INFJ Careers: Best Jobs for INFJs and Ones They Avoid
The CQ Team · 6 min read ·
Where satisfied INFJs work, from the test publisher's career data: the top jobs, the job families INFJs favour and avoid, and how far type should steer your choice.
The most common jobs among satisfied INFJs in the publisher's career data are social science research assistant, writer and physician assistant. The data covers more than 92,000 people in 282 jobs who said they were satisfied with their work, 2,297 of them INFJs. It shows where INFJs choose to work and stay content. That is a different question from where they perform best.
These are the top ten, in rank order, from the MBTI Career Report published by CPP, now The Myers-Briggs Company. A job ranks high when INFJs hold it far more often than their share of the US population would predict.
| Rank | Job |
|---|---|
| 1 | Social science research assistant |
| 2 | Writer |
| 3 | Physician assistant |
| 4 | Biomedical engineer |
| 5 | Surgeon |
| 6 | Pathologist |
| 7 | Survey researcher |
| 8 | Multimedia artist or animator |
| 9 | Interior designer |
| 10 | General family physician |
Further down the same list: psychiatrist, mental health counsellor, clinical or counselling psychologist, librarian, middle school teacher and occupational therapist.
The report sums up the pattern in four areas: medicine, science, the arts and education. It says the medical and science jobs share one thread. They use science to understand and help people.
In the same data, INFJs were least likely to be found in these jobs.
The report's own advice is not to rule out a job just because your type rarely picks it. In an unusual job, it says, your different approach may be valued and you may be seen as an innovator.
The report also scores 22 job families from 0 to 100 for how popular they are with INFJs.
| Job family | Score | Group |
|---|---|---|
| Education, library and training | 100 | Most attractive |
| Arts, design, entertainment, sports and media | 93 | Most attractive |
| Community and social services | 82 | Most attractive |
| Health care practitioners | 72 | Most attractive |
| Life, physical and social sciences | 70 | Most attractive |
| Computers and mathematics | 44 | Moderate |
| Business and finance | 41 | Moderate |
| Protective services | 18 | Least attractive |
| Installation, maintenance and repair | 18 | Least attractive |
The report lists the tasks and settings INFJs tend to prefer.
That fits the type. An INFJ leads with introverted intuition, a quiet sense of where a situation or a person is heading. It is backed by extraverted feeling, which tunes them to what other people need. Read more on the INFJ type page.
Less than any job list implies. The test's publisher says there have been no meaningful studies of the MBTI predicting job performance, and that it is unethical to make job applicants take it in order to screen them out (MBTI Facts). Psychologist David Pittenger also showed that occupational type tables partly track the gender mix of each job (Pittenger, 1993).
So use the lists as a map of where people like you landed and stayed. Then test a job directly: talk to people in it, try the work, check the pay.
Not sure you are an INFJ? Our MBTI-style test takes about three minutes. It is a short test in the style of the Myers-Briggs, not the official MBTI instrument. For every type's career data in one place, see careers by personality type or the personality and careers hub.
There isn't a single one. Among satisfied INFJs in the publisher's career data, the most common jobs were social science research assistant, writer and physician assistant, followed by biomedical engineer, surgeon and pathologist.
Health care practitioner jobs scored 72 out of 100 for popularity among INFJs, in the report's most attractive group. Surgeon, pathologist, family physician and psychiatrist all appear in their top 15.
No job is off limits. In the publisher's data INFJs were least often found in jobs such as driver, surveyor, tax examiner and electronics technician, and the report says not to rule out a job for that reason alone.
Yes. Business and finance scored 41 out of 100 for INFJs, in the moderate group. The publisher says preferences do not indicate skill or ability.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Myers-Briggs and MBTI are registered trademarks of The Myers & Briggs Foundation. Cerebral Quotient is not affiliated with The Myers & Briggs Foundation or The Myers-Briggs Company.
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