ISFP“It’s the Thought That Counts”
As an ISFP, career satisfaction means doing work that:
1. Is consistent with your strong, inner values, and is something you care deeply about and want to contribute your energy and talents to.
2. If done with others be in a supportive and affirming climate where you are a loyal and cooperative member of a team.
3. Requires attention to detail, where you work with real things that benefit other people and have practical applications.
4. Gives you freedom to work independently but near other compatible and courteous people, and where you don’t feel restricted by excessive rules, structure, or inflexible operating procedures.
5. Lets you be adaptable yet committed; where you have a sense of purpose and be able to see and experience the actual results of your accomplishments.
6. Let you use your sense of taste and aesthetics to enhance your physical workspace, personalize it, and make others feel more comfortable.
7. Is done in a quietly cheerful and cooperative setting and where interpersonal conflicts are kept to a minimum.
8. Gives you an opportunity to experience inner growth and development within a context of work that you feel is important.
9. Lets you handle problems promptly and simply, offering practical help.
10. Does not require you to perform regular public speaking, lead a large group of people you don’t know well, or give people negative feedback.
Work-related strengths and weaknesses of ISFPs include:
Strengths
1. Prefer hands-on participation, especially helping professions.
2. Welcome change and adapt well to new situations.
3. Work hard when they believe their work is important.
4. Loyal members of organizations and take orders from supervisors well.
5. Thrive in supportive and affirming climates.
Weaknesses
1. May accept other’s behavior without seeking underlying meanings or motives.
2. May not see opportunities unless they exist at the present.
3. Tend to take criticism and negative feedback personally.
4. Don’t like to prepare in advance and have trouble organizing their time.
5. Feel restricted by excessive rules and bureaucracy.
Implications For The Job Search
Pathways To Success
As an ISFP, your most effective strategies will build on your abilities to:
· Conduct research and collect a lot of data. Read as much as you can about the field, position, or organization you are considering. Gather information about a specific company by reading past articles that discuss the company or the industry as well as company annual reports. Go check out the company or business as part of your preparation for interviewing. Look at the way people dress, act, and seem to feel about working where they do. Can you imagine yourself there?
· Conduct limited, targeted networking. Start with your close friends, family, and co-workers (past and present). Ask them to help you generate a list of people who might know of jobs for which you would be qualified.( ** Understand Networking Here.) Conduct informational interviews with people who actually hold the position you are looking for. Ask them questions to learn what the job, its responsibilities, and limitations really are.
· Build and use a support system. Remember that searching for a job often takes more time and energy than performing a job. Ask friends for advice and support during this difficult period. Take people up on their offers to help. Many of the best contacts are made through purely social connections. Don’t rule out anyone as a source of information.
· Learn by doing. Look for opportunities to be trained on the job, or where employers offer a training program giving preference to trainees after completing the program. Offer your services on a volunteer basis to learn the skills needed to perform the job you seek. You will have both the skills and some real experience to demonstrate to prospective employers.
· Follow your impulses and natural curiosity. Use your short-term problem-solving capabilities by organizing the sometimes long and overwhelming job search into manageable pieces. Reward yourself when you meet each goal of people contacted, or phone calls made. If an obstacle arises, meet the challenge with a willingness to adapt. Demonstrate to prospective employers your ability to accept and respond to changing situations.
Possible Pitfalls
· Consider all data available to you, even that which may contradict your personal feelings. Look at the “hard consequences” of your actions and decisions. List the pros and cons of a job so you are sure to consider both the positive and the potential negative as well. Develop a method of analyzing information before accepting it at face value.
· Look for options besides those readily available at the moment. Generate a list of possible job options without limiting yourself to what you have done in the past or what you are immediately qualified for. Use your ideas of a fantasy job as a springboard to thinking more creatively. Ask a friend who knows you well to help you, and make it a game.
· Work hard to prioritize your activities and keep yourself organized. Use your skills at short-term planning to get things done and to keep from becoming overwhelmed with the size of the task. Develop a complete outline for your career search. Include all the perceivable steps that will be necessary along the way.
· Try to make more objective decisions. Don’t overemphasize the importance of rapport developed with an interviewer. Try to develop some healthy skepticism about others to avoid being too trusting. Pay attention to the less tangible but critically important factors such as the corporate culture and employer’s philosophy, which will help keep you from becoming disillusioned after taking the job.
· Focus your attention on the future so you will see beyond the present reality and understand choices in their larger context. Try imagining a job one, five, and ten years from now. Will this opportunity be one that allows you to grow, or will you be limited in the company or organization? Look at the business within the market and decide if the way it is growing or changing will still be acceptable to you in the future. Be sure it isn’t just the people you will be working with now that make the job appealing.
Ken Meyer
Myers Briggs Master Practitioner and Retired Senior Career Coach at Eastern Michigan University
