Introverts

I'm only half-jesting when I say that usage of cell phones is the best way to measure the degree to which a person is introverted or extroverted. When extroverts are in situations away from home where they are isolated—say, waiting at a bus stop or standing in a long line at the motor vehicles bureau—they pull out their cell phones and chat with someone. Introverts, on the other hand, have brought along a newspaper or a book to read or are lost in thought; their cell phone is stowed away, maybe not even turned on.

The "cell phone test" highlights the differences between introverts and extroverts. Extroverts gain energy from interacting with other people; they thrive on interpersonal contact. Introverts find interpersonal contact draining and prefer solitude and quiet. Actually, most people have a balance of introversion and extroversion. Almost all human characteristics can be described by the famous bell-shaped curve in which the bulk of us are very close to the middle. This is my main quarrel with the Myers-Briggs approach of trying to characterize everyone by the extremes of bipolar scales. (It helps that I used to work down the hall from the psychologist who convinced Educational Testing Service to sell off the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator.)

Nevertheless, some people may indeed be found in the tails of the distribution curve. They are very extroverted or introverted and would be uncomfortable and unproductive in a job with working conditions that ran counter to their preferences for social contact—or the lack of it. It was for these people—specifically, the extreme introverts—that I wrote 200 Best Jobs for Introverts. The book has been selling surprisingly well, and I think this may be because introverts are more likely to turn to a book for help with career development. A very extroverted person thinking about career change would be more likely to phone someone and chat about the other person's job.

To identify occupations that are good fits for introverts I looked at two measures in the O*NET database—the U.S. Department of Labor's chief compilation of data about characteristics of occupations. One measure is a work-related value called Independence, which is defined as doing work alone. Every O*NET occupation has a rating between 1 and 5 on this measure. The other measure is a work-context feature called Contact with Others, which represents how much the job requires workers to be in contact with others—whether that contact is face-to-face, by telephone, or otherwise. This measure also uses a rating scale between 1 and 5, so I subtracted each job's rating from 5 to determine the amount to which the job does not involve contact with others. I then took the average of these two measures to get an overall score indicating how friendly the job is to introverts. After ordering all the O*NET occupations on this introversion score, I threw away the least-introverted half (about 300 occupations) and sorted the remaining occupations on the economic measures we customarily use in books in the Best Jobs^TM series: earnings, job growth, and job openings.

These are the occupations that topped the list of best introvert-friendly jobs overall:

Rank	Occupation Name	Median Earnings 2006	Job Growth 2006—16	Average Annual Job Openings 2006—16
1.	Computer Software Engineers, Applications	$77,090	48.4%	54,000
2.	Computer Software Engineers, Systems Software	$82,120	43.0%	37,000
3.	Computer Systems Analysts	$68,300	31.4%	56,000
4.	Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts	$61,750	54.6%	43,000
5.	Accountants and Auditors	$52,210	22.4%	157,000
6.	Lawyers	$98,930	15.0%	40,000
7.	Financial Analysts	$63,860	17.3%	28,000
8.	Personal Financial Advisors	$63,500	25.9%	17,000
9.	Medical Scientists, Except Epidemiologists	$61,730	34.1%	15,000
10.	Market Research Analysts	$57,300	19.6%	20,000
11.	Civil Engineers	$66,190	16.5%	19,000
12.	Database Administrators	$63,250	38.2%	9,000
13.	Cost Estimators	$52,020	18.2%	15,000
14.	Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters	$42,160	15.7%	61,000
15.	Writers and Authors	$46,420	17.7%	14,000
16.	Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers	$37,040	19.0%	33,000
17.	Environmental Scientists and Specialists, Including Health	$52,630	17.1%	8,000
18.	Electrical Engineers	$73,510	11.8%	12,000
19.	Graphic Designers	$38,390	15.2%	35,000
20.	Actuaries	$81,640	23.2%	3,000

After this list appeared on the CareerBuilder Web site in an article (by the very talented Selena Dehne of JIST) that was linked to a front-page graphic on MSN.com, I received an e-mail from a corporate recruiter who said that she does not seek introverted accountants because in her firm accountants work in teams. I'm sure this is true at a number of companies, and in fact the "introversion score" for Accountants and Auditors is 2.1 on a scale from 1 to 5, so the occupation is not as isolated and free of human contact as some others. Nevertheless, Accountants and Auditors falls into the most introvert-friendly half of occupations, and many employment situations for accountants do permit them the uninterrupted quiet that introverts crave. For example, I used to have the tax returns for my consulting business prepared by an accountant who works alone in a home office.

The point to take away is that many occupations permit a range of work situations, some more introvert-friendly than others. When hunting for jobs or being interviewed for a position, people who are highly introverted need to pay attention to whether the work situation they are contemplating will permit them a comfortable amount of freedom from distraction.

The unfortunate fact is that today's workplace is increasingly less friendly to introverts. You are likely to be assigned to a cubicle, where anyone can walk in and interrupt you and where chatter seeps in from across the cubicle divider. E-mails or impossible-to-ignore instant messages flash on your computer, and you can't tune out these distractions if you are assigned to a team (the current trend in management) and are expected to be in close contact with your teammates. To be sure, the same technologies that make it so easy for people to interrupt you do have some benefits for introverts—specifically, they may allow you to work at home in an occupation that used to require a shared office setting.

On the other hand, most of the growth in our economy is in service jobs (such as health care) that require constant human interaction. The solitary back-office jobs are increasingly being automated or outsourced to Asia. Therefore, highly introverted people looking for rewarding careers need to look more carefully than they used to.

Introversion and Career Choice