I have a confession to make: I haven’t always been a big believer in personality or career aptitude tests.
That all ties back to an experience I had in the seventh grade. As part of a class assignment, we were required to take a personality assessment to guide our career choices. I sat in that dark computer lab, doing my best to answer each prompt as honestly as possible.
When I got the results? Well, let’s just say I was disappointed.
Obviously, your personality type has affected your career. For many, it determined what that career would be. It’s common knowledge that most ENTJs prefer to find success by taking on leadership roles and helping to organize projects, whereas an introverted perceiver may be less interested in that type of role.
But how, specifically, once you land that job you got by taking account of your personality, does it change where you go on the corporate ladder?
So you're bored at work and planning your next move. You've taken a personality test, read up on the type of careers that are perfectly aligned to work style, and made a list of all the different options. You may have spent a fair chunk of time researching those options, matching them up to your strengths, interests, passions and hobbies, and a few have really captured your interest. In fact, you're currently having a love affair with so many different career paths that you just can't pin down a single option to go after.
Almost every personality typing website out there likes to list science-related careers as a good fit for ENTPs and INTPs. We are said to have an inherent aptitude for and interest in scientific fields. The INTP type has been nicknamed the “Scientist,” “Engineer” or “Architect”, while ENTPs have been dubbed the “Inventor,” “Visionary” or the “Mad Scientist”.
The Enneagram can help uncover stress and growth areas to guide you on a career journey tailored specifically to your strengths. Personality type and career preferences have a strong connection, and personal satisfaction plays a huge factor in this equation.
You’ve made it to the interview stage of your job hunt, which means that employer thinks you might be a good match for their open position.
But now ask yourself this: Are they a good match for you?
It’s easy to forget that the hiring process is a two-way street. As much as companies are weeding through applicants to find the best fit, candidates are also sussing out organizations to find ones that are most aligned with their values and desires.
As a manager, it’s easy to put your direct reports into boxes. There’s the creative one, the empathetic one, the one who likes autonomy and the one who like clear boundaries and set routines. There’s also another special breed of worker in the world, and that’s the person who has borderline manic levels of productivity yet spends a lot of the time kicking back and doing...well nothing. Someone who is lazy and a hard worker, all at the same time.
How do you manage someone when you’re never quite sure where they’re at? Here are some tips.
What do an ENFP, INFP, ENFJ and INFJ have in common? According to Keirsey, they’re all Idealists. Sure, they each have their own unique styles, but deep down, they share the same core motivations: the pursuit of authentic self-expression, and the opportunity to inspire others to do the same.
You’re principled, organized and driven – so why, as an INFJ, are you not encouraged to pursue leadership roles?
The INFJ’s steady reputation often earns us positions of responsibility such as life coach, counselor, or employee relations officer; but positions of actual authority tend to evade us (or we avoid them). It’s an odd one, and it may have as much to do with the way our culture understands hierarchical structures as it does with our abilities.
There’s no ideal way to work – just an ideal attitude to adapting.
The gig economy has led to more and more of us working short-term jobs, often remotely and/or with teams of strangers. Some choose to work this way, but for many, it is becoming a necessity. In fact, it's reckoned that freelancers will dominate the US workforce within the next decade. As things stand, around a third of free agents work this way because they have no other choice.
THE FINE PRINT: Myers-Briggs® and MBTI® are registered trademarks of the MBTI Trust, Inc., which has no affiliation with this site. Truity offers a free personality test based on Myers and Briggs' types, but does not offer the official MBTI® assessment. For more information on the Myers Briggs Type Indicator® assessment, please go here.
