How to have a successful job interview as an ‘ENTP’ personality type: The Visionary
Welcome to the 6th instalment of our personality type article series. We will be discussing the ENTP personality type within this article, even if it’s not your own type, it’s still interesting to see how the people around you think, act and why they are who they are! We are working our way through each type, so keep your eyes peeled for your personality type and tips if you haven’t read it yet!
Interviews are a place to talk about your successes and your strengths, both as an individual and an employee. ENTP types or otherwise known as ‘The Visionary’ will probably have a lot to talk about during job interviews. This personality type are often motivated by challenge, you seek out new jobs and projects that are going to help you challenge yourself and become a better employee.
However, like most people, there are things that we can learn to help us improve ourselves and our interview technique. As an ENTP you’re always ready to think outside the box, and here is the perfect place to start.
What does it mean to be an ENTP type?
ENTP stands for Extraverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Perceiving. It’s likely that you are inspired by new challenges, you are innovators and find it very motivating to try and find new solutions to problems. This personality type make great engineers because you’re always trying to look at things from a new angle!
The Visionary is usually a very curious and clever individual and you’ve probably been like that your whole life. Hence the personality ‘name’. You are very open-minded and often don’t take no for an answer, to you, the possibilities are quite literally endless. What employer wouldn’t want this personality trait in one of their employees?
A big part of your personality is not only challenging yourself but trying to work with the people around you to get them to see the possibilities of what they can do. You want to be an influence, someone that people look up to. After all, imitation is the greatest form of flattery and you would like to see people taking a page from your book.
What are your strengths?
Everyone has strengths and yours are what have got you this far in your career already. You are energized by the idea of a challenge and that might just include interviewing for a new role.
Fearless – When it comes to trying new things, you’re all for it. Always ready to try something new and put everything on the line. This is one of your greatest strengths and may just be the key to your success. There are people who are afraid to try and fail, but this doesn’t occur to an ENTP type. Failure is just a part of the process, if you do fail, you learn from your mistakes.
Innovative – It’s likely that you have a very creative way of thinking. You are ready and waiting with new ideas, new theories and new methods to try in your work. You have a very motivated personality, so you may have had a few failures in your time, due to the amount of ideas you have. But they never seem to get in your way, you move forward onto the next idea.
Confident – Not only are you creative, but you’re confident with your way of thinking. You know that one day, the right idea will come to you. You are confident talking to other people, working in a team and you enjoy talking about your experiences, which is great for an interview. Some people are proud of what they’ve accomplished, but feel shy talking positively about themselves, but not you.
Potential weaknesses
Can be impractical – Having a constant flow of new ideas can be a very good thing, but the need to always have a challenge can get in the way of other life commitments. You can forget to take care of yourself, take care of the people around you and even forget about smaller tasks from your job. Your ideas can get in the way of smaller tasks and leave you feeling unorganised and unsatisfied with your job. This isn’t a good trait to have and if you’ve had some failings to do with work in the past, you better be ready to explain them in an interview and talk about how you are willing to improve yourself.
You like to break the norms – I know what you’re thinking, how is this a bad trait to have? Well it’s not completely negative, but organisations tend to have a certain way of working. They have company policies, deadlines, and other things that you may not like to completely adhere to. This can be difficult because where you are trying to do your job and get the best possible outcome for your employer, breaking rules, and missing deadlines because you are focusing on something else, as you know, is frowned upon. It can be seen as being stubborn and stuck in your ways if you’re constantly trying to do something different to everyone else and in your own way. In other words, you don’t particularly like to follow the rules.
Poor time management – Probably mainly down to procrastination and being indecisive with which ideas you want to pursue. There are negatives to constantly having new ideas. You forget about other tasks and don’t plan your time well. Most employers want someone who is good with their time and is able to plan ahead. However, understanding why you make certain choices, is the first step in making a positive change.
Development steps
During an interview situation, you are probably very talkative. You like to get into the conversation and make sure you are talking about your successes with passion and great detail. However, part of growing as a professional is understanding your failures and working on them. It’s possible that an interviewer may ask you questions like ‘Please explain a time when something didn’t work out as planned, how did you overcome this?’.
Talking about your failures and not simply moving on, is the first step to becoming a better employee. Questions like this aren’t used to catch you out and make you talk about your mistakes, it’s about understanding how you work under pressure, how you learn and how you fix something that has gone wrong. As an ENTP type, your natural instinct when something goes wrong may be to run from it and start something new. But to get better in a job and an interview scenario, you need to be able to talk about this and face your problems head on.
Try and practice time management and it may be useful to create a schedule. Interviewers know you aren’t perfect, so talking about your motivations to improve and better yourself is a very valued trait. You enjoy your work and let the interviewer know that. Your infectious love for your profession will be visible to the employer and this is your biggest strength, you simply love what you do.
Come back next time to read the next instalment, all about The Mastermind. If you’re an INTJ type, you might just be enlightened!
