As an ENTP, choosing the right career to satisfy and inspire you consistently is no mean feat. You are incredibly creative and can solve complex problems through innovation and critical thinking.
Undoubtedly, any business organization would love to have employees with your skills. However, your idiosyncrasies may not conform to their rules, or you may even lose interest in the job if it doesn't consistently challenge your intellect.
So, the options for a suitable career are greatly reduced.
The ENTP is one of the 16 personalities determined by the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, and people in this group possess Extroverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving traits. Your personality is known as “the debater” because you are articulate and love questioning things and brainstorming ideas, or “the visionary” because you innovate to solve problems and improve the world.
Since you are here, you’ve probably taken an MBTI assessment, learned what your personality type is, and want to know, “What are the best ENTP jobs?”
Every personality has strengths and weaknesses; the ENTP is no different. The best careers for anyone must align with the strengths and downplay the weaknesses. But that’s not all; no career fits any personality perfectly.
The right job also needs to consider our unique interests.
The MBTI does a good job helping to identify the best career paths for an ENTP — ones whose job requirements do not clash with your personality's most dominant traits. However, to increase your chances of success in a job even more, we recommend also learning about Holland's Theory of Occupational Choice. It will help you to identify jobs that match both your personality traits and your interests.
With that said, let's talk about some of the best careers for people with the ENTP personality type.
9 Top Careers for ENTP Personality Type
Your personality influences how you live your life and determines your career interests. Regarding the strengths of an ENTP in the workplace, things such as creativity, quick thinking, problem-solving, critical thinking, charisma, and confidence are at the top of the list.
While the unique skillset of an ENTP is valuable to many organizations, your less appealing qualities may significantly limit your career choices.
Most businesses want structure and organization, with rules to keep employees in line. You find rules restrictive and often circumvent them or break them outright. You dislike bureaucracy, which is common in many corporate organizations. You have little regard for deadlines and need help managing time effectively. You see the big picture and strongly dislike being bogged down in details.
In an ideal world, any business organization should be willing to change some of its rules to give you the creative freedom you need to work your magic. But realistically, many businesses won’t. So we’ve devised a list of suitable career options that are a natural fit for you and a few others that you shouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
We will start with 9 of the best jobs for ENTPs that will allow you to showcase your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.
1. Business Consulting
Does your business need a creative spark to innovate toward a better future? Do you currently need help tackling a challenging work problem that no employee seems to be able to tackle? Perhaps your business needs the next big idea to grow and outshine your competitors. Consult an ENTP to help you stay ahead of the competition. Their creativity and critical thinking skills can help you solve complex problems, navigate troubled waters, and convince investors to work with you.
2. Health Research
The medical field may be one of the least appropriate careers for the ENTP due to its structure, organization, and intolerance for rule benders. However, with so many problems yet unsolved in the healthcare sector, ENTPs are tempted to use their creativity to solve seemingly unsolvable health problems that can significantly impact the world. Health research affords them more creative freedom than other fields in the healthcare sector, like medicine, dentistry, nursing, etc.
3. Engineering
If there’s any career where an ENTP will never run out of important problems that need solving, you’ll find it in the engineering sector. Engineering requires analytical skills, creativity, innovation, critical thinking, etc., and an ENTP has them in abundance.
4. Entrepreneurship
An entrepreneur identifies a common problem, provides an innovative solution, and builds a business around it. ENTPs are problem-solvers. The thrill of solving complex issues excites them, and building a career out of it is as fulfilling as any career out there. Being self-employed as an entrepreneur also gives ENTPs the freedom to express their creativity in ways that best fit their interests.
5. Law
Whatever you do, do not argue against an ENTP in a courtroom. They earned the name “debaters” because they can think on their feet during arguments and convince people by raising great logical points. ENTPs will make great defense attorneys, applying creative solutions to clients’ problems. Because they aren’t too fond of rules, they are familiar with loopholes in the law. If they defend you, don’t be surprised when they get you out of law trouble based on a technicality.
6. Science
Whether it is the study of the universe or the things that live in it, ENTPs are curious about learning new things. They are not content with just accepting things the way they are. They want to ask logical questions, debate ideas, and uncover truths as scientists. A career in science would inspire them consistently as they constantly face complex topics that require their creativity to solve.
