Do What You Are
The Meyer’s-Briggs personality types seem to be everywhere nowadays. In my AP psychology class, we took the test for fun and were assigned to find out how much was “predicted” about us from people online. People associate it with crazy things but its original purpose was to determine if someone would be a good fit for certain jobs. This takes a deep dive into that and I, as an INFP, want to see what it says about me.
Now, the first couple sections of this book are tests to figure out what personality types you are and some overall sections that go deeper into what exactly that means, but if I covered all of those this blog would be way too long. All I’m going to be covering here is a section at the back specifically saying what jobs fit INFP’s and where their strengths and weaknesses lie. Overall, someone who is INFP sees satisfaction in a career that lets them express their creativity, has few regulations and lays them stay flexible, allows for close connections with others that share the same interests, and doesn’t require them to present unfinished work. I think that this is a pretty good description of what makes me feel the best while I work. I love projects that allow some room for creativity and like working in groups if the other people are as into the project as me.
The next section of the book lists different fields of work that INFP’s usually fit in well. Some of these broad fields are Arts, Education, Counseling, Religion, Healthcare, Organizational Development, and Technology. Out of these, the only ones I’ve considered are Arts, Counseling, and Technology. When in comes to arts, I really enjoy making something that is uniquely mine. I’ve written poems and stories, made drawings, and even started working on making a game I’ve been putting off for a while. I can’t see myself going into this as a career because of the unstable job market, but it’s a fun hobby. For about a year and a half, I was dead set on going into counseling/healthcare and becoming a psychiatrist. I gave up on this because I don’t want to go to med school and I just don’t think I’d be very good at it. Psychology is interesting, sure, but applying it to real people that you need to help isn’t something I think I could do. Finally, technology is a very interesting field to me. I’m in an AP Computer Science Principals class right now and this is looking like a very possible career path for me. The work is fun and the job market is growing fast (in some places). Only big complaint I’ve heard about the field is it’s hard to start doing and the deadlines are always tight. But out of these 3, this is my most serious consideration.
At the end of this section, they list my possible strengths and weaknesses in different careers. Some of my possible strengths are seeing all possibilities, considering all my options carefully before making a decision, expressing myself well when I want to, demonstrating motivation, and having a close network. I think that most of these are surprisingly accurate for me. I feel like I’m not a very impulsive person since I always consider all of my options carefully. The only one I don’t agree with is the “demonstrating motivation” one since I’m pretty bad about procrastinating. Some of my possible pitfalls are unrealistic expectations for myself, taking criticism personally, not thinking about consequences, being indecisive, and being unorganized. All of these are pretty spot on for me except for the criticism and not considering consequences. I think I’m pretty good at taking criticism and the reason I’m indecisive is because I consider all of the consequences.
I’ve never put much faith in the different personality types. But after reading this book, I think it could be a good, legitimate, resource when thinking about your career. Seven out of ten is pretty good at predicting my strengths and weaknesses when you consider that the other resources feel like they’re just making things up about you and trying to pass it off as absolutely truth. If you’re interested in finding out more about your personality type, I suggest taking an online test. But if it feels a little pseudosciencey then find one of the Big 5 Personality tests. In AP Psychology, we learned this is the only test with real, empirical evidence to back it up.
