Introversion and the Art of the Personality Test

 It seems that a certain sector of the population loves to take personality tests.  A large portion of this sector is made up of English Majors.  While job recruiters and career counselors don't come right out and say it, there are no jobs in existence for which the top requirement is a major in English.  This produces a mild sense of anxiety during the fall semester of senior year and full blown panic attacks toward the end of spring.  The time in between is spent losing one's self in the heady, spiritual luxuriance of Paradise Lost while an occasional return to reality consists of downing gallons of coffee late at night and clicking endlessly through job placement websites for humanities majors.  To quell the mounting panic, an English Major begins half-seriously to consider careers in office administration, insurance sales or missionary work.

She will then chuck these ideas, ascend to her berth and resolve to visit the campus career center next day. 

At the career center, the counselor will assign to her a battery of different sorts of personality tests.  The English Major finds herself perversely enjoying this kind of test-taking.  English Majors are naturally introspective and love that there are ten-page-long analyses of their most unique and sensitive personality.  What they do not love is that these tests merely serve to confirm that introversion is the strongest strength they have to offer a potential boss.  They'd be so much happier not having to deal with actual people, who are blustery and obtuse and overly concerned about money and run rough-shod over the English Major's sensitive spirit.  And, worst of all, don't get literary references.

Unfortunately, the outcome of these personality tests yield a strange assortment of results that are really weird and discouraging to the young English Major.  Mainly because of strange groupings that seem to emanate from the fact that a major in English may as well be a major in Alienology or Basket-Weaving.  Here are a few suggested career possibilities from a test I recently took:  Teacher, Union Plumber, Astronaut, Bus Driver, Governess, Editor, Furrier, Claims Adjuster, Jongleur, Entrepreneur, and Mortician.

The English Major dreams of someone approaching her at graduation, noting the keenness and intelligence radiating from her face, to offer her a position as Chief Reader of Books in his huge library which is housed in a remote castle on the French countryside.  He needn't be an enchanted prince, just someone who recognizes the conundrums that Jobs/Real Life/Credit Scores/Health Benefits/Saving Money/Career Advancement (barf)/Retirement and Eventual Death, etc. pose for the English Major.

English Majors may take the Myers-Briggs Test every couple of weeks.   Just to make sure they still fit the Jungian definition of an English Major, which many of us believe is either an ISFP or an INFP. 

Here are several tests which may provide you with a) better understanding of who you are and why you can't entertain the thought of being a claims adjuster and b) a handy respite from Remembrance of Things Past.  After all, this is important job-search prep work.

Myers-Briggs Test

The Enneagram

Emotional Intelligence Quiz