The Right Career and Major For ENFJs

Table of Contents

“Whatever stage you’re in, it is essential to follow your own path and to trust yourself.”

In this post you’re going to learn some of the best careers for ENFJs and also, more importantly, some of the things to look for in a profession.

It’s 2019. There are so many different ways you can earn a living and often the typical career lists: a lawyer, a doctor, accountant, don’t apply nearly as much now.

So knowing what you should look for in a work environment can often be just as – if not more important than figuring out the specific kind of profession.

First things first, it is so important when you’re thinking about either picking your career, like – maybe you’re 18, and you’re figuring out what your college major should be now, or maybe you’re 38, and you’re figuring out:

“Hey, I don’t love my career. Now I want to make a change!

Whatever stage you’re in, it is essential to follow your own path and to trust yourself.

If you’re not happy where you are, then there’s a very good chance you should change and that the advice you get from other people will usually carry some kind of bias.

Now, I don’t mean like the evil overlord bias, where they’re trying to cram you into some machine.

But people have their own biases. Most people are risk-averse. So if you’re 35-40, and you’re thinking of changing career – personally, I say, go for it.

I say it’s worth taking a risk to spend the rest of your life being happier.

But people who are more risk-averse are going to look at you and say:

“Hey, you know, you spent all that time on this education, you’ll be starting over again…blah, blah, blah.”, and they’ll project their own fears onto you.

Similarly, if you’re younger, and you’re picking your major, be cautious about who you get advice from.

When someone’s giving you advice on what to do in life, one of the ways you can tell if they’re full of shit or not, is if they ask you questions and listen to you first.

So if someone’s telling you:

“Hey, you know what, you should be an accountant.” or “You should go and be a consultant.”, or something –

Are they asking you what you like?

Are they getting to know you really well first, and then saying this, or are they just saying:

“Hey, accountants are paid well.”

Or they’re projecting what they do or what they wish they did for a living onto you.

That’s really, really important.

There are so many possibilities in terms of what you can actually do for a living.

And yes, some do tend to pay better than others and some do have more demand than others.

But ultimately, if you do the thing you enjoy, and are good at, you’ll end up making more money in a lower-demand field than if you go into something that maybe has high demand, but you don’t like it, you’re not very good at it, you’re sort of forcing your way through and all that.

So for me, I think it’s so important to follow your heart, follow that voice in your head and actually do the thing you want to do.

The Perception vs. The Reality

Now, when it comes to the type of place you should work in, the perception versus reality becomes really, really important.

We might look at a profession from the outside and we love the purpose of the work, say, being a counselor.

We like helping people, helping them figure out what they want to do, maybe like a high school counselor.

But the reality of dealing with bureaucracy and maybe people with egos you work with, or whatever else, may not actually translate into the type of work you thought you were getting.

So I want to cover some of the things that are really important for ENFJs in terms of your work environment.

The Right Environment

Sometimes you may find that within the same profession you have dramatically different environments.

If you find the right environment for you, the profession will be so much more satisfying and fulfilling, whereas if you end up in a toxic environment, the same profession ends up being draining and unfulfilling.

So the first thing that’s really important for you as an ENFJ is to be around people and be in a positive environment.

You should be in an environment that is generally conflict-free, that’s more focused on collaboration, on helping, and on contributing.

Within that environment, there should be a very good reward system. You want to know that the work you’re doing means something and you want to be rewarded for that.

If you’re working harder than someone else, you’d like to be rewarded for that, and not be in a system where it’s maybe driven by politics or seniority, where you’re working twice as hard as this person and you’re producing better results, but they’ve been there longer, so they get more than you. You’re going to find that really frustrating.

The Big Picture

The next thing that’s really important is: Within your position, you should be able to see the bigger picture, you should know the purpose of your work.

Not everyone needs this. A lot of people are fine doing their little work and focusing on what they’re told to do.

But that’s not you.

You need to know the bigger picture and, with that, the bigger picture should be something positive.

