How Myers-Briggs test helped CPA find the right job

Sarah Flischel, CPA, worked as an auditor for 13½ years and consistently battled burnout. Her job required her to be immersed in the details, and she would often clench her muscles and feel her energy draining throughout the day. So, she decided to find a new job.

When she began her position as director of audit transformation and training for a New England-based CPA and consulting firm, she learned that the firm requires all employees to take a personality test based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

Flischel’s results suggested she is an ENTJ — extroversion, intuition, thinking, judging — on the MBTI scale.

When Flischel read about her personality type, she learned that intuitive people tend to be big-picture thinkers, in contrast with detail-oriented sensing individuals. Light bulbs went off. No wonder she felt overwhelmed by all the details involved in her former role.

Discovering your personality type can reveal circumstances that motivate you, identify your strengths and challenges, understand how you perceive the world around you, and determine environments that fill rather than drain your energy. Flischel will offer more insights on how to unlock the power of your unique personality at ENGAGE 25 (pricing and registration) in a June 12 session: “Leveraging Your Personality Type to Accelerate Career Growth and Find Your Perfect Role.”

Taking a personality test alone is not enough to transform your career — it’s what you do with the information that matters. Here are three of Flischel’s tips for leveraging your personality type:

Choose a role that suits your personality

There are online tests that purport to tell you where you fall on the MBTI, but you might be able to determine your personality type by asking yourself these questions:

• Extroversion vs. introversion: Do you gain energy and focus your attention on the external world (extroverted) or your internal world (introverted)?

• Sensing vs. intuition: Do you perceive and take in information through details (sensing) or possibilities (intuition)?

• Thinking vs. feeling: Do you make decisions based on logic and objectivity (thinking) or personal values and emotions (feeling)? Another way to determine this one is to consider whether you tend to say, “I think” or “I feel.”

• Judging vs. perceiving: Do you prefer to live your life with structure and planning (judging) or with flexibility and spontaneity (perceiving)?

Flischel’s result — conceptualizer — indicates that she is likely more suited to a leadership role that allows her to consider the bigger picture without being bogged down by the details.

People with the SJ personality type, known as traditionalists, will likely thrive in roles such as auditor or controller that require a person to be detail-oriented, responsible, and efficient. While an estimated 40% of the general population land in this category, more than 60% of people in the accounting profession are SJs, according to TypeCoach, a company that provides personality type training and tools

“You need [traditionalists] to drive progress forward and get the job done,” Flischel said.

Idealists (NFs), whose core driver is helping others reach their potential, might make great personal financial planners, managers, or career coaches.

As for the experiencers (SPs), Flischel says she would be surprised if there were many in the accounting profession. Experiencers often do things at the last minute and tend to wing it, which she says doesn’t work well with accounting deadlines.

Address the challenges of your personality type

Every personality type has its strengths and challenges. For example, extroverts are great at building a wide network but tend to have trouble listening without interrupting.

People who judge rather than perceive are highly organized but find it difficult to remain calm during urgent situations and manage stress when the work mounts.

As both a judging and an intuitive person who can get overwhelmed by details, Flischel has discovered strategies for dealing with stress.

“If you are a big-picture thinker feeling that stress, mental block, or energy drain, get out from behind your computer screen and look out the window or walk outside,” she said. “This allows you to give your vision more room.”

If you are a sensing person, you might have difficulty participating in long brainstorming sessions, prioritizing important but not urgent tasks, having vague assignments or projects, and changing processes that have been successful in the past. Strategies for dealing with these challenges could include requesting meeting agendas in advance and blocking out time for important, nonurgent tasks.

Learn how to work with the personalities around you

Flischel emphasized that you shouldn’t be critical of others’ personality type. And you should allow the person to identify their personality type, rather than trying to guess or deduce their type.

A colleague or manager’s personality type can shed light on how to work well with them, so feel free to ask the person. When you know their motivations and how they prefer to communicate, you’re more likely to avoid miscommunications or workplace gaffes.

“There have been times when I have said something to someone and it had the opposite of my intended effect,” she said. “Considering someone’s personality type can help avoid those foot-in-mouth situations.”

Flischel speculates that many accountants are introverts. While introverts prefer to digest information in solitude, extroverts need conversation to stimulate their ideas. If you know there is going to be a mix of introverts and extroverts in a meeting, you can cater to both by sending out an agenda ahead of time, allowing the extroverts time to freely brainstorm, and concluding the meeting with a summary and action items to provide clarity for everyone.

— Hannah Pitstick is a content writer for AICPA & CIMA. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Jeff Drew at Jeff.Drew@aicpa-cima.com.