Choosing the right career path can be a herculean task for many of us. While we may all remember the people who knew from day one what they wanted to do, the majority of us must make a concerted decision to stick to one career. If you are currently, looking for the right career then, it is a good idea to match it with your personality traits. These can be illuminating in telling you what motivates you, what you are interested in, and in what environments you excel in.
Here are a few common characteristics and how they might help direct you to the ideal career path.
Extroverted vs Introverted
This refers to how you prefer to spend your energy and what you pay the most attention to. Extroverts tend to prefer immersing themselves in the outer world of people and things, whereas introverts are more comfortable interacting personally with ideas and images.
Already, this can tell us plenty about which careers suit us. Extroverts, for example, will likely excel in roles which manage people and relationships, or in jobs where they can work regularly as part of a group.
Particularly entrepreneurial extroverts (ENTPs) are often found in the business world specifically, due to their proclivity for taking risks. ENTP in relationships and their careers require constant challenging, so are most at home in fast-paced environments.
Introverts, meanwhile, are naturally more comfortable working on their own as they are on the whole more comfortable in their own personal spaces.
Sensing vs Intuitive
This difference in traits refers to how you process information.
Individuals described as “sensing” are most interested in stimulus that can be directly seen, heard, smelt, or felt. They are also often pragmatic, and are most concerned with concrete, factual information. Consequently, they are most at home in careers that have practical applications, or are highly technical.
Scientific and analytical professions are then often popular among such individuals. Intuitive personalities instead respond to the underlying patterns of information, and thus can often be categorized as deep thinkers. Extroverted and intuitive individuals specifically tend to be highly charismatic and persuasive.
As such, they are often suited to leadership positions.
Feeling vs Thinking
In the simplest sense, feeling individuals are guided by their hearts while thinking individuals use their heads. This does not mean that feelers do not use their heads or vice versa, but rather that they are more guided by one than the other. More calculated, logical, and less likely to consult others for their opinions, thinkers are more disposed to fact-based careers which offer a certain degree of autonomy. Thinkers, meanwhile, can often thrive in creative roles which encourage self-expression, or alternately, careers which involve looking after other people, like nursing.
Judging vs Perceiving
In general, this difference in personality types refers to how you prefer to live your life on a day-to-day basis.
Judging personalities like things organised, neat, and regimented. If this describes you, you should look to focus on jobs with a solid routine, and a clear view of what is respected in their work. Perceiving individuals instead are flexible and spontaneous. Career-wise, jobs with flexible work patterns and a variety of responsibilities.