How Myers-Briggs Type Indicator can help you with Career Selection

Understanding your personality type, as measured through the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) technique, can help you make an informed decision on your career choice.

A person’s personality is a set of characteristics, that is, the totality of somebody’s attitudes, behavioural patterns, interests, emotional responses, social roles and any other individual traits that endure over long periods of time. Generally, a personality type comprises of behaviours, preferences and individual traits.

Identifying your personality type can go a long way in assisting you select your most ideal career. As with other major decisions of life, like finding a life partner, choosing your lifework is not a walk in the park. Hence, if you haven’t considered identifying your personality type, then maybe, this is the time to give it some thought.

Identifying Your Personality Type

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a self-examining, self-report evaluation that identifies a person’s personality type and psychological preferences. The MBTI puts forward four different cognitive functions that determine one’s personality:

1. Extraversion (E) vs. Introversion (I)
2. Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N)
3. Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)
4. Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P)

Most people find that one preference, in a preference pair, best describes their natural way of doing things, where they feel the most comfortable being themselves, outside of any roles they play in life. When the letters for each of these preferences are combined, 16 distinct personality types form which consist of different characteristics unique to that type.

Simple Questions to Determine the Four Letters of Myers-Briggs Type

Extraversion (E) vs. Introversion (I)

Do you prefer to focus on the outer world or your own inner world?

Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N)

Do you prefer to focus on the facts or the big picture?

Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)

Do you prefer to take an objective or an empathetic approach for decision making?

Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P)

Do you prefer to see closure or stay open to new information?

When you combine your preferences (E or I, S or N, T or F, J or P), they make up your MBTI type (the four-letter type code or personality type). As mentioned above, there are 16 possible combinations of letters leading to 16 distinct MBTI personality types. From these 16 personality types, you can identify one that best describes you:

1. ISTJ – These are people who are responsible, sincere, analytical, reserved, realistic, and systematic. They are also hardworking and trustworthy with sound practical judgement.
2. ISFJ – People with this personality type are warm, considerate, gentle, responsible, and pragmatic. They are devoted caretakers who enjoy being helpful to others.
3. INFJ – These are people who are idealistic, organized, insightful, dependable, compassionate and gentle. They seek harmony and cooperation and enjoy intellectual stimulation.
4. INTJ – Describes people with innovative, independent, strategic, logical, reserved, insightful personality. These are people who are driven by their own original ideas to achieve improvement.
5. ISTP – Tolerant and flexible, quiet observers until a problem appears, then act swiftly to find workable solutions. They analyze what makes things work and readily get through large amounts of data to isolate the core of practical problems. They are interested in cause and effect; they organize facts using logical principles and value efficiency.
6. ISFP – Quiet, friendly, sensitive, artistic, and kind. They enjoy having their own space and working within their own time frame.
7. INFP – Idealistic, loyal to their values and people who are important to them. They are curious, quick to see possibilities, seek to understand people to help them fulfil their potential.
8. INTP – intellectual, logical, precise, reserved, flexible, imaginative. They are original thinkers who enjoy speculation and creative problem solving.
9. ESTP – flexible and tolerant, they take pragmatic approach focused on immediate results. They are skillful negotiators.
10. ESFP – they are outgoing, friendly and accepting. They have strong common sense, and enjoy helping people in tangible ways.
11. ENFP – enthusiastic, creative, optimistic, supporting. They see life as full of possibilities.
12. ENTP – quick, ingenious, stimulating, alert and outspoken. They enjoy new ideas and challenges. They value inspiration.
13. ESTJ – practical, realistic, decisive, and quickly move to implement decisions.
14. ESFJ – they are friendly, outgoing, reliable, organized, and conscientious. They seek to be helpful and please others.
15. ENFJ – caring, enthusiastic, idealistic, organized, diplomatic, and responsible. They are skilled communicators who value connection with people.
16. ENTJ – people with this personality type are strategic, logical, efficient, outgoing and ambitious. They are effective organizers of people and are long-range planners.

After identifying your personality type from the 16 possible types, you can then employ it to find an ideal career that is most suited with your personality, for instance, take a case of an expert financial adviser, this is someone who is an excellent listener, with analytical skills and is also a person who can be trusted. Checking with our 16 distinct personality types above, the personality type like ISTJ is a good fit. ISTJ personality type can be described as analytical, responsible, trustworthy, systematic, etc. as described in the list above.

Also Read: 5 Less-known Secrets of Successful Consultants

You can perform the same process of self-examination and evaluation for all the 16 personality types and compare these traits with the various career types’ descriptions to select your ideal job type.