Empowering career search and enrichment



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 Written by Catherine Rains

I was recently teaching the MBTI® Certification course in Kansas City, and after 2 hours together on the first day of the course, I asked the group to guess my MBTI preferences. Much to my delight, they guessed 3 of the 4 letters wrong. They might have guessed incorrectly because some in the room were just beginning to learn type, however many in the group already knew type quite well prior to the first day and they guessed wrong as well. They couldn’t pick up my type because I was only showing them one of my preferences, which is the one they picked up correctly. I was purposely flexing my type to the opposite of my preferences because it was appropriate to do so. In that situation, I needed to present complex material in a verbal, enthusiastic, concrete, linear, objective, timely and structured manner because that is what was required of me for those two hours.


So did the class fail at guessing type? Actually they demonstrated that they could already pick up type accurately, assuming the person they were guessing was showing their true type. When I am asked to guess someone’s type, which often happens when people find out I teach type, I always begin by saying I can accurately guess assuming they are showing me their best fit type. All I can really do is look for behavioral cues that would indicate a person’s preferences, and if they aren’t behaving in a way that would indicate their type, I will also guess incorrectly. So when guessing type, we need to be careful because all we can really do is look for behavioral cues, and then make a guess based on what we are observing.

So what is the value in guessing type? We’ll explore this question next week, but I would love to hear your perspective on this in the meantime. What do you think?

*It is important to understand that you cannot assess a person's type based merely on type cues; having the person take an assessment and giving them a proper interpretation is always recommended. The point of the blog is to try to understand how to pick up on certain type cues when in the absence of giving someone an assessment and self-verification, such as in a job interview.

Written by Catherine Rains

I love to talk about my dear INFJ father who unconsciously taught me to be just like him, which wasn’t hard to do since he was my hero. Growing up, I was encouraged to really think things out before blurting out an answer or showing my naturally “loud” enthusiasm for most things that showed up in my life. My dad lived by the adage “think before you speak”. So I did as I was taught. My dad also lived a very organized, structured life. Our vacations were planned out with an hour by hour itinerary and goodness forbid if you wanted to swerve off the plan to follow a road sign to see the world’s largest ball of yarn! I was expected to keep my room incredibly neat, carry a Day-Timer starting at age 10, have 5, 10 and 20 year goals, and choose a major long before I got to college. Consequently, when I first took the MBTI® tool as a young professional, I came out as an INFJ – what a surprise! It took until I was 33 to peel off the Judging layers to discover my true preference for Perceiving and until my mid-40’s to realize I really had a preference for Extraversion. Even though I am now very clear of my preferences for ENFP, I am VERY grateful that my dad taught me to thrive with Introverted and Judging behaviors, which have served me in countless ways over the years.

Can you think of how your family and/or culture influenced the expression of your type as a child? Please feel free to share your story here for the benefit of us all!