ENTJ is the abbreviated form of Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging in the Myers-Briggs lexicon. According to the most recent data ENTJ personality types make up just shy of 2% of the population. Broken down by gender, 2.3% of men are ENTJs compared to just 1.5% of women. Of 16 personality types in Myers-Briggs-land, ENTJ is the second rarest. In this article, we’ll explain the ENTJ personality type, reveal ENTJ characters, and then reveal the best careers for ENTJ personality types.
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ENTJ Meaning
While ENTJ technically stands for Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging, but let’s dig deeper into how those traits manifest themselves. ENTJs are natural and strong leaders who project authority with ease. Known as “Commanders” people in this category have laser-focused drive and determination toward specific goals. They are self-assured and take pride in their unflinchingly rational approach to life, self-discipline, and decision-making ability.
ENTJ Characters
A useful way of imagining what an ENTJ personality truly looks like is by examining some characters from the worlds of fiction, television, or film who exude these types of characteristics. If you search around the internet, you’ll see that many ENTJ-assigned characters are horrible criminals, dictators, or other villains (Voldemort/Stewie Griffin/Cruella de Vil/the protagonist in American Psycho!). We’ll aim for some more nuanced examples…
A few classic easy-to-recognize ENTJ characters are:
Thomas Shelby from Peaky Blinders is the type of anti-hero that has become routine in the prestige television era. Shelby’s relentless drive, ambition, leadership ability, and refusal to let anything (i.e. laws) get in the way helped this WWI vet rise to incredible wealth and power.
Best Careers for ENTJ (Continued)
Steve Jobs is, of course, a real person but your sense of his personality may come from Michael Fassbender’s portrayal in the eponymously named film, Steve Jobs from 2015, four years after the Apple founder’s death. Jobs was known for charisma, strong will, and obsessive commitment to his company’s mission. He was also, by almost universal accounts, not an easy person to work for or with.
Princess Tiana from Disney’s The Princess and the Frog is a hardworking, strategic thinker who shows a level of self-assurance and determination that departed from the Disney Princesses of the past and helped pave the way for the boldness of Moana. Despite setbacks along the way, Tiana’s hardheaded and dogged nature propels her from struggling waitress to princess/restaurateur.
What fields attract ENTJs?
In big-picture terms, ENTJs typically feel at home in workplace settings such as:
- business
- finance
- politics
- sales
- real estate
Of course, those fields only represent a handful of possibilities for individuals with this make-up. Below we will explore 25 specific careers that can be a fantastic fit for an ENTJ.
ENTJ Strengths and Weaknesses
As you can imagine ENTJs come in many different varieties and do not all share the exact same difficulties or positive attributes. That said, generalizations can be of some use when trying to match your Myers-Briggs personality types to a potential profession.
ENTJ Workplace Strengths
- Can cut through inefficiency and plow forward toward goals.
- Able to analytically work through each dimension of complex problems.
- Possess enough charisma and energy to inspire others on their team.
- Have the self-confidence and strong will to never back down from a challenge.
Best Careers for ENTJ (Continued)
ENTJ Workplace Weaknesses
- Can be ruthless and disrespectful of others.
- Impatience can get the better ENTJs and results in hurt feelings of anyone who gets in their way.
- Not always willing to consider the opinions of others or compromise if they feel strongly about something.
- Not often a great fit in the “helping” professions.
For each career presented, we will highlight the following:
- A detailed description of what an individual in that career does on a daily basis.
- Related College Majors: Which academic majors are a good fit for someone seeking to enter this job in the future?
- Related Occupations: What other jobs require similar similar skills and training and may be worthy of your consideration.
- Projected Job Growth: The projected percent of new jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects will be created (or lost) in the next decade.
- Median Salary: The median salary for those in this profession in the United States.
- Education: The minimum level of education required to enter this profession.
- Employment: How many people in the United States present work in the capacity?
- Projected Job Openings (through 2032): An extension of the projected job growth by percentage, this quantifies the number of projected job openings over the next decade.
