PROFESSIONALLY SIGNIFICANT PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS FOR ENGINEERS IN THE MINING INDUSTRY

ABSTRACT: In everyday life, we often witness comments like: “This person is very disciplined and organised”, or “They are reliable and undertake the risk of doing...”, etc. All of those indicate the presence of certain personal characteristics of separate individuals. Along with the acquired knowledge and skills during their studies, it is necessary for a specialist to possess personal qualities that will support their professional realisation, i.e. professionally relevant qualities. A project to create professional charts of the most common occupations in Bulgaria, which started in 1994, was carried out by the National Employment Service (now the Employment Agency) and the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy on the part of Bulgaria and the Federal Employment Service of Germany. In it, professiograms were developed for the specialists-engineers from the mining industry who are offered specialised and engineering training at and get their degrees from the University of Mining and Geology “St. Ivan Rilski”. After researching eight professiograms about that branch of the economy, 23 personal characteristics were found, conditionally divided into 5 groups: moral; volitional; qualities determining personal activity; communicative; and characteristics determining emotional stability. Qualities, such as responsibility, discipline, team work skills, organisation, and ability to make decisions on your own, stood out as professionally significant.