The INTP Career Path

General Overview

INTPs are repositories of knowledge. They have the unique ability to take in a huge amount of knowledge and separate it into its discrete units and store it for easy access. This makes them an incredible asset in any number of working environments. However, despite this benefit, INTPs often struggle to find the right working environment for their unique skills and needs, and can sometimes move from one job to another for a long time until they find their niche. But when they do, they bring all of their incredible intellectual aptitude to the job.

INTPs have the bad habit of becoming too caught up in their work and can ignore other parts of their life. This type struggles with social connections and with interacting with others, and sometimes makes the choice to stop doing so altogether. When this happens they will usually enjoy great career success, but their life will be lacking the warmth they often secretly crave and need. So INTPs need to keep working at their ability to form connections with others, even if it’s difficult and they fail a lot. Because there are people out there who can understand and appreciate them, they just need to find them.

Tips for Job Interviews

INTPs are very good communicators. This type likes nothing better than to debate and argue things, which gives them an amazing precision of thought and speech that few can match. But INTPs don’t always use these strengths when it comes to strangers. They’re slow to take to others and won’t usually reveal their impressive communication skills until they feel comfortable with the people they’re talking to. And this can negatively impact the impression they make on others in a job interview. INTPs need to overcome this if they want to get the job of their dreams and they can do this by falling back on their dominant function, introverted thinking, which allows them this clarity of thought and expression. By allowing this innate ability to lead the way in their job interviews, they’ll be sure to impress potential employers and perhaps even set themselves up for a career that satisfies them on a number of levels.

Best Careers for the INTP

INTPs usually have an amazing ability to analyze vast amounts of data and a preference for abstract ideas that makes them good scientists and mathematicians and also makes them suited for a variety of other academic fields as well. They don’t necessarily have to be in a scientific field of course, but it does tend to skew that way with this type. What’s more important is that the INTP has the opportunity to use their love of information and abstract ideas to make new connections and new discoveries. And these types of tasks can be found in almost any field, the INTP just has to look.

A lot of INTPs go into the freelance field. This type uses extraverted intuition as their auxiliary function, which prefers to have a lot of independence and autonomy to work. And working to other people’s routines and schedules, which INTPs usually hate and don’t see the point of, will annoy this function and stop it from working properly. But if they’re given the chance to work on their own they can chose their own projects and schedules and this will make them far more productive than they ever would be when working anywhere else.

Unsuitable Careers for the INTP

INTPs don’t do well in fields that require a lot of social interactions or networking. This type lives in their heads, occupying a strange and eccentric world that few others can understand, and they don’t have the time or the interest in social norms or conventions. This can make them seem quite cold and insensitive, and means they should avoid fields where they have to form emotional connections with others to do their job. INTPs can form connections of course, but it isn’t one of their strengths, and any job that requires this will be too difficult and tiring for this type.

Workplace Roles

INTPs usually prefer to be their own bosses. They have an innate confidence in their own ideas and their own work that they don’t often find in others, so they prefer being able to be the boss, free of many of the expectations and demands of other people. However, they often have trouble with the human side of leading. This type aren’t known for their warmth and empathy, nor their ability to inspire and motivate, so they usually do best if they have a partner who can take on these aspects of leadership so they can focus on coming up with ideas and organizing information.

INTPs are very independent people. They use extraverted intuition as their auxiliary function, which drives them to explore the world and to accept no authority that hasn’t been thoroughly vetted, and this can cause problems for them in their career. An INTP will carefully evaluate their boss, and if they consider them to be lacking in some way, will immediately lose all respect for them. And if they don’t have respect for their boss, any instructions or requests they make will be carefully evaluated and thrown out if the INTP decides they’re suspect. This kind of independent thinking isn’t highly valued in a lot of working environments and often gets the INTP into a lot of trouble.

Final Thoughts

INTPs have very specific needs that must be met in their career and often struggle to find an environment and a field that can meet those needs. They need constant intellectual challenge as well as a certain degree of freedom to feel happy and satisfied in their work, and it often takes time and a few false starts before they’re able to find these things. Without them, INTPs feel stifled and underappreciated, so it’s important that they keep looking until they find a workplace that can offer these essential elements.

References

1. “Introverted Thinking (Ti)“. (Retrieved Mar 2018).
2. Dr. Drenth, A. J. “How INTPs & INFPs Can use Extraverted Intuition (Ne) to Cultivate More Meaningful Lives“. (Retrieved Mar 2018).
3. “INTP – The Scientist“.
4. “The INTP in the Workplace“.
5. “The INTP as an Entrepreneur“.
6. “Best Jobs For Your Personality“.