I have taken more personality questionnaires than I can list: MBTI-style type tests, DISC, Hogan, the Adizes test and several others. The first one was at Alfa-Bank. On the 16-type scale I come out as ISFJ, the “Defender”.
I enjoy reading these reports, and I have used them with my own teams in three companies. Not once did a report help me make a hiring decision.
Below: why a personality type should stay out of the hiring decision, what to check before any test reaches candidates, and where type questionnaires earn their place. If you have a specific test on your desk, go straight to the free checker.
I enjoy reading these reports, and I have used them with my own teams in three companies. Not once did a report help me make a hiring decision.
Below: why a personality type should stay out of the hiring decision, what to check before any test reaches candidates, and where type questionnaires earn their place. If you have a specific test on your desk, go straight to the free checker.
What is the MBTI and what do the 16 personality types mean?
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a questionnaire that grew out of Carl Jung’s work on psychological types. It sorts a person by four pairs of preferences:
MBTI and Myers-Briggs are trademarks of their owner; nothing in this article is the official instrument or its questions. There are free questionnaires built on the same 16-type idea, and a family of neighbours: DISC, Hogan, the Adizes PAEI roles, Belbin team roles, the Big Five. The words differ, but they are very similar: they describe a person.
- Extraversion or Introversion (E / I)
- Sensing or Intuition (S / N)
- Thinking or Feeling (T / F)
- Judging or Perceiving (J / P)
MBTI and Myers-Briggs are trademarks of their owner; nothing in this article is the official instrument or its questions. There are free questionnaires built on the same 16-type idea, and a family of neighbours: DISC, Hogan, the Adizes PAEI roles, Belbin team roles, the Big Five. The words differ, but they are very similar: they describe a person.
Should you use Myers-Briggs for hiring?
My answer is no. In my course on employee evaluation I say it in one line: personality type is not assessed for hiring and selection. Three reasons.
1. There is no preferred type for a job. Recommendations of the kind “this type suits that role” cannot take into account the many details of your company. Even in the same position, people with different types can be successful — they organise their work differently.
Take sales. It is commonly believed that extraverts make good salespeople. I would argue with that. An extravert finds it easy to approach a client and start talking, but does not ask deep questions or listen for what the client really needs. An introvert stays quiet, asks questions, reacts to the answers — and then makes one offer that hits the target.
2. The report does not say hire or do not hire. Very often the description is for everything good and against everything bad: there are development areas, and overall the candidate looks fine.
3. Type is one ingredient of performance, not the formula. What matters is how a person applies it and whether they use their talents at work. A single type test will not predict whether someone will be effective.
So my position is plain: in recruiting they do not help. They probably do no harm either: a report is interesting to read and compare with your own opinion of the candidate. But it did not help me or my colleagues decide.
1. There is no preferred type for a job. Recommendations of the kind “this type suits that role” cannot take into account the many details of your company. Even in the same position, people with different types can be successful — they organise their work differently.
Take sales. It is commonly believed that extraverts make good salespeople. I would argue with that. An extravert finds it easy to approach a client and start talking, but does not ask deep questions or listen for what the client really needs. An introvert stays quiet, asks questions, reacts to the answers — and then makes one offer that hits the target.
2. The report does not say hire or do not hire. Very often the description is for everything good and against everything bad: there are development areas, and overall the candidate looks fine.
3. Type is one ingredient of performance, not the formula. What matters is how a person applies it and whether they use their talents at work. A single type test will not predict whether someone will be effective.
So my position is plain: in recruiting they do not help. They probably do no harm either: a report is interesting to read and compare with your own opinion of the candidate. But it did not help me or my colleagues decide.
Is the MBTI a valid and reliable test?
Two words decide whether any measuring tool is worth using.
Validity — does it measure what we wanted to measure? For a hiring test that means one thing: does the result predict real job performance.
Reliability — do we get the same result when we measure again?
Bathroom scales are both valid and reliable. Step on them as many times as you like: unless you have seriously lost or gained weight, the number stays about the same, and it is your weight.
Type questionnaires are questioned exactly on the second point. There is an opinion that the same person, taking the test again and again, can come out as a new type. A person’s type cannot change that fast and that often — so probably something is off in the questionnaire. I use this example in my HR analytics classes.
The practical conclusion is not “this test is bad”. It is this: ask every provider for the numbers. In my screening course I give two bars — validity against job performance of at least 0.3 on a scale from −1 to 1, and reliability on retake from 0.7.
Validity — does it measure what we wanted to measure? For a hiring test that means one thing: does the result predict real job performance.
Reliability — do we get the same result when we measure again?
Bathroom scales are both valid and reliable. Step on them as many times as you like: unless you have seriously lost or gained weight, the number stays about the same, and it is your weight.
Type questionnaires are questioned exactly on the second point. There is an opinion that the same person, taking the test again and again, can come out as a new type. A person’s type cannot change that fast and that often — so probably something is off in the questionnaire. I use this example in my HR analytics classes.
The practical conclusion is not “this test is bad”. It is this: ask every provider for the numbers. In my screening course I give two bars — validity against job performance of at least 0.3 on a scale from −1 to 1, and reliability on retake from 0.7.
Which personality tests can be used in recruitment?
Psychometric tests come in four kinds, and they are not equal:
If you still want a personality questionnaire in the process, choose it by five criteria:
- Cognitive ability tests — logic, numerical and verbal reasoning. The highest validity among tests, because cognitive ability is needed in almost any job.
