INFJs do not want just any job or career. They want to do something they love, something they are passionate about. They want to use their creative gifts and abilities in ways that bring personal fulfillment and contribute to the greater good; settling for a mediocre or mundane career seems unacceptable to this personality type.
INFJs are skilled with people and enjoy helping others solve their problems. They often take up work in teaching, ministry, and counseling, careers that allow them to enhance the lives of others. INFJs are also among the most creative of all the personality types, pursuing any number creative and artistic careers.
Like INTJs, INFJs are not necessarily opposed to assuming positions of leadership. Their primary stipulation is that they are working toward an end that accords with their ideals. For this reason, they may be drawn to non-profit work, often rising to positions of leadership in which they do a little of everything—casting the vision, writing grant proposals, restructuring the organization, marketing, hiring, etc.
INFJs can better tolerate structured work environments than INP types, particularly those that are well-designed and effectively managed. Their willingness to function as part of a larger system opens vocational doors that may seem closed to INPs.
The disparity between their idealistic visions and the recalcitrance of reality is one of INFJs’ greatest frustrations. This may be one reason why INFJs may opt for creative or academic careers, allowing them to focus on abstract pursuits sans the difficulties of real-world implementation. Academic positions can be satisfying to INFJs because, unlike INPs, they don’t mind focusing their interests on a relatively small chunk of reality. This is understandable in light of their functional stack, which begins with an Ni intuition and converges toward exacting Te analysis. While INPs tends to resist specialization, INFJs enjoy moving ever deeper into their chosen subject matter.
Common Career Challenges for INFJs
INFJs are generally less interested in career hopping and ongoing experimentation than INPs. They prefer to lay down roots when possible, as changes in outward circumstances can be unsettling to them. Their anxiety toward outer instability may be exacerbated by a difficult economic climate, which may lead them to persist in less than ideal jobs. Even those preferring to go back to school or do something different may avoid doing so because of looming economic fears.
One of the more common frustrations of INFJs is the disparity between their idealistic vision and the less than ideal way things tend to play out in reality. For instance, those interested in teaching or politics may feel their hands are tied as a result of deeply-entrenched practices or power structures. They are then faced with the choice of spending their lives fighting what seems like an uphill battle or to opt for a path of lesser resistance.
INFJs can also find it difficult to directly engage or act on the world. While difficult for other types to fathom, some INFJs feel themselves so foreign to the world that action seems forever strange and unnatural. Some INFJs report feeling so detached from their bodies that action feels like an awkward, out-of-body experience.
Also with the job thing, my inferior Se I believe is what causes conflict. It makes me want to travel and see new things, it makes me want to HAVE new things sometimes… In the past it has made me a collector of nice/rare things at the sake of my pocket book… It makes me want to have summers off and explore the world. It makes me feel trapped if I am stuck in one place to long.
It also attracts me to careers like journalism, where sensory things are always changing, but I realize I don’t really even care about “facts” and I am much better suited at thinking about things intellectually.
It has made me have bouts of obsessions with things like “what organic food should I eat” or where I completely throw out all kinds of stuff at one time.
Does any of this sound like inferior Se?
Or would it be some kind of Ne?
Pretty much everything describes me here… Except I am not that great in organizations… Which is confusing to me. Maybe it was the TYPE of organization… I am attracted to the academic life though, but the red tape highly annoys me, and there are several places I don’t think I would be happy living with.. Also with the probable Fe burden of not being able to be close to my parents in the academic job market. Yet, somehow, I still want to pursue it and see what happens… A serious uphill battle. I have seen, from Kant I believe…that one of the greatest follies would be to not develop their talents. Also, I am not so good at specialization, I have an equal love of both English/Philosophy which seems to be pulling me in opposite directions.
I know what you mean by feeling laid bare, and I never thought I would fit in this box. I’m on the academic/investigative track and the description of the constant conflict, feeling of disconnection from the body, and gravitation toward theory was spot on.
I think INFJ is characterized by this horrible awareness that just follows you around, and you know things but you don’t know why. And as someone attracted to investigation and research and understanding things systematically, it’s frightening and confusing because you can’t explain it. Emotionally extroverted but intellectually introverted is like a bizarre curse. You’re willing to express your anger or happiness but reluctant to share why, which makes everyone think you’re volatile or emotional, when in reality you have very good reasons to be that way but refused to share them and give people a context.
I disagree with the conflict INFJ supposedly feel from abstract ideas and the reality of the world. We know EXACTLY what reality is like and we know people, know what they want and what they’re like. The turmoil, for me at least, comes from being able to navigate and organize the world very well, but feeling like complete mess inside.
@landscape architect. Yeah. I totally understand. I do archaeology. You get big ideas, get to be outside, get small details that make sense, and you get to use your hands. I don’t understand why they suggest counselor. INJF needs a job that engages everything. They say INJF is one of the rarest personality types. 1%
Doesn’t that just make us crazy?