ENTPs are one of the more restless personality types. They’re driven by their curiosity about the world, their need to know and experience everything, and this can make them reluctant to become tied down to one job, or even unable to do so. This can lead to some wanderings when they’re young, as well as some U-turns when it comes to their career direction, but once they find a field that interests them, they’re powerhouses of knowledge and enthusiasm.
General Overview
ENTPs are endlessly curious, about all facets of life, and they apply this curiosity to their career as well. It means that, when they start a new job, they’ll be eager to learn everything they can and apply their own logic and thought to everything they have to do. And when an ENTP applies their minds to something, it invariably gets improved. This rational type enjoys jobs where they can use their auxiliary function, introverted thinking, to gather information and separate it into neat, tidy files in their heads. This function makes them a walking encyclopedia when it comes to their interests, and it’s a great benefit to their careers as well. And as long as their interest in their job is maintained, they usually find a lot of satisfaction and success in it.
Tips for Job Interviews
ENTPs are usually confident, erudite people who present well in a job interview. They don’t have the people skills of some other types, but their communication skills more than make up for this. ENTPs love nothing more than a good debate, and their auxiliary function makes them very aware of what they know and what they don’t, so they spend most of their lives focusing on how they communicate. And they can apply this precision and expertise to the way they communicate during a job interview, which makes their intelligence and focus show through clearly.
Best Careers for the ENTP
ENTPs like to help others, but they focus on improving the systems and finding solutions for intellectual problems rather than practical or real life ones. This often makes them disinterested in jobs that involve practical skills. They need jobs where they can use their minds and their incredible intellectual prowess, and any job that doesn’t allow for this kind of intense thinking and analysis will quickly start to bore the ENTP. ENTPs use extraverted intuition as their dominant function, which makes them intellectual visionaries. They can see possibilities, ideas and connections all around them, and love nothing more than solving intellectual puzzles. This makes them a natural fit for science and technology based positions as well as any job that requires the application of their formidable communication skills such as law.
ENTPs usually do really well in freelance careers. They’re naturally outgoing, so they have the communication skills and the will to find clients, and they enjoy the freedom these roles offer. Working freelance allows ENTPs to follow their interests, to let their curious brains decide what they work on and how they spend their time. This means they can work at midnight if they want, and this type often produces their best work when they’re unencumbered by the expectations of others in this way. ENTPs need a lot of freedom to do their best work, and often they can only find it working for themselves.
Unsuitable Careers for the ENTP
ENTPs have very little tolerance for boredom or routine. Perhaps more than any other type, ENTPs need a constant influx of new information and new challenges to stay engaged in their job, and they’re not the type to stay around if they don’t get it. To an ENTP, the stability they may find in a routine job can’t come close to compensating for the boredom of it, and in this situation their natural confidence will cause them to walk away much faster than other types would.
ENTPs also have very little interest in jobs that focus on other people and their needs. This doesn’t mean they’re not interested in improving other people’s lives of course, but the ENTP is focused on metrics and data rather than people, so they usually don’t have the emotional intelligence to focus on this part of life. It’s just not something they’re interested in. For this reason, they’re much more likely to come up with a brilliant idea for overcoming a health issue than to nurse someone with it, and this is an equally valid and important way of helping others.
Workplace Roles
ENTPs like to be the boss. This type has a natural independence and need for autonomy which means they find the rules and schedules of others too restrictive and counterproductive to their thinking and development. In fact, ENTPs work best in a leadership position, though they don’t usually enjoy the necessity of inspiring and motivating others. Instead, ENTPs like to come up with ideas and then refine them, using their focus and natural precision to narrow down the details of the idea. And once they’ve done that to their satisfaction, they’re happy to turn the idea over to others to complete so they can move on to something new.
ENTPs often have a lot of conflicts when they’re someone’s employee. This type has little patience with systems or ideas that don’t work or aren’t correct, and they’ll usually announce these problems to anyone who will listen. They also don’t like having to finish off products. ENTPs are more interested in the initial stages of projects, and will have lost interest once they get close to the end of it. And this can cause a number of problems when they work for someone else and can’t decide for themselves what parts of a project they’re going to do based on their interest. They’re also extremely independent, and often resent having to work and live by the schedules of others, particularly when those schedules don’t work with the ENTPs natural rhythms.
Final Thoughts
ENTPs love to learn and nowhere is this of more benefit than in their job. They do need to find the right job though, ENTPs will have little patience for restrictive jobs or those that don’t give them the freedom to grow and explore that they need. But this type doesn’t give up on the search for the perfect job easily, and once they find it they can be of great benefit to any workplace.
References
- Dr Drenth, A. J. “Introverted Thinking (Ti) & Extraverted Feeling (Fe) in TP Types“. (Retrieved Mar 2018).
- Storm Susan. “Understanding ENTP Intuition“. Mar 23, 2017. (Retrieved Mar 2018).
- “ENTP – The Inventor“.
- “The ENTP in the Workplace“.
- “The ENTP as an Entrepreneur“.
- “Best Jobs For Your Personality“.