Friday, December 19, 2008

Define Me, If You Can

During an interview once, I was asked... "What are your social skills like?"
A question that kind of threw me off-guard. I replied by saying, "Well, I get along fine with people. I don't have a problem socialising with others." Brilliant, right? I finished off this brilliant answer with..."My friends seem to like me just fine." Which earned me some laughs.
Anyhoo... a few more questions followed.
I read one of ScoMan's recent posts - hang on, I have a relevant point even though it may seem random. It was about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which you can read here. So, I thought I'd take it as well. Click here to take it. Apparently, I am an INFP type - an Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving type. I am a...

  • moderately expressed introvert
  • slightly expressed intuitive personality
  • distinctively expressed feeling personality
  • slightly expressed perceiving personality
But what does it all mean?
It means I'm a healer, according to D. Keirsey.
"Healers
present a calm and serene face to the world, and can seem shy, even distant around others. But inside they're anything but serene, having a capacity for personal caring rarely found in the other types. Healers care deeply about the inner life of a few special persons, or about a favorite cause in the world at large. And their great passion is to heal the conflicts that trouble individuals, or that divide groups, and thus to bring wholeness, or health, to themselves, their loved ones, and their community.
"

The INFP profile is...

Introverted Feeling

INFPs live primarily in a rich inner world of introverted Feeling. Being inward-turning, the natural attraction is away from world and toward essence and ideal. This introversion of dominant Feeling, receiving its data from extraverted intuition, must be the source of the quixotic nature of these usually gentle beings. Feeling is caught in the approach- avoidance bind between concern both for people and for All Creatures Great and Small, and a psycho-magnetic repulsion from the same. The "object," be it homo sapiens or a mere representation of an organism, is valued only to the degree that the object contains some measure of the inner Essence or greater Good. Doing a good deed, for example, may provide intrinsic satisfaction which is only secondary to the greater good of striking a blow against Man's Inhumanity to Mankind.

Extraverted iNtuition

Extraverted intuition faces outward, greeting the world on behalf of Feeling. What the observer usually sees is creativity with implied good will. Intuition spawns this type's philosophical bent and strengthens pattern perception. It combines as auxiliary with introverted Feeling and gives rise to unusual skill in both character development and fluency with language--a sound basis for the development of literary facility. If INTPs aspire to word mechanics, INFPs would be verbal artists.

Introverted Sensing

Sensing is introverted and often invisible. This stealth function in the third position gives INFPs a natural inclination toward absent- mindedness and other-worldliness, however, Feeling's strong people awareness provides a balancing, mitigating effect. This introverted Sensing is somewhat categorical, a subdued version of SJ sensing. In the third position, however, it is easily overridden by the stronger functions.

Extraverted Thinking

The INFP may turn to inferior extraverted Thinking for help in focusing on externals and for closure. INFPs can even masquerade in their ESTJ business suit, but not without expending considerable energy. The inferior, problematic nature of Extraverted Thinking is its lack of context and proportion. Single impersonal facts may loom large or attain higher priority than more salient principles which are all but overlooked.

It seems William Shakespeare was an INFP. Could this mean that I am destined to be the next Shakespeare? I wish.

Anyway, I wish that next time someone asks me to tell them about myself, I can just print out the results of this test and tell them to read for themselves. They'd probably kick me right out of the interview if I did that.

2 comments:

ScoMan said...

I find this test very accurate. I think it does a good job of describing you (because I know you so very well and all)

I never thought about how a prospective employer might view it. If they read the bit about "Irrational social rituals" I wouldn't get an invite to the Christmas party.

Badriyyah said...

Hahahaha. It's scary how well you know me. Sometimes it's like you can read my mind. =P

I just hate having to describe myself, which is why it's handy if we could use this during an interview. Although I sound like someone who's off my head most of the time, so they might not be too keen to employ me. Hmmm...

And your "irrational social rituals" might be the very thing that makes them beg you to come to Christmas party to liven things up. Hahahaha... "irrational social rituals".

Employer: We need someone aggressive and firm to close sales.
Interview-ee: That's fine. I'm aggressive, although I do have irrational social rituals.
Employer: Get out before I call the police.