Chapter 5

WHICH JOBS ARE SUITABLE FOR INTROVERTS?

THERE ARE MANY INTROVERT GROUPS on social media and often some very interesting discussions take place within them. Recently, a question that was posed brought about a heated discussion. A college student in one of these groups posted this: “I’m an introvert and I’m weighing my future career options. What kind of work are you guys involved in? What kind of job will allow me to express my strengths and strong points?”

After figuring out that I was more of an introvert, like this student, I also read several books and clicked through many, many internet search suggestions trying to find a natural job for myself. In 2014, the publisher of Forbes magazine’s CareerCast website, Tony Lee, suggested that the ideal jobs for introverts include geologists, archivists, court clerks, social media managers, and so on. An educational training website put out an article listing “The 55 Best Jobs for Introverts.” Among the jobs this list included were private chefs, family therapists, fashion designers, audio-engineering technicians, and career consultants. Even future attrition rates and average salaries for these jobs were published.

Considering these sources, you’d think that employment prospects for introverts are just perfect and that introverts have a bright future in the job market with so many potential jobs, but objectively speaking, that’s very little help to the job-seeking introvert for several reasons. The first is that the job market sizes and demands vary in different areas/countries—your talents won’t necessarily match the local demand. Second, the reference values for the number of future jobs and their salaries are very different for people living in different locations. Additionally, these jobs are probably highly professionalized. What I mean by this is that you have to spend more and more time obtaining related certifications and licenses. To a thirty-something-year-old who’s considering a career change, or to someone who’s entering a mid-career stage who has decided to pursue a job more suited to their personality, the time needed and the opportunity costs are just too high to acquire related training and skills.

Let’s go back and take a look at the responses to the question the student asked in that internet forum. Everyone’s responses were pretty similar; they mostly suggested that the student become an engineer or an analyst of some sort. The next most common suggestion was that the student look for the kind of job in which you might run into someone, but you weren’t necessarily sought out all the time, or in which the job requirements were stringent and the level of talent was considerable, such as painters, authors, costume designers, lab researchers, security personnel, truck drivers, and so on. I didn’t find these options helpful; my literary-inclined mind slams into a brick wall whenever I run into numbers, I don’t have a shred of artistic talent, and I clearly don’t have the physical stamina to be driving down the road for long periods of time. If the world’s workforce is actually one-third introverted, I suspect that with that level of competition, even if I were considering one of these jobs, I’d never be able to successfully land any of them.

An introvert’s dream job is, in fact, not the same for every introvert. Remember: introversion is just one kind of inclination. You don’t need to let your introversion become a condition or limitation. When you find your own core values and goals and then consolidate your training and skills, you’ll have opportunities to get closer to your dream job.

LOOKING INWARD, FINDING YOUR OWN CORE VALUES AND GOALS

For introverts who focus on internal stimuli (usually in the form of a sense of meaning) and really want to prioritize, core values are more important than abilities. If you feel that something absolutely has to be done, perhaps you’re willing to work toward it, even if it means you need to talk with people often or make phone calls to strangers. The only issue is that finding your core values is never an easy journey, especially in Eastern societies. From the time we’re little, the concept of “This is how things should be done” is instilled in us.

I’ve experienced many different industries and tried out various kinds of roles, including the ones with fancy offices that pay pretty handsomely. Earlier in my career, I could earn a pretty decent salary working in the Shining City on a Hill (downtown Taipei), go to high-end banquets, and frequently head to a fancy mall for shopping after work. I did this until my at-the-time boyfriend quietly reminded me, “A while ago, weren’t you the kind of person who would laugh at this kind of stuff?” I was so taken aback at having lost myself in society’s values as a whole. Now, when I look back at that period of time, it seems like I was taking drugs—my life was full of sensory stimulation and all sorts of unusual experiences. When I return my thoughts to the present, I feel like that kind of overstimulated lifestyle really wasn’t for me. Even so, I’m still extremely grateful for the experience because this part of my story allowed me to better know my own core values.

THINGS FOR INTROVERTS TO CONSIDER BEFORE CHANGING JOBS

After combining all my past experiences and after having talked with many people who’ve prepared for new jobs or switched careers, I took the advice of general psychologist Laurie Helgoe and Susan Cain, bestselling author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking and founder of the company Quiet Revolution. I found myself considering and listing several points and putting them to use to help me find a job suited for me.

What did you want to do when you grew up?

If you dreamed of becoming a teacher, is it because you like to share knowledge, you like the feeling of teaching others about topics, you like standing up behind a podium, or is it perhaps because you like being the center of attention? If you dreamed of operating a bulldozer, is it because you like machines, or power, or is it because you like the feeling of controlling something powerful? We can sometimes pick up on a few clues from the dreams we had as children.

What kinds of work attract you?

