6 Careers INFJs Should Probably Avoid

If you’ve heard about the Myers-Briggs Personality Test, chances are you have dived into this complex personality test to figure out where you stand. According to the test, there are sixteen personality types, with INFJ being the rarest of them all.

Do you fall into the 2% who relate to this personality type? If so, you might want some INFJ career advice to ensure you don’t waste time with careers that don’t work for your personality. But before we can figure out what careers to avoid, we have to understand what INFJs are all about.

What is an INFJ?

INFJ are dynamic personalities that are often called “The Advocate,” for the downtrodden. They’re also widely known to be intuitive, have high Emotional Intelligence, and are aloof or mysterious.

The Myers-Briggs personality Test was first created in the 1940’s by mother and daughter duo Isabel Myers and Katharine Briggs. Their work was built on the research of psychoanalyst Carl Jung. The test looks at four particular categories, introversion vs extroversion, sensing vs intuition, thinking vs feeling, judging vs perceiving. Depending on which why your personality leans, you fall into the 16 different personality categories.

INFJ stands for Introversion, Intuition, Feeling, and Judging. They are close to impossible to identify in society since they’re more reserved than other personality types. Loyal, empathetic, organized, and leaders they are dedicated to ensuring the progress of humanity.

Now that you have some background about what INFJs prefer, let’s explore the careers that INFJs are better off avoiding.

Career #1 to Avoid: Marketing

Marketing is a very public career. It requires an outspoken personality with an intense desire to be out front. INFJ folks aren’t into that. They prefer to stay reserved and don’t particularly enjoy speaking up in front of other people. Working with a large team, like a marketing team, could be a recipe for disaster.

Marketing also requires constant discussions with other people, further complicating their role. INFJs work better alone. This especially true if the people on their team come from different intellectual approaches.

This is one of the top INFJ careers to avoid if you want to be successful in your career.

Career #2 to Avoid: Customer Service

Customer service careers kind of rely on the same concepts. Interacting with different people every day can be overwhelming for INFJs.
Values and principles are critical to INFJs. If they feel their ideas or values are being challenged, they shut down and don’t function well. Customer service jobs require people to listen to constant complaints.

Additionally, customer service jobs are all about dealing with superficial concerns. INFJs cannot stand superficial conversations. And there is little room for growth in customer service careers.

If you’re looking for INFJ career advice, we would highly recommend avoiding customer service jobs.

Career #3 to Avoid: Politics

Another career that just doesn’t work well for INFJs is politics. Political careers are consistently in the public eye. Politicians are required to be approachable and available to their constituents regularly. It also requires them to interact with a variety of personalities, which can take a toll on INFJs.

Political figures also have to manipulate people and go towards confrontation instead of avoiding it. That’s an issue for the highly sensitive and defensive INFJ personality type. The requirements for this career path are completely unaligned with the desires of INFJ personalities, making it yet another INFJ career to avoid.

Career #4 to Avoid: Finance or Clerical Work

While financial work might not require the demanding social interaction that political, customer service and marketing jobs do, it does require a good ability to do routine work. INFJs hate routine work. INFJs also prefer to work in an innovative job that provides plenty of opportunities for growth, both emotionally and intellectually.

If you don’t want to feel out of sorts, aching for a better job, or dissatisfied with your career, than we highly recommend choosing another job than finance or clerical work.

Career #5 to Avoid: Accounting

Thinking about getting your accounting degree? You might want to think again if you’re an INFJ. INFJs hate routine. They also don’t like to work at desk jobs. Being locked into a job that requires dealing with documents and numbers is tortuous to INFJs. INFJs prefer to do creative work, and accounting is far from creative.

Career #6 to Avoid: Forensic Auditor

Forensic auditors typically have a mountain of paperwork to contend with on a regular basis. As a desk job, it requires sorting through documentation and other monotonous work that will bore an INFJ to death. There’s no creativity to involved and critical thinking is the only rewardable part of their job.

Conclusion

Knowing what to avoid is only one part of the INFJ career advice you need to make a good career decision. Also keep in mind that everyone is unique, and your personality is also shaped by your environment.

But if you feel more alive when you’re doing creative work, these are definitely the INFJ careers to avoid.

Author
Recent Posts

Jetta Moon

Jetta Moon is an artist, writer and astrology blogger with a passion for creativity and psychology. He is also an enthusiast of MBTI theory and loves to research and write about what he learns. Jetta's background in creative writing has helped develop a unique and insightful perspective on the zodiac, which he shares with readers of this blog.