New Book Identifies Best Jobs for Introverts

Many introverted job seekers have difficulty finding a job that suits their personality. Often they prefer to work alone, in the quiet, and free of distractions. This is becoming much harder to do in an economy that thrives on communication and teamwork. In their new book, 200 Best Jobs for Introverts, Laurence Shatkin and the editors at JIST reveal which occupations do suit introverts' preferences and still offer good pay and promising job growth.

Indianapolis, IN (PRWEB) December 4, 2007 -- For introverts -- nearly a quarter of the nation's population -- finding a job that suits their personality is more difficult than ever. Typically, introverts prefer to work alone, in the quiet, and with as few distractions as possible. These characteristics make it increasingly difficult for introverts to find work in an economy that thrives on communication and teamwork.

According to Laurence Shatkin, Ph.D., co-author of the newly-released 200 Best Jobs for Introverts, "The U.S. economy has shifted toward service industries such as health care and hospitality. As a result, more and more opportunities will be found in jobs that involve a lot of interpersonal contact, and chances to work alone will become more scarce. Even jobs in manufacturing are increasingly being done by teams of workers."

Fortunately, there are still plenty of introvert-friendly opportunities in the job market for people seeking them. In 200 Best Jobs for Introverts, Shatkin and The Editors at JIST identify the best job opportunities for introverts based on each job's annual earnings, percent growth and annual openings.

They also considered additional factors that are important to introverts. "For each job, we looked at two measures in the O*NET database. One is a work-related value called Independence, which is defined as doing work alone. Every job has a rating between 1 and 5 on this measure. The other measure is a work-context feature called Contact with Others, which represents how much the job requires workers to being in contact with others--whether that contact is face-to-face, by telephone or otherwise. This measure also uses a rating scale between 1 and 5, so we subtracted each job's rating from 5 to determine the amount to which the job does not involve contact with others. We took the average of these two measures to get an overall score indicating how friendly the job is to introverts" says Shatkin.

The following list features ten of the fastest-growing jobs for introverts, according to Shatkin and The Editors at JIST. (Percent growth through 2014.)

200 Best Jobs for Introverts is available at all major bookstores and from the publisher (www.jist.com or 1.800.648.JIST). For a free media copy or to speak with the authors, contact Natalie Ostrom.

JIST, America's Career Publisher, is a division of EMC/Paradigm Publishing and is the leading publisher of job search, career, occupational information, life skills and character education books, workbooks, assessments, videos and software.

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