In the 2013 Forbes article “the Ultimate Litmus Test: Personality” by Amanda Neville, she talks about the increasing frequency of personality tests for personal and business use. The main, but not the only, test she talked about was the Myers Briggs Test. This test categorizes people into four letters. The options are Extrovert or Introvert, Sensing or iNtuition, Thinking or Feeling, Judgment or Perception, and you are given one letter for each group and that gives you your “personality”. There are a total of 16 combinations. The author, Ms. Neville, was an ENTP for example (Extrovert, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiver). That explained, we need to look into the definition of ‘personality. ‘Personality’ is defined as “the set of emotional qualities,
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In a lot of cases, as Neville notes, having the skills for a job could be more important than whether you are an ENTP. The definition of personality was partly a “set of emotional qualities”. Women were judged on their “emotional qualities” for years. That is now considered sexism, which most will agree is a bad thing. So if that is now the cause, how is it fair to reject someone’s job application because of four letters that stereotype them into a narrow group? It is not.
Also, in some of these personality test there are questions like: are you “Artistic OR responsible” or “Unique OR orderly” as William Craig, author of the article “Forget Personality Tests And Measure What 's Really Important”(Craig, 2014). ‘Artistic’ and ‘responsible’ are not two mutually exclusive things. A person can be Artistic AND responsible AND a great for job.
Additionally, there are a lot of other flaws in these tests when they are used for job assessments. In an article by Dine Gachman entitled “Workplace Personality Test: Total Waste” points out the obvious: people lie. They are self-rated test that people know could be the difference between getting the job or not. So hopeful interviewees will answer the questions based on what they think an employer want and with questions like “are you Artistic OR Responsible” it is pretty easy to guess which one an employer wants (Gachman,
In a lot of cases, as Neville notes, having the skills for a job could be more important than whether you are an ENTP. The definition of personality was partly a “set of emotional qualities”. Women were judged on their “emotional qualities” for years. That is now considered sexism, which most will agree is a bad thing. So if that is now the cause, how is it fair to reject someone’s job application because of four letters that stereotype them into a narrow group? It is not.
Also, in some of these personality test there are questions like: are you “Artistic OR responsible” or “Unique OR orderly” as William Craig, author of the article “Forget Personality Tests And Measure What 's Really Important”(Craig, 2014). ‘Artistic’ and ‘responsible’ are not two mutually exclusive things. A person can be Artistic AND responsible AND a great for job.
Additionally, there are a lot of other flaws in these tests when they are used for job assessments. In an article by Dine Gachman entitled “Workplace Personality Test: Total Waste” points out the obvious: people lie. They are self-rated test that people know could be the difference between getting the job or not. So hopeful interviewees will answer the questions based on what they think an employer want and with questions like “are you Artistic OR Responsible” it is pretty easy to guess which one an employer wants (Gachman,