Are you looking for INFJ careers to suit your personality type? When you are starting your career, understanding the strengths of your personality type is a good start. The same stands if you are thinking about changing career paths. One of the popular personality tests used by employers and careers advisors is the Myers-Brigg Type Indicator (MBTI). This questionnaire looks at how you behave and how you prefer to make decisions and interact and communicate with others. The Myers-Briggs test identifies 16 personality types. Knowing your own type indicator can help with making career choices.
What is INFJ Personality
What does INFJ stand for? The letters in each of the 16 Myers-Briggs personality test types relate to the four types of behaviors and traits you score highest in. An INFJ personality is one that scores highly in Introversion, Intuition, Feeling, and Judging. This personality type is considered one of the rarest, with the smallest percentage of the US population identifying as INFJ. The gender balance is fairly equal, although there tend to be more INFJ women than INFJ men.
- Introversion: As a personality trait, an INFJ person feels more energized when they are alone or with a few close people. They are not comfortable being the center of attention in a large group or crowd. They may outwardly seem quiet, reserved, and introverted, but they are often deep thinkers.
- Intuition: The intuitive personality trait in an INFJ presents as being able to see and reflect on possibilities and look to the future. They have an understanding of the bigger picture. They see and feel how everything else fits within a system and where to adjust if needed using critical-thinking skills to reflect and evaluate.
- Feeling: INFJ people value the social impact and implications of any decision. They will tend to go with and place a lot of value on personal or “gut” feelings when making decisions. They will usually always consider other people’s points of view.
- Judging: INFJ people will take a structured, planned, and organized approach. They can be very decisive in their assessment and judgment of any situation.
INFJ Personality Traits
Some of the personality traits and strengths and weaknesses of MBTI INFJ personality types are:
Conscientious
INFJ people tend to be loyal and conscientious towards all that they do and work towards. This personality type likes do the right thing and will try to do the best for the benefit of all.
Insightful
INFJ people are usually very quiet, reflective, and intuitive. Their introverted intuition contributes to their ability to be very insightful into other people and situations. They have social perceptiveness, are empathetic listeners and able to understand complex situations.
Decisive
INFJ people will usually make a decision and stick with it. They are independent, trust their feelings and their judgment and ability to assess and evaluate a situation and other people. They can be perfectionists.
Value Driven
INFJ personality types like to find meaning in everything they do, whether related to a single task or the bigger picture. They are driven by their values and principles. Have a purpose in life is usually important to them.
Nurturing
INFJ people care about humanity at large. They are motivated to help other people realize their dreams and their potential, or get back on track if they are having difficulties in life. They will share knowledge to help others get ahead.
Creative
INFJ people are usually creative in their approach to life in general. They will share and bring alternative and visionary solutions to problems. They are often creative in an artistic sense as well and enjoy art, music, fashion, writing, and so on.
Sensitive
INFJ personality types can be extremely sensitive. They care about what others think and feel. In turn, they will ponder on how they feel about others. They dislike conflict but are not likely to shy away from it if they think they can solve the problem. If someone or something offends them deeply or hurts their feelings, they will likely just walk away. They also usually prefer working in a quieter environment.
Relationships
INFJ people tend to let only a few people in close in their personal lives. They prefer quality over quantity, and would rather have a few closer meaningful connections and friendships than a wide network of casual acquaintances. INFJ relationships can be intense, but within a workplace, they tend to be share and be friendly and pleasant with colleagues. They will take a cooperative approach to mitigate the risk of any conflict.
INFJ Careers
INFJ personality types usually suit career paths where they can combine their caring and compassion towards humanity with their work. They need jobs where they can make decisions and take shared action to make the world a better place. They are well suited to work in most professions in the wider medical and health sector, including psychology, psychiatry, counselors, and social workers. Additionally, they also work well in educational jobs and settings, human resource positions, and in the religious professions. Within the arts, they may thrive in INFJ careers such as photography, writing, and music that can capture the essence or feeling of a people or region.
Because they have a curiosity to delve into meanings and explore possibilities, they can be well suited to pursuing an associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, and master’s degree – whatever is required to enter their chosen job or work type.
INFJ Jobs & Career List
INFP people might consider different career choices, but often once they make a decision, that is what they stay with. They would rather stay working with what they know than risk losing everything they may have worked towards already. They have usually utmost faith in their feelings of what will suit them in terms of work. With their ability and drive to spend their lives in a meaningful way, jobs or INFJ careers they could work in include:
Health Professionals
Their strong sense of ethics and integrity and desire to help others fits well with working in any of the health professions in any capacity. They may work as medical doctors and nurses, in psychiatry or psychology, as counselors, or in social work or social service jobs across sectors.
Educationalists
Being reflective and insightful of others behavior makes the INFJ type great educationalists at all levels of the education system from nursery to tertiary education. Jobs as academics often appeal to this personality type.
Human Resources
Within a business environment or other workplace, they may suit a job working in a human resource department in all related roles from recruiting to advising, to administration. They also suit HR jobs involving coaching others and encouraging workplace learning and development.
Natural and Social Scientists
Their curiosity to seek the meaning of things is well suited to scientific roles, whether in a lab or out in the field with people. The quiet and introverted nature of INFJ people means they will think and work through a system and look for solutions for the future in any of these jobs.
Humanitarians
Dedicating their career to a cause can be a good fit for INFJ people. Work in organizations and non-profits that have a mission to make a positive impact on the environment or people will have their wholehearted contribution of all the skills they can share and bring to their job help make it happen.
Arts
INFJ people can excel working in creative careers such as photography, dance, music, and graphic design. A career path may be pursuing an artistic pursuit as a career or job, and then going on to be great teachers of those creative skills to share with others.
Writers
Writing usually comes naturally to INFJ people. They often find it an easy way to communicate their ideas, feelings, intuition, and insights into the world. With their ability and insight to see into many types of situations, they can often cross genres and write across different topics and work with different forms of media and communication within different jobs.
INFJ Careers to Avoid
We all bring many personality traits to different careers and occupations. Even so, there are some careers for INFJs that are usually best to avoid. It is best to steer clear any types of environment where the sole or main job motivation is money or profit. They are not likely to feel comfortable in straight sales jobs, accounting or finance, real estate, or purely practical hands-on type work unless they can see a bigger meaning behind what they are doing. They may also find it hard in noisy and stressful environments such as kitchens, factories, and emergency services.
Final Thoughts
For any MBTI personality type, finding a role where you can utilize your natural strengths is going to be fulfilling. The best careers for INFJ people tend to have a focus on doing something meaningful that contributes to people’s well-being in some way. INFJs work best in jobs where they can have time and space to reflect and come up with the insights of humanity they are good at and can share.