My Favorite Personality Tests
A Guide To Understand People [20]:
“You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Few gifts can be better than the ability to live your true self unflinchingly. Knowing yourself leads to better life satisfaction: strong career alignment, meaningful relationships and better navigation of a purpose-driven life.
It’s assuring to be able to verbalize your strengths, quirks and what makes you, you. I have an uncanny passion for personality tests and this week, while scrolling social media, I stumbled upon an article by Career Contessa that inspired me to start this blog. I have taken personality tests for years, hello 11th grade me, with each year passing by discovering more tools and assessments to understand myself, my friends, dates, my family, everyone.
This round up consists of four of my most frequently used personality tests, whose insights I pull from when applying to jobs, working with others, getting to know brand new people (with minimal efforts and time) and most of all, have fun.
Note: These tests are not scientifically proven nor 100% accurate nor replicable. I suggest taking them with a light heart, and a grain of salt :)
1. MBTI or 16 Personalities Test
The MBTI test is one of the most popular personality tests out there. Created by Isabel Myers and Katharine Briggs, the MBTI test attempted to take the theories by Carl Jung and apply them in people’s daily lives. There are four basic dichotomies of preferences that a person can fall into, making possible 16 types of personalities (Source: Myerr Briggs)
The four dichotomies are:
Favorite World: Introvert/Extrovert
Information: Sensing/Intuition
Decisions: Thinking/Feeling
Structure: Judging/Perceiving
You can take the MBTI test here. This page provides a great report and summary of your personality after you have answered the questions. Personally, I have had great fun at work having my co-workers fill these out then having belly laughs with the stereotypes this test generates. There is a huge community of MBTI lovers on social media (Reddit, Facebook, Quora) to explore and share your love as well.
2. The Big Five Personality
In 1970s, research teams at the University of Michigan and University of Oregon, led by Paul Costa and Robert R. McCrae discovered that most humans character traits can be described using five dimensions: Openness, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness.
This test measures each of your dimension on a spectrum, returning the degree of each characteristic you possess. Everyone has each of these traits, yet at varied level and this test breaks down just that.
You can take the Big Five test here.
3. Clifton Strengths
This test is widely used by organizations when hiring and onboarding people. My university actually offered all incoming freshman the Clifton Strengths test to take before we arrive on campus. I have definitely noticed a big difference in dynamics when I converse with people who share two or more strengths with me. (Some of mine are Learner, Focus, Input and Deliberative)
This test has 34 strength themes (think Learner, Woo, Consistency, Strategic, etc.) and will identify your top five strengths, and rank the latter in order of prominence. You can read extensively on what each strength theme means too. This test is not free, however, do check with your employer/school if they have a program that sponsors it. I have taken this twice and have seen how my strengths shifted in a span of four years which is incredibly fascinating. I’d highly recommend taking this if you had the chance.
4. The Four Tendencies Quiz
And lastly and my most recent discovery, the four tendencies is a framework developed by Gretchen Rubin, originally mentioned in her book the Four Framework. This framework provides insights on how you respond to expectations: both inner and outer, and then how you react to achieve goals. This test in my opinion is useful for understanding your working habits and tendencies.
I took this recently and learned that I am an internally motivated person who loves gathering as much information as possible via lots and lots of questions - aka Questioner.
The four tendencies include:
Upholder (wants to know what should be done)
Questioner (wants justification)
Obliger (needs accountability)
Rebel (wants freedom to do something their own way)
You can take the test here.
I hope you find these interesting and useful. Do share with me your results if you had taken them, I’d love to know. My comment section is always open for feedback and future blog suggestions so comment away :)
Talk soon!
You can also use the "Harry Potter" test, it is quite fun to do!!