INTJ “Competence + Independence = Perfection”
As an INTJ, career satisfaction means doing work that:
1. Let you create and develop original and innovative solutions to problems to improve existing systems.
2. Let you focus your energy on the implementation of your good ideas, working in a logical and orderly way, and in a setting that rewards your perseverance.
3. Let you work with other conscientious people whose expertise, intelligence, and competence you respect.
4. Gives you credit for your original ideas and lets you maintain authorship and control over their execution.
5. Allows you to work independently but with periodic interaction with a small group of intellectual people within a smooth-running environment free from interpersonal squabbles.
6. Exposes you to a steady stream of new information, providing you with new ways to increase your proficiency and competence.
7. Let you produce a product that meets with your own high standards of quality rather than with the personal likes or dislikes of others.
8. Does not require the repetitive execution of factual and detail-oriented tasks.
9. Provides you with a high degree of autonomy and control, with the freedom to effect change and develop people and systems.
10. Is judged by uniform and fair standards for all, where performance evaluations are based on established criteria rather than on personality contests and that compensates you fairly for your contributions.
Work-Related Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths:
1. Visionary and excel at creating systems.
2. Enjoy creative and intellectual challenges.
3. Good at theoretical and technical analysis and logical problem-solving.
4. Work well alone and are determined even in the face of opposition.
5. Can understand complex and difficult subjects.
Weaknesses:
1. May be less interested in projects after creative problem-solving is completed.
2. Drive others as hard as they drive themselves.
3. May have difficulty working with or for others they consider less competent than they.
4. May be too independent to adapt to corporate culture.
5. Can be inflexible and single-minded about their ideas.
Pathways To Success In The Job Search Process
As an INTJ, your most effective strategies will build on your abilities to:
· Anticipate trends, and forecast future needs. Use your ability to look at current situations and project how they will need to be different to meet the changing context. Demonstrate the ability to forecast future needs by explaining how your involvement can help employers meet their new demands.
· Synthesize information. Engage your ability to understand and assimilate complex information to become fully versed in the technology of the discipline. Demonstrate that ability by summarizing what you see as the strengths and weaknesses of the market or industry, explaining how your unique skills will help the employer by meeting their goals.
· Create your career options, and design your job. Use your natural ability to see opportunities before others do and put yourself in an advantageous position early on in the interviewing process. Use your creativity to develop a unique career opportunity, selling a potential employer on how that job will help meet goals and solve problems.
· Develop an innovative career plan. Use your creativity to plot out a campaign in a new and different way-setting you apart from other candidates with potential employers. Use your organizational skills to stay on top of the project, make a plan, be on time, remember to send a note after the interview, follow up with prospective employers, etc.
· Make decisions. Organize your ideas into thoughtful and systematic work plans and stick with your agenda. Use your skills in critical analysis to eliminate unfavorable options along the way, reorganizing your plan when necessary.
Possible Pitfalls
· Attend to all necessary and relevant facts, not just the new and novel ones. Spend time focusing on the realities and practical applications of your ideas rather than just on the innovative implications. Concentrate on not letting things fall through the cracks because you assume they are already taken care of.
· Use tact and diplomacy in getting others to buy your ideas. Try to be persuasive in your approach rather than being unyielding in your style, allowing others to comment or challenge your viewpoint. Try to consider the ramifications and impact a decision or comment may have on another person, understanding that others often take criticism personally.
· Avoid appearing arrogant and condescending to potential employers. Remember you are in a selling position attempting to portray yourself as part of a team of workers, someone who can and will contribute to the goals of the whole organization. Take time to listen fully and completely to other people and repeat back to them what they said to be sure you haven’t made incorrect assumptions.
· Try to remain flexible and open-minded when making decisions. Try to be willing to give in on less important points while still holding firm to the elements that are truly vital to you. Decide to give everything a second look, even after you discount it. Some opportunities may appear more attractive when you give yourself the extra time to get all the information.
Ken Meyer
Myers Briggs Master Practitioner and Retired Senior Career Coach at Eastern Michigan University
