"Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words." - Mark Twain


Tuesday, August 30, 2016

What’s an INFP to Do?

Somehow it's the end of August, and after my company was sold and the entire staff laid off at the beginning of June, I've spent the bulk of the summer looking for work. Applying for jobs, taking state tests and figuring out how to navigate the state application process (that particular bit of fun deserved an entire post of its own) have been at the forefront of my summer activities. I've revised, re-written or tweaked my résumé for each application. All of this in the hope, of course, of landing interviews, which have been few and far between. I did have an interview at the end of July, my first in ten years. Yes, I survived, no, I didn't get the gig. I didn't even make it to the second round. Sigh...

A decade (or more) between job interviews is what happens when you tend to stay put and not job-hop. I've never possessed, or even understood the kind of energy required to pretty much always have an eye out for the next gig. I'm not career-driven and apparently never will be, so that way of thinking will always be foreign to me. Are there really personality types who don’t mind being the FNG every few years?

Late last week, I received a call and set up an interview for later this week. So here I am, preparing for said interview, reviewing the job description, learning about the agency and coming up with answers to likely questions about my work habits, ability to play nicely with others, blah, blah, blah. But, in true INFP fashion, the thing that's most likely to make me break out in hives is the dreaded, "Tell us about yourself." I'm desperately hoping no one does that anymore. I know I can't get away with saying, "I'm an introvert and I freaking hate having to do this," but I sincerely wish I could just point to my résumé. Obviously it was deemed good enough to get me in the door or they wouldn’t have called me. As is typical of me, I'll worry about this until I arrive for the inquisition and then come up with something on the spot that I won't remember later. If the stars align, perhaps at least one of the interviewers will be of a like Myers-Briggs type. We introverts like to stick together. Separately, of course...

2 comments:

  1. Just point at your resume, smile, and say, "I know you are hating this as much as I am."
    You'll be hired on the spot. Unless there are more than one of them in the interview, in which case everyone will have to be in faux-extrovert mode. Ugh.
    You're going to rock!

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