Almost every big company today requires employees to take personality tests that will allow managers and human resources officers to perfectly peg all new hires - or avoid making what could be major staffing mistakes.

The problem with this is that some managers have developed formulas - or adopted formulas from books -- that require a team to be made up of specific numbers and combinations of personality types. That could mean that if you get pigeonholed in a certain category, you may find it difficult to find a place on a corporate team.

An interview becomes much less of a guessing game for hiring professionals if they have been given a predetermined, positive, opinion of you. Having your reputation precede you is definitely a feather in your cap; you'll have to go through a lot less prerequisite paperwork than a candidate who shows up on a company's doorstep with no personal references.

You can work to break stereotyping personality molds by branding yourself to surpass them. With the advent of such enterprising online resume services as VisualCV, job seekers can write their own ticket down the career path. The service provides such a wide variety of presentation platforms - traditional resume, portfolio staging, and video - that employers who view CVs from this site may feel that specific candidates are already acquaintances. That could help you bypass many of the traditional "getting-to-know-you" rigmarole utilized as a weeding-out tool by many employers.

Adding keywords - industry and job-specific buzzwords that are used in writing employment ads - also serves to give employers a better sense of who you are before you walk through their doors.

Certain industries rely on specific personality types to get ahead. Some information technology jobs will require methodical, detail-oriented personalities, while advertising agencies will want creative-thinking, results-oriented personalities. A company hiring a receptionist may look for a social personality type that can make visitors and callers feel welcome.

Your best bet for success is to determine the personality type most sought by employers in your industry. Understand the outcome of successful work by such a personality type, and determine how to achieve superior results with your own temperament and skills. This will require you to carefully analyze your ability to achieve goals and to write an equation that will allow you not only to meet expectations, but to surpass them.

Dave Saunders helps people stand out and "Be the Brand" as a personal branding and marketing specialist. Manage your career online: Create, Enhance and Share a better resume, free at VisualCV.com