What career options can be suitable for introvert students?

There are several perceptions of teachers and parents alike about introvert children. They are supposed to be less active and many even think that they lack leadership qualities. Parents urge their introvert children to become more socially active. They think that their children will not be successful in their careers but the truth is, there is no problem with the students. It is simply a social behavior characteristic that is fairly acceptable and can’t be defined as abnormality by any terms. Being an introvert is simply a nature of a student and there are certain characteristics that make introverts  highly suitable for some particular career options.

Psychologists have defined introverts’ personality traits such as observant, self-motivated, good listeners, self-sufficient, super focussed, easy to please, trustworthy and committed to goals. In many career fields, these traits make them better than extroverts and in those career fields, they can handle situations in a much better way. Their traits of being more detail oriented make them highly efficient at jobs requiring great attention and research. Another charm of theirs is that they don’t need any social appreciation of the work done. They remain satisfied with the efforts they put into. They often have difficult times marketing and selling themselves and this makes it difficult for them to show their skills in a best way in an interview. For introverts, the jobs that allows them to be alone most of the time can be well suited and they need to understand that they are not inept, just their thought process is different from extroverts.

Some of the suitable jobs for introvert personalities are:

• Freelancing and Self Employment for Introvert

If a student is an introvert and has skills, he can very successfully become his own boss by becoming a freelancer. They can work from anywhere and don’t need to work in teams. Freelancers can discuss projects with their clients over email or messaging and don’t necessarily need to talk to them. In this job, their traits such as self-motivation, working independently and self-discipline can be of great use. Freelancers are most sought after even in big multinational companies, the reason being the flexibility of skills possessed by them and competitive charges asked. There are several websites that provide freelancing jobs in almost all the fields such as content writing, graphics, business development, editing, software development etc.

• Blogger and writer

An introvert has an inherent trait of observing deeply. He puts much attention to the happening taking place in his surroundings and absorb them very quickly. Since, they are not much talkative, their thoughts come across very nicely when they pen them down. At the time when most of the companies are looking for content marketing and content has been considered as the king, bloggers and writers can really make it very big in the industry.

• Computer Programming

Well, no company can survive without computer programmers even for a single day. They need computer programmers for different tasks that include web designing, writing software codes, security analysis, tool development, web application designers and much more. There is no possibility in near future that jobs for software programmers will take a falling route. Also, you need lots of focus and attention for this job which can be very well executed by introverts.

• Research Scientist

This jobs fits the traits of an introvert so perfectly that most of the extroverts find it difficult to manage with this job. Research scientists in big organizations often do not meet any external people for several months on a go. They have to be highly detail oriented, observant and ready to work for long hours. Introverts are more comfortable when they are confined to labs for longer time periods and they can easily focus in such situations as compared to extroverts.

Other jobs where introverts can be very good at are:

• Artists

• Financial services

• Accountants, Bookkeeping

• Science fields such as geologists, pathologists

• Statisticians

• Engineers, Research engineers

Definitely, all the fields cannot be apt for all the introverts. They need to see what other skills they have. A person good with artistic skills can be a good artist but may not be a good statistician. Before, deciding upon which career could be suitable for them, it is highly important to first talk to a career counselor and get awareness about different career options available to them for all their skill sets. One should remember that it is not necessary that you need to be alone at job if you are an introvert. Several behavioral characteristics play role in determining your perfect career. Introverts can even become successful Radio DJ’s. There is just a need of mapping the right career according to your traits and skills.