- Personality questionnaires, for example those built on the Big Five model. Validity is not very high; they can add to the overall picture.
- Emotional intelligence tests. Validity is also not very high.
- Situational judgement tests — reactions to work scenarios. A little higher than the previous two, lower than cognitive tests.
If you still want a personality questionnaire in the process, choose it by five criteria:
- Validity. Does it predict job performance? Ask the provider for data.
- Reliability. Are results stable on retake?
- No bias. Is there adverse impact by gender, ethnicity or age? Ask for the statistics.
- Candidate experience. How long it takes, whether it works on a phone, whether the candidate gets feedback.
- Cost and scale. Price per candidate, integration with your ATS, the languages your candidates need.
Where do personality tests actually work?
In two places: teamwork and development.
Teamwork. At StarLightMedia and at Wargaming we took a type test as an HR team; at Preply we did it as a management team with an outside provider. Then we read our results to each other and commented on them as colleagues: “It says here that you always argue. That is true, you really do.” And the person explained: I argue not because I disagree, but because I want to see everything down to the details, and I doubt.
At Wargaming this ended a long tension between me and one of my team members. I kept saying “come on, let’s do this”, and she kept answering “no, that is impossible”. When we went through our types, it fell into place: I think about the future and do not see obstacles; she thinks first about the possible difficulties. We simply understood where our friction came from.
Patrick Lencioni, in “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, recommends this kind of test for the same purpose — so that team members get to know each other better. And when you form a team, different types make it more complete than a team where everyone is alike.
Development. A report is one more way to see yourself from the outside, like 360-degree feedback. The assessment that helped me most was a DISC one with a consultant’s feedback. I was told that I needed an operations person next to me: I come up with solutions and start moving, and someone has to keep things running. Since then I have built that role into my teams, and in two companies it helped me a lot.
In both uses nobody is accepted or rejected. The report matters less than the conversation it starts.
Teamwork. At StarLightMedia and at Wargaming we took a type test as an HR team; at Preply we did it as a management team with an outside provider. Then we read our results to each other and commented on them as colleagues: “It says here that you always argue. That is true, you really do.” And the person explained: I argue not because I disagree, but because I want to see everything down to the details, and I doubt.
At Wargaming this ended a long tension between me and one of my team members. I kept saying “come on, let’s do this”, and she kept answering “no, that is impossible”. When we went through our types, it fell into place: I think about the future and do not see obstacles; she thinks first about the possible difficulties. We simply understood where our friction came from.
Patrick Lencioni, in “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, recommends this kind of test for the same purpose — so that team members get to know each other better. And when you form a team, different types make it more complete than a team where everyone is alike.
Development. A report is one more way to see yourself from the outside, like 360-degree feedback. The assessment that helped me most was a DISC one with a consultant’s feedback. I was told that I needed an operations person next to me: I come up with solutions and start moving, and someone has to keep things running. Since then I have built that role into my teams, and in two companies it helped me a lot.
In both uses nobody is accepted or rejected. The report matters less than the conversation it starts.
How to give a personality questionnaire to candidates without doing harm
If you decide to use one as extra input, keep four rules.
- Say what it is for. In my experience candidates often take a request to “do an MBTI” badly: HR is running psychological experiments again.
- Do not force it. At Wargaming one developer made a real scandal at a workshop on personality types: he said it was unscientific and unacceptable to him. One person out of two thousand — but my conclusion was simple: if someone is against it, do not impose it.
- Give the report back. When I was choosing a lecturer for a finance course at my academy, I assessed the candidates’ personal qualities through a platform that gives each candidate their own report. They thanked me for it, and one of them proudly shared her results on social media.
- Keep it out of the scorecard total. Read it after the interview, compare, ask one more question if something does not match.
As part of the process we offer a short personality questionnaire. It is not a pass-or-fail test and it does not decide the outcome: we use it as one more topic for our conversation. You will receive your own report. If you prefer not to take it, tell us — it will not affect your application.
And one line for your hiring policy:
Personality questionnaires are supporting input only. No candidate is rejected or advanced on the basis of a personality type or profile. Hiring decisions are made on the scorecard: structured interview, work sample and, where relevant, ability tests.
Five mistakes with personality tests in hiring
- A test for the sake of a test. Everyone gets the same questionnaire because someone liked it, with no link to the job description.
- One method decides everything. “Only the test shows the truth.” It does not; you need a combination of methods. A number is not the same as the truth.
- No criteria before the assessment. The scorecard has to be ready before you look at any result.
- Ignoring adverse impact. The test gives different results by gender or ethnic group, and nobody has checked.
- No feedback and outdated norms. The candidate spends time and gets nothing back; the test was validated ten years ago on a different population.
Describe the job first, then choose how to assess each requirement. I show how in candidate assessment: from requirements to scorecard and in the guide to the structured interview scorecard.
The typologies themselves — the 16 types, DISC, PAEI, Belbin, Hogan, the Big Five, and how to use each with a team — are in my Personality Assessment Course: MBTI, DISC and Hogan. Tests, cases and the final hiring decision are in the Candidate Screening Course: Hire Without Mistakes.
The typologies themselves — the 16 types, DISC, PAEI, Belbin, Hogan, the Big Five, and how to use each with a team — are in my Personality Assessment Course: MBTI, DISC and Hogan. Tests, cases and the final hiring decision are in the Candidate Screening Course: Hire Without Mistakes.
