ESTP stands for Extraverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving. ESTPs make up only 4% of the population, with about 6% of men and 3% of women. ESTPs are energetic and outgoing, they can frequently be found chatting and laughing with friends, and are often considered the life of the party. ESTPs often live in the moment, and their constant search of action and excitement coupled with their natural athletic ability has led to them being labeled as adrenaline junkies.
If you adapt to new situations and developments quickly, and work well in emergency situations, you likely have ESTP tendencies. You are outgoing, and enjoy keeping people on their toes. You look for new and exciting ways to occupy your time, and don’t shy away from action sports or activities that might place you in harm’s way. If that sounds like you, then you’re likely an ESTP.
Some famous ESTPs include: Winston Churchill, Madonna, Bruce Willis, Ernest Hemingway, Chuck Yeager, Donald Trump, and Lucille Ball.
Looking for the best schools for this personality type? We’ve surveyed thousands of programs and ranked them in our personality-type college rankings. Check out the ranking of the 25 best schools for ESTPs here.
Interviewee 1:
Age: 24
Gender: F
Location: Chicago
Job Title: Sales Associate
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about your educational history?
A: Graduated with a degree in business admin. I wasn’t sure in my freshman year where that might lead me, but I figured, the major would help me get that first job, it wouldn’t be boring, and I’d take it from there.
Q: What is your current position at work?
A: Right out of school I got a job in sales, and I love it. I’m still not very good at it, but I’m learning a lot faster than other new people here, so I have hope, unlike some people who don’t have faith in me. For the long run, I don’t know what I want to do…and I’m okay with that. I want to travel, that’s about it. Sales fits me.
Q: Do you feel like your education was a good fit for your personality?
A: Some business courses, yeah. But overall I didn’t learn much about how to be a saleswoman. You just need to have the drive, be open, like talking to people, be persuasive. You can learn technique in school, but you have to actually be in the field to learn how to sell.
Q: Do you feel like your current role at work is a good fit for your personality?
A: I don’t like to be put in boxes. I did my type test as part of a course and struggled because I didn’t want to be limited. It was a relief in the end though because only 3% of females are ESTP and I was thinking I was a seriously odd-one-out with so many people seeming so different to me.
Q: What are strengths in work and school that you’ve gained from your personality?
A: I have a broad skill set, and that helps me. I owe that to schooling. I hope someday to go back and earn a master’s degree, an M.B.A. I’m an extrovert, of course, which makes a difference when you’re in sales. Corporate sales is getting the ear of potential clients, finding and making opportunities to talk to them, arranging negotiations, closing the agreement.
Q: What are weaknesses in work and school that you’ve felt due to your personality?
A: I have good people skills, but I’m not very comfortable in an office setting. I don’t know how people can sit at a desk all day and not go crazy. That is sometimes required of me. I wish I was better at office politics, but right now, I’m not.
Interviewee 2:
Age: 47 Gender: M Location: Pennsylvania
Job Title: County Commissioner
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about your educational history?
A: Attended Ohio State University, majoring in business.
Q: What is your current position at work?
A: I’m one of three commissioners in an eastern Pennsylvania county.
Q: Do you feel like your education was a good fit for your personality?
A: Yes I do. With a business background, as it turned out (I didn’t plan it this way), I had the perfect training to analyze budgets, disperse funds. Things I might have learned to do on the fly had I entered county politics earlier.
Q: Do you feel like your current role at work is a good fit for your personality?
A: Besides working on budgets, taxes, a good part of a commissioner’s job is done in the public. Natural work for an extrovert. And when I decided to run for a second term I had to go out to constituents and make the argument that I should be returned to office. It’s exciting, scary…and I know not all politicians at the municipal level like that part of the job. Getting out there to be reelected. I do.
Q: What are strengths in work and school that you’ve gained from your personality?
A: You’re open to constant criticism from the press and from folks in the other party. I’m a Democrat and work with two Republicans, so in order to get things done you have to be strong, persuasive, and sometime accommodating. I feel like my personality adapts well to all that. I have to be out in the county all the time. As far as how my schooling fit in well with my personality, I caught the political bug at school, joined the Democratic club, ran for office in my junior year. Loved the process.
Q: What are weaknesses in work and school that you’ve felt due to your personality?
A: I’ll tell you a secret: I hate it when I think I’m right and I’m outvoted 2-1. So if I want to be effective, I have to bend or I would break. Not happy there. I’m more conservative in my voting than I’d like to be, but I have to do what’s best for all my constituents.
Interviewee #3:
Age: 31 Gender: M
Location: Dover, Delwaware Job Title: Paramedic, 911/Emergency Services
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about your educational history?
A: Undergraduate degree at the University of Delaware. Got a masters in fire and emergency services.
Q: What is your current position at work?
A: EMT worker. We are first responders, often getting to an accident scene before the police.
Q: Do you feel like your education was a good fit for your personality?
A: Undergraduate, not really. Graduate masters, most definitely. By then I was hooked on the job. You’re not stuck in an office. Almost every day is different. It fits my needs and personality absolutely.
Q: Do you feel like your current role at work is a good fit for your personality?
A: I don’t like to do the same thing every day, and in this job I definitely don’t. It’s exciting. Every minute pressure packed. I did my type test as part of a course and turns out a lot of traits e-s-t-p I have in varying degrees. I’m extroverted and have to be. Sometimes lives on the line, keeping someone alive until doctors (Life-Flights, often) come to an accident scene, for example.
Q: What are strengths in work and school that you’ve gained from your personality?
A: Working under pressure. I’m out there, every shift is different. It’s like working in an E.R. except you’re in an emergency vehicle. You work with cops, fire police, doctors, firemen. You have to be a leader and decisive at the right moment.
Q: What are weaknesses in work and school that you’ve felt due to your personality?
A: I get bored easily. I wasn’t sure I was going to be a paramedic. In fact it was one of the last things I might have chosen. I was drifting. After school, where I did take some anatomy courses intending to be some kind of med tech. I went to live back home; not happy. And then took a chance going back to school to be a paramedic. If you’re an adrenaline junkie, it’s the job for you. It is for me.