Ultimately, you’re going to want to work in an environment where you’re contributing something good to the world and doing that in a capacity where you have enough autonomy to actually make an impact as well.

So within that profession, yes, you want to understand the big picture, yes, that big picture should be contributing as well – and the third is – within your role, you should have enough autonomy and control to use your organizational skills, use your decision-making skills and make an impact on your own, not be stuck in some kind of bureaucracy or some kind of corporate structure that doesn’t allow you the freedom to apply yourself and get results.

Personal Growth and New Challenges

As an ENFJ, you care about personal growth and you love new experiences. so this needs to be part of your work as well.

You need to have the opportunity to be working with a diverse range of people, to have new challenges, to have the opportunity to take on different types of projects and to stay stimulated.

Essentially, if you’re doing the same thing every day, you’re going to get bored with it.

This doesn’t mean you have to be radically changing directions all the time, but having some diversity and the ability to explore new ideas, new concepts, to be learning what’s new, maybe cutting-edge, is going to be really satisfying for you and really important within the role.

To summarize, overall, you want to be in an environment that is supportive, that is friendly, where you get along with a diverse group of people, you want to be doing things that are sometimes new, and have different approaches, and have the autonomy to get things done, to know what the big picture is, and to be working towards that cause with enough freedom to actually make things happen.

You don’t want to feel like you’re a cog in the machine doing work for the work’s sake and not actually getting anything done.

And of course, the work needs to be aligned with your beliefs and your personal values.

If you’re not aligned with it, maybe you’ll be able to do it for a year or two. Maybe you’ll say: “Hey, the money is good, it’s worth it.”

But that’s not going to last your lifetime, you’re not going to be happy doing work that isn’t aligned with your value system.

Best Professions for ENFJs

I want to share some different groups of professions, and specific professions within that, that are great for ENFJs.

The first I would put is the public eye.

This would be things like being a writer or journalist, being a news broadcaster, being a communications director, maybe working in PR.

As ENFJs, you’re pretty good at being polished, presentable, that sort of thing – at least when you want to be.

And so being in that kind of public figure can be a really good profession for you.

I could even throw a politician in with that, although you really want to be careful about the type of political environment you’re in. I would imagine that in many countries in 2019, the political environment may not be that friendly, conflict-free environment that you so love.

The next group, I would say, is a creative profession.

Things like being a copywriter, graphic designer and artist, some kind of media producer so maybe producing or creating videos, somewhere where you’re basically creating things.

One of the things that I didn’t mention earlier but it’s really important to understand is that there’s a difference between your personality and your passions.

ENFJs can love a variety of things. There are ENFJs who are extremely creative artists, there are ENFJs who are politicians, who are deans of schools and business directors – it really depends on a lot more than just your personality type.

Within these media categories, it’s basically about creating stuff, what you create, and how you create, it will be more based on your personality.

And I’m sure you already know, if you love writing, or you love making videos or you love making music – that’s probably something you already know, and know that your personality is quite aligned with doing that.

Next up are corporate world professions.

Things like being a sales trainer, an HR manager, some kind of manager in general, or consultant within the corporate world in general.

Where ENFJs will do their best is going to be in more training and support roles. An ENFJ will be a better sales trainer than they will be an actual sales person themselves.

So look for a role where you can support other people, even if you’re at a high level within the company and that’s probably where you’re going to do best.

The next group of professions I would call the helpers and healers.

This would be things like being a therapist or counselor, being a psychologist, being a coach, maybe being someone that helps people figure out what they want to do for a living.

It could even get into things like holistic health, but ultimately working with people one on one and helping them in some area of their life – something ENFJs excel at.

And the last area that is great for ENFJs is around teaching.

This could be anything from being a teacher to being the dean of students and everything in between – being a college professor or being a high school teacher.

ENFJs are amazing teachers.

So anything to do with education, there’s a very good chance you can do well and that you can excel at.

In the comments below I would love to hear either the professional choices you’ve made and what your experiences have been, or what you’re thinking about doing and what your debate is.

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