenDiscover. GenDiscover is a thorough self-discovery tool that helps individuals discover their natural talents, interests, personality traits, and gifts through a unique triangulation of three knowledge streams - Genomics, Cognitive Astromancy, and Psychometrics.

Using proprietary frameworks and assessments, Genleap helps you uncover your inherited and acquired potential and move beyond a traditional 9-5 job to build a meaningful career. Genleap believes in the power of self-discovery, and thus helps you find your best version. 

Using a saliva sample and your birth information, Genleap provides an in-depth analysis of your personality, potential, and interests to help you tap into latent strengths and talents. 

The tenets of Vedic Astrology combined with the widely recognised Big 5 Personality test offer a deep dive into the mystery of your SELF, and help you find your ideal career path. Genleap’s partner ecosystem further enhances your career-building efforts by exposing you to a world of career resources, counsellors, mentors, coaches, universities, organisations, and skilling partners that help you grow at a fast pace with the right support. 

Combined with lifetime handholding and talent nurturing, Genleap equips individuals with the right tools to become their best selves and explore their highest potential. What’s more, you get access to the top 99 career choices with GenDiscover to gauge which careers are suitable or not ideal for you.