What Careers Are Best for Me?
Dear Editor:
What careers are best for me? My MBTI personality type came back INTP. I am working as a receptionist, but I would like to do vet assisting.
Dear Reader:
If you haven't already done so, the first step is to make sure that INTP (your "indicator type") is indeed your best-fit type. Most of the time your MBTI assessment report will accurately reflect your true preferences but, occasionally, people find that there is a difference between their reported type and their true (or what we call best-fit) type. For example, I assessed as an ENFP but after digging in a little deeper, I realized that my best-fit type is INFP.
To confirm your best fit type, refer to sections 11 and 12 in our Online Learning Module 2 on myEVT.com.
So now, to answer your question, I need to start with a brief disclaimer. There is no single perfect career for INTPs (or any other type for that matter). Keep in mind that all 16 types can and do work in a variety of jobs.
That said, however, the MBTI can be very helpful in shedding light on the environments, situations, and tasks that you are likely to find stimulating and fulfilling. Based on our four-letter MBTI personality type, each of us is likely to share a specific set of career satisfiers that can help guide our career decisions. Career satisfiers are job elements that bring satisfaction because they honor your personality preferences and make the best use of your natural gifts.
INTP
As an INTP, career satisfaction generally means doing work that:
1. Lets you develop, analyze, and critique new ideas.
2. Lets you focus your attention and energy on a creative, theoretical, and logical process, rather than on an end product.
3. Is challenging and deals with complex problems, where you are able to try unconventional approaches and take risks to find the best solution.
4. Lets you work independently with plenty of quiet, private time to concentrate, and complete your thinking process.
5. Lets you set and maintain your own high standards for your work and determine how your performance will be evaluated and compensated.
6. Is done in a flexible, non-structured environment, without useless rules, excessive limitations, or unnecessary meetings.
7. Lets you interact with a small group of highly regarded friends and associates all of whom you respect.
8. Gives you opportunities to constantly increase your own personal competence and power and lets you meet and interact with other successful people.
9. Lets you develop ingenious ideas and plans and lets you delegate the implementation and follow-through to an efficient support staff.
10. Does not require you to spend time directly organizing other people or supervising or mediating interpersonal differences.
Each of these elements won't be equally important to all INTPs so you may want to re-read the list and decide which elements are most important to you. If you're like most INTPs, you'll probably place a lot of value in having some autonomy in your work.
Regarding your career options, many occupations attractive to INTPs are in scientific or technical fields, where expert knowledge or technical skill is important. Tasks that require long-term or strategic planning, conceptualization, or design are also attractive. Many careers attractive to INTPs require prolonged periods of solitary concentration and tough-minded analysis of problems.
It looks to me like moving from receptionist to a more technical role within the veterinary practice would certainly make sense for you!
Regards,
Jeff Thoren, DVM, ACC
editor@myevt.com
References
• Searching for Your Best-Fit Job by Jeff Thoren, Exceptional Veterinary Team, September 2009.
• Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You through the Secrets of Personality Type by Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron, 4th Edition, Little, Brown & Company, 2007.
• Introduction to Type and Careers by Allen Hammer, CPP, Inc., 1993.
