Dream Jobs and Introversion

A couple of months ago I took one of those free online ‘which careers are you most suited to’ type tests. Specifically it was this one. I’ve taken a lot of those types of tests over the years – partly because I just enjoy online personality tests (INFJ, if you wondered), but also because I’ve never been able to determine any kind of ‘dream job’ to aim for. At least, not one that’s practical and realistic and likely to be advertised on Indeed (or any other job searching sites). The real dream job has always been Author, but that’s not the kind of job where you can send someone a CV and go to an interview. So what was the top result that this specific online test gave me?…

Author

Yep, I’m apparently suited to being an author. Who knew?? It was simultaneously comforting and frustrating. I can’t remember what the next few career recommendations were, but they were similarly unhelpful in the sense of being highly-competitive and difficult-to-actually-get type jobs. Proofreader was almost definitely in there somewhere, as it always is. Eventually the more practical suggestions started to appear – the same sorts of ones as usual: Accountant, Analyst, Programmer… Jobs that appeal to me to an extent, but don’t really excite me. The best part of this test though (which I really enjoyed in general and definitely recommend) is that it provided me with the below paragraph, which is easily the most accurate and concise description I have ever read as to why I have always struggled to find a job that suits me:

Description of tendencies

Yes. This is the exact problem. My favourite subjects at school were English Lit and Maths. These things do not easily go together. The best balance that I’ve found is admin work, as I get to play with spreadsheets and databases, but also write minutes and format documents. I’m good at it, but it’s never going to be a dream job (no offence to past or current employers, or any potential future ones who might Google me and find this – please hire me, I’m awesome). The dream job’s always been author, which I did consider to be a purely creative thing, but now I appreciate the other qualities it requires – discipline, structure, memory, logic – you can’t write something that long without having some degree of organisational skill. Speaking of the novel, it’s coming along, but this blog post isn’t really about that.

Aside from my diverse and contrasting personality, there’s another problem I come across when looking for potential jobs: The Extrovert Ideal. This is a term used within the book Quiet by Susan Cain, which I read quite recently. This blog post provides a good summary of it. Essentially, it’s the way in which extroversion is valued by Western societies. It’s not remotely unusual to see words like ‘outgoing,’ ‘confident’ and ‘interpersonal’ used in job adverts, to describe the type of person they’re looking for, but when do jobs ever ask for ‘quiet’, ‘contemplative’ or ‘would-rather-be-left-alone-to-just-get-on-with-things’ people? Even the interview process itself is geared towards extroverts. As are most things. Growing up, the only negative feedback I would get on school reports was that I didn’t put my hand up enough in class. I was always made to feel like that was some failing on my part, rather than a perfectly acceptable aspect of my innate personality. Granted, particularly extrovert people would be criticised at school too, for talking too much, but beyond adolescence it’s likely to benefit them ultimately – I mean, they might become president of the USA. Whereas I get to spend my adult years trying to unlearn the now-ingrained belief that I’m somehow flawed and broken for being naturally shy and quiet. It doesn’t help when that belief is further perpetuated by supposed friends or boyfriends, but that’s a whole other rant that I don’t have time for today.

On a related topic – there was an episode of QI that I saw a little while ago that stated, supposedly factually, that introverts and extroverts don’t really exist, because it’s a spectrum and most people will be a bit of both. Now, as much as I generally love QI, this supposed fact really bothered me. Sure, I totally accept that it’s a spectrum and that most people are probably somewhere in the middle, but there are some of us who are definitely, firmly, no-remote-doubts-at-all at one of the ends of the spectrum. And that doesn’t mean that I can’t be chatty and sociable on occasion, because I can, but I find it draining, because I’m an introvert. It’s always been a large part of who I am, so to say it doesn’t exist? It’s like saying that gay people don’t exist because sexuality’s a spectrum. Sure, some people mightn’t want to pick a label or specifically place themselves on the spectrum – I totally get that and relate to that – but on the introversion/extroversion spectrum I am firmly coming out and labelling myself as an introvert. Yes, I definitely exist. Hi. Please don’t talk to me.

Anyway, back to the job-hunting… yes, it’s frustrating that so many jobs, particularly ones above a certain pay grade, are focussed on skills like liaising and presenting and managing people. I wish that the strengths of introverts were more widely acknowledged and desired. If all managers could just read Quiet, that would be ace. But this is in no way intended as a criticism of my current job or employers. In fact my current job’s quite suited to introverts – it’s very back-office (at least most of the time), plus recently I’ve started being able to work from home most Fridays. This was a dream of mine for ages and I’ve been enjoying the more obvious perks like ‘extra time in bed because you don’t need to make yourself look presentable’ and ‘making yourself a coffee without feeling like you should offer to make one for everyone within a 2 mile radius,’ but then something more significant occurred to me yesterday. I was already aware that my general mood and wellbeing had been noticeably better than usual over the last few weeks, which was pleasing but mysterious. I’d been curious as to why this might be and assumed it was probably related to some combination of diet, vitamins and less-erratic hormonal fluctuations. But as it got to 5pm yesterday and I shut down my work laptop, I realised that I had far more energy and positivity than I usually would if I’d spent a Friday in an office (even if I was alone in the office). Maybe my mood’s improved solely from that slight shift in balance between days-spent-among-people and days-spent-alone (4:3 being a much better ratio than 5:2). So even if employers don’t start reading about introversion and don’t adapt their job descriptions to suit different personality types, if they just make that effort to allow for more flexible working, it could have more of an impact than they realise.

So, in conclusion (yes, I feel like I need to write a conclusion, because hello, logical part of my brain), I might never find some achievable dream job, but so long as my inner introvert’s allowed her space, I can happily work a regular job and keep the novel writing dream alive.