When I was studying for my master’s in sports management, my thesis topic was “The Effects of Cause-Related Strategies on Sports Marketing.” I was never tired of looking at research data related to causes or philanthropy, and I believed that researching these topics would bring a change to the world. Later on, when I was working for a state government in the US, my boss only wanted to give out employee bonuses. I asked him to directly donate the amount to a nonprofit organization instead. I explained to my boss why I wanted the money to be donated to a nonprofit, hoping that he would also understand the meaning behind doing such a thing. At the time, I should have already figured out that I liked the work of nonprofit organizations. It’s just that I had strong cultural perceptions that were louder than my own internal voice. My culture valued government and for-profit jobs far more than nonprofit work. In East-Asian cultures, jobs in government agencies and large corporations are perceived as being more important and “better.” Government and corporate employees are seen as enjoying a better social status and reputation and as having access to better benefits. Some even see such workers as being more capable than their nonprofit, social-values-oriented counterparts.

What things do you admire?

Perhaps you admire supermodels’ figures, the salaries of professional athletes, or presidential power, but will you actually pursue those things? Some of the things you admire are never going to be feasible for you. They’re like smoke before your eyes. They’re also not really what you want. If you’re strongly motivated to attain any one of these things, you’ll pursue it; you’ll start to adjust your diet and start exercising, you’ll train yourself for the tryout, or you’ll manage to get involved in politics. When you find what it is you admire, maybe it’s actually something you want to do or become.

What are your natural gifts?

Why do you win accolades for the things you spend almost no time or effort on, or that you can do easily, even if you were blindfolded with your hands tied behind your back? When pianist Yuja Wang was young and had just started to learn how to play, her teacher was startled by just how quickly Wang picked up playing the piano. Wang thought, “But isn’t this just what everyone does?” When she tried it a little more, she found what she was good at, and what she enjoyed doing.

CRAFTING, NOT JUST LOOKING FOR, A DREAM JOB

Let’s be realistic—in the quest to find their dream job, few people figure out what they want to do just by trying something once. Some might even spend their entire lifetime and never end up finding out what it was they were meant to do. In fact, we first need to clarify something—no job was ever specifically tailored just for you or me. In the workplace, we all think of ways to excavate our strengths and then use them to make a living. Put another way, what is important is that we find jobs in which we can provide the most value, not necessarily what’s most comfortable for us. When we think more critically, finding these jobs has nothing to do with whether or not we’re introverted or extroverted. If you have any talents, certain traits of yours will be just perfect for pairing with the majority of necessary skills for a certain position; if you’re even luckier, you may also just happen to really like the kind of work required for the job. This is what we call a dream job.

More often than not, however, we need to adjust ourselves in order to meet the needs of our work. Moreover, your dream job can change over time. Your ideals or goals when you first enter the workforce might be different after you work for five or ten years. Perhaps you’ll have adjusted to situations you never thought about before. It’s like what Larry Summers, former US secretary of the treasury during the Obama administration, once told Sheryl Sandberg when she was his acting chief of staff: “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.” Sandberg, who is now the chief operating officer of Facebook, suggests that planning your career down to the very moment will lead you to missing great opportunities because these opportunities won’t have made themselves obvious to you.

Many introverts hope to find a completely independent job; some even think that they’re only qualified for this kind of work. In fact, independent work involves quite a bit of communication. Even programmers who work alone have to communicate with colleagues, other departments, or clients. When they’re creating their masterpieces, artists and authors who work by themselves may also enjoy quiet alone time, but when they’re trying to put on an exhibition or advertise their work, especially when they need sponsorship, they have to show their face out in the open more than just once or twice. Even the most solitary freelancer not only needs to openly promote their work, but they need to tailor their work process to their client’s needs and tweak their product at the drop of a hat; they may even need to go through several networks of people to develop a business opportunity and get paid. This doesn’t even take into account the issues that crop up outside of the work itself. For example, you still need to discuss the work content with your client and manage taxes, accounting, and other issues. As for security personnel and librarians—just take a look at the security officer’s job duties during busy office hours, or a librarian’s level of interaction with children on a school visit; after doing so, you may feel that becoming an office worker is more suited to you as an introvert.

Now that you’ve read to this point, are you feeling dejected? You very well might be, but what should be a consolation is that there’s no such thing as a dream job for extroverts, either. Even super-successful salesmen need to sit down, read the reports, and think of business strategies. Inspirational lecturers who can wax poetic on any topic still need to be able to carefully plan out their speech content and keep practicing its delivery until they can’t practice anymore.

Let’s take a look at my own experiences as an example; all my jobs were about making connections—connecting baseball teams and players; linking funding and opportunities; matching supply and demand; connecting donors and recipients. Even though I never got my business card with a job title of Sales Manager on it, I was in sales and marketing each and every step of the way. It didn’t matter whether I was dealing with a tangible person and a project or an intangible opportunity and a benefit. Often, I must have looked like I was a nosy matchmaker trying to find ways to hook up two incompatible people. What this means is that I had to develop and match both the supply and demand sides, which is not an easy task for an introvert, but when I used my own method to do the job, I survived it all, and people started asking me how I managed to do it.

This is how I responded to the college student in that online introvert group: “There’s no such thing as a job that’s suitable for an introvert, but there is a job that’s suitable job for you.” When you’ve found your strengths and have embraced the introvert within, you can find that job that’s perfect for you.

Let me go back to the notion I want to emphasize: you either need to find a job that’s suitable for you or turn yourself into a person who’s suitable for a specific job. If your ideal dream job doesn’t exist, then you should transform yourself into a worrying warrior who can take the reins of their career path!