HR made me take a personality test...

[ApatheticNoMore]

Personality tests at work or for hiring should be illegal. It's the misuse of psychology IMO. Employees need to protected from this type of stuff as a basic employee protection. But unfortunately that is not the law at present.

Much is not scientific (but nonetheless I do like Meyer's Briggs as an explanatory system - but not for employment - anymore than your sexual life is your employers business, but use personality tests for personal curiosity or therapy or career counseling, ok I don't have a problem with these more VOLUNTARY uses of them ...). And that which is scientific is mostly heritable, a lot of personalities traits are fairly heritable. So like I say it has no place in employment.

Now this doesn't mean their intent in giving the test was evil, they may just want coworkers to work together better despite different personality types, or bosses to motivate various types of employees better etc.. The problem is most organizations are too busy trying to get actual work done (maybe inefficiently but nonetheless) to really bother with HR and whatever theory they have come up with today. Management and organization and personnel theories are a dime a dozen and mostly pretty useless from what I've seen.

[bae]

Personality tests at work or for hiring should be illegal.

I always told companies I worked for that wanted to engage in this nonsense that I simply wouldn't participate, and that I'd do my best to get the idiots suggesting the practice terminated ASAP.

[catherine]

I had a friend who was forced to take a personality test for a job she was being considered for, and she was highly hurt and insulted when it said that she lacked empathy.

The test was spot on. She was mean and gossipy and I guess she couldn't hide it from the test. Too bad she she couldn't take a lesson from it.

[Zoe Girl]

The intent would interest me. I love personality tests on my own. I have had the highest hope for these used at work as a way to value each other or work together better through understanding. I think they are really trying in my organization to do this. Recently they have given us more options for giving feedback, written, in person, survey, etc. based on our style. That is nice, I still feel like the odd one out and misunderstood a lot of the time. So having a shorthand like INFJ that says something like I will talk in small groups and not in larger ones, prefer some solo projects, and am empathetic really can help. I have one supervisor who tends to react to things with 'fix-it' mentality so I don't feel so comfortable talking to her about wanting a solo project or other things,

The only time I didn't like doing this was an exercise with about 20 of us. We self-selected in 4 areas and what a surprise! I was the only one in my section. Then we talked to each other (myself) about some things and presented out to the group. No one I had worked with for very long was surprised that I was alone, but then they asked which group others felt they needed and no one said my group. That was embarrassing (and says a lot about my career). I went to the organizer of the meeting who had participated in this at a national conference I was so concerned. He said that at the national conference there were others in my group and he thought it was because they had a lot of organizational leaders who had my group characteristics. I think it was valuable in some ways, we learned a little about how to work with people who were more authoritarian or feeling focused, how we may come across working together, just fell flat for me.

[Teacher Terry]

The MBTI has successfully assisted to resolve work place conflict when all the participants have voluntarily agreed to take it and you have a career counselor then work with the group of employees to discuss and understand the results.

[Ultralight]

There has been a fair amount of debunking of the MBTI in the recent past.

Maybe I am an INFJ, and maybe I ain't really.

I don't put a lot of stock in this stuff.

It reminds me of horoscopes. Hand them out to a group of ten people but switch the names (Cancers are Scorpios today) and everyone will rationalize how "right" the horoscope is.

Tell someone they are an ENTJ and they will find ways they fit into it. And where they don't fit, they will call it an exception or some such.

[JaneV2.0]

I'm an INTJ and I'm sure my partner is an ESFP. I doubt that I've ever dated an introvert.
Myers-Briggs is a fun scale, interesting to see how the different types relate to work and people, and it's very accessible.

ETA: I agree with Apathetic No More as far as employment goes.

[jp1]

The MBTI can be useful not only in looking at suitable jobs but also in marriage counseling and when co-workers are having conflict. WE all tend to think that others see the world as we do when we are close to people. It be useful to open dialogue and help resolve conflict when you realize that others have such a different view of things.

Several years ago i had to do dISC test and training at work for this purpose. Prt of my role requires sales and it was thought to be useful for us to understand how the people we're selling to look at things.

[lessisbest]

It's funny how people are so sensitive when this subject comes up. Those of use who have used personality tests (three decades now, personally) can already tell most things with just a few questions and spending 30-minutes with someone, and you don't even need to use a formal "test". I've used personality tests for decades in order to determine which volunteer would work best in the different areas of volunteer work. I can tell you which personality types work best together, and which don't. This helps prevent a lot of distress before it becomes a crisis. I was trained using this method, and I have successfully used it doing field work in volunteer networks all over Kansas.

One place it helps is how to settle conflicts with different personality types, but if you do your program well, you won't need to settle conflicts.

[Teacher Terry]

Lessibest, I have one of my grad degrees in psychological testing,etc and have used them extensively to help people find jobs, marriage counseling, conflict resolution etc. They can be very useful if used correctly and by someone trained to do so. I also find it amazing how many people object to them.