7. Technology
Technology is constantly evolving. Anyone who wishes to pursue a career in this field must be ready to welcome change, learn the latest tools, and solve problems by critically assessing them or thinking outside the box. One thing is for sure: In the technology field, an ENTP would never get bored doing the same mundane tasks every day. And if an ENTP finds the tech career unfulfilling, it won’t be because there aren’t enough problems that require an ENTP’s creativity and critical-thinking skills.
8. Creative Arts and Design
A creative arts and design career would put an ENTP’s creativity to good use. And since ENTPs are usually brimming with bold, original ideas, they can thrive in careers that appreciate unconventional thoughts, such as poetry, writing, graphics design, animation, photography, painting, sculpting, drawing, etc.
9. Sales
ENTPs may not be people pleasers, but they can make convincing arguments that convert into sales. They are articulate and persuasive, and their confidence and charisma work in their favor when speaking to customers. Don't expect them to stick to the script when talking to customers; they need to flex their creative muscles.
5 Careers an ENTP Should Avoid
Finding the perfect career for an ENTP may be an uphill task, but it’s worth the time and effort.
Your profession makes up a significant portion of your life, so be cautious when choosing the right career. Pay attention to the job requirements or environments incompatible with your personality before putting your hat in the ring for any job. As a debater, any job requiring repetitive, uninspiring tasks is not right for you.
To help eliminate incompatible jobs, let’s get you started by telling you five fields you should avoid and why.
Law Enforcement
An ENTP’s intolerance for rules, structure, and organization is a red flag. Anyone who believes laws are created to be broken shouldn’t be allowed to work as a law enforcer. Their love for bending, avoiding, or seeking loopholes that can help them circumvent the rules makes them unsuitable to pursue a career in this field.
Administrative Assistant
One of the ENTP’s greatest fears is being stuck in a repetitive, uncreative job where they do the same tedious tasks daily. An admin assistant plans meetings, answers phone calls from clients, and handles paperwork, among other things. Their job may be essential to the effective functioning of the workplace, but an ENTP would be utterly miserable if they had to do this job. The admin assistant also needs excellent time-management and organizational skills, which an ENTP does not possess.
Data Entry
An ENTP can do data entry, but they would rather not do it. The job is mundane and repetitive and requires lots of focus to avoid making mistakes that are usually costly in this line of work. It doesn’t challenge their intellect, so it is probably not worth their time. They can do it occasionally but do not want to build a career out of it.
Bookkeeping
You can't deny the critical role that bookkeeping plays in running any organization. A bookkeeper records a company’s daily financial transactions and ensures that the company’s book of accounts is organized and up to date. This helps in detecting financial errors or fraud. Although bookkeeping is central to the survival of any company, most ENTPs wouldn't last long in this career due to the repetitive nature of uncreative tasks.
Medicine
It's not surprising that ENTPs are generally unsuitable for the medical field, given their propensity to take shortcuts, circumvent the rules, and avoid focusing on the details of their work. Unlike many other professions, the medical field has little tolerance for rule breakers since people's lives are at stake. More importantly, there is little room for creativity as most of what you need to know about treating patients comes from established methods with set routines and procedures. Any novel mode of treatment requires years of testing and proper vetting by the medical authorities.
Is Self-Employment Better for an ENTP than a Corporate Career?
Many ENTPs choose self-employment and entrepreneurship because the corporate environment does not provide them with the creative freedom to solve problems. With self-employment, ENTPs don’t need to worry about strict corporate rules, cut through unnecessary red tape, or navigate the bureaucracy typical in a corporate environment.
Corporate careers have their perks also. While self-employment is usually financially risky, a corporate career gives an ENTP significant financial security. Many jobs even offer great medical benefits and paid vacations. That aside, ENTPs love working in a team to brainstorm ideas even though they generate them individually. They need co-workers and colleagues with whom they can discuss and debate ideas. They also need those co-workers to help convert their bold ideas into actionable plans.
Finally, working in a corporate environment can help them stem their lack of focus (but hopefully, not stem their creativity!). They often jump from one potential idea to another without adequately working on any. Financial risks aside, being self-employed may be very fulfilling for an ENTP. Similarly, if a corporate organization is willing to offer an ENTP creative freedom to work without being bothered by bureaucracy, then an ENTP may find the corporate career very rewarding.
Ultimately, whether you choose to work for yourself or someone else, it's imperative that you choose a field that aligns with both your personality and your interests!
