This article will focus on typical INTJ careers, skills that people with this personality type bring into the workplace, and their relationships with colleagues and managers. Please feel free to leave your comments or suggest other career paths below – we will do our best to incorporate your suggestions.
INTJ personalities are known for their ability to digest difficult and complex theories and principles relevant to their careers, and then convert them into clear and actionable ideas. INTJs are excellent strategists, possessing intuition and confidence that allow them to devise and implement challenging long-term plans without many problems. These skills can be tremendously valuable in the right career path – people with this personality type are great at jobs that involve planning, strategy and application of complex theoretical principles. For instance, you could find many INTJs among project managers, system engineers or marketing strategists. These are often their best career choices.
Typical INTJ careers also tend to put a lot of importance on independent thinking. INTJs love difficult challenges and strongly detest routine, doing whatever they can to avoid or automate mind-numbing tasks. It is difficult to imagine an INTJ willingly choosing a strictly administrative or teamwork-focused role. They excel as “lone wolves” and best INTJ careers revolve around this trait, giving INTJs enough breathing space to use their creativeness and dedication without being constantly questioned by other team members.
People with this personality type put effectiveness and competence above everything else. Consequently, best INTJ careers reward personal initiative and determination. INTJs believe that everyone should do their best to complete the task to the highest possible standard and loathe individuals who use social activities and networking rather than merit to get ahead on the career ladder. There is no easier way to lose the respect of an INTJ than to show that you believe social skills and relationships are more important than professional competence. INTJs have very high standards, especially when it comes to their own work, and are likely to put an extraordinary amount of effort to get the job done. Consequently, typical INTJ careers reward inventiveness, dedication and insightfulness.
INTJs tend to be very strong introverts with excellent analytical and creative skills. They are highly unlikely to choose or enjoy customer-facing or teamwork-oriented careers – these are definitely not the best choices for INTJs. As already mentioned, INTJs are brilliant strategists and planners, but they do best alone or in small teams. People with this personality type will gladly accept someone else’s authority and leadership, as long as they see that individual as competent. These traits make INTJs excellent engineers, military strategists, programmers, system analysts, lawyers or freelance consultants. These are typical INTJ career paths and their performance in these areas is often very impressive.
You may wish to check out our INTJ Career and Academic Guide – it will give you useful advice on how to get on the career ladder and keep progressing. This guide will also be very useful for those INTJs who are studying or preparing to study.
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@ Caitlin Chambers… As an INTJ who works in healthcare, I agree with your statement regarding the benefits of the INTJ aloofness in this field. I feel my INTJ traits allow me to doggedly pursue what’s best for the patient NO MATTER WHAT, but still not get all weepy. It’s a healthy balance for healthcare, definitely.
Pamela:
I completely agree with this statement. I find that working in the medical field and being an INTJ personality go hand in hand with eachother not just with emotions but also with planning and strategizing medical plans and treatments.Also while reading through the personality traits, I found that many make up the idealistic types of doctors that are in many large hospitals and have also been working the longest compared to others.
I agree with Benjamin Ramos when it comes to the storytelling aspect of INTJs. I am a student, but my desired career is to be a indy film writer/director. And I also, oddly enough, like writing science fiction/fantasy novels.
I am a retired U.S. Navy Sonar Technician (ST) who spent a career hunting submarines (Soviet mostly but they are all fun to hunt) and was never happier. Why? Because we had so many different jobs to do. Once I retired from the Navy I became lost. Jobs with any redundancy bore me to tears but pursuing my academic dreams fulfilled me as much as being an ST. My hope was that a masters in teaching and a career educating children would be fulfilling, but the sheer amount of repitition and the paperwork was mind-numbing.
After reading Justin’s comment, having been involved in indie film making and writing (for me its historical fiction), I understand why INTJ’s are so rare and so isolated. I’m glad those INTJ’s like Amanda have found their niche.
Everything here is definitely correct, I am almost certain that I possess an INTJ personality type.
I’m not so sure about being an engineer or a strategist.. I suck at math and the sciences, but my career path is Music.. My work is done in the studio at the mixing desk or at home on my laptop lining up waveforms and EQ’ing frequencies while writing some killer beats and riffs…