Meyers-Briggs Personality Testing: Anecdotal Observations
Personality tests have always held a certain amount of fascination for me. I vacillate between thinking they have the same credibility as horoscopes and really believing they have some keen insights. I have blogged on personality assessments previously so I won't repeat the legal issue.
Kris Dunn, at the hr capitalist has a great post on Hiring Jason Bourne via the Myers-Briggs Assessment. Kris concludes that Jason Bourne is an ISTP. I was wondering if this classification appropriately places him in his current occupation (CIA hit man). Furthermore, how would he fit in your organization?
Career and Personality Tests On-Line lists the following traits for many ISTPs in an organization:
[A] good job includes being rewarded for paying attention to what is logical, allows for hands-on experiences, and gives them freedom to do the work as they see fit. They often enjoy work that is project oriented and task focused, particularly if it involves immediate problem solving. Independence and autonomy are likewise important for ISTPs at work. Action is usually more important and interesting to them than long discussions. ISTPs often lead by example, and expect each person to contribute to the group effort. They can be quite expedient, finding the best solution for the moment. They usually dislike both giving and receiving close supervision. Many ISTPs can keep track of all kinds of detailed information and can become the source of "institutional knowledge" for an organization.
Some areas where ISTPs can have difficulties include taking shortcuts to get things done and skipping important steps. They might miss sharing information with others, who then assume the ISTP is uninvolved, unconcerned, and lacks interest. Sometimes, in their hurry to get things done, they can jump to a new task before the previous one is finished. Perseverance can be a problem. Likewise, goal setting can be difficult. The focus on the immediate can make it hard to look at the long term and plan accordingly, or even create a plan in the first place.
Based on this summary, I'm thinking Jason Bourne, Vice-President of Human Resource. The Personality Page has a Geocities page that list the following occupations for an ISTP:
Police, detectives, forensic pathologists, computer programmers, system analysts, computer specialists, engineers, carpenters, mechanics, pilots, drivers, athletes, entrepreneurs, firefighters, paramedics, construction workers, dental hygienists, electrical engineers, farmers, military, probation officers, steelworkers, transportation operatives, hitmen. With the ability to stay calm under pressure, they excel in any job which requires immediate action.
Right now, I am in the camp of thinking these personality test are right on the mark. But wait, how can hit men and dental hygienists both be ISTPs? Now, I am vacillating again. Jason Bourne, Dental Hygienist? That's why I'm not the Hollywood director.
Great post and thanks for your "vote" for personality tests. I'm always surprised when people refute the accuracy of these behavioral type reports (MBTI or my preference, DISC). Behavioral styles/types are observable behaviors that others see all the time. These MBTI or DISC reports merely put in writing what others know about you already - essentially how you approach problems, people, pace and procedures, each representing one of the four styles/types.
But this leads me to a word of caution in using MBTI or DISC in career selection and especially hiring when used as the sole hiring tool. MBTI/DISC predict behavior - how people will approach a job. It has no value whatsoever in predicting if the individual has any skills or potential to do the job. Using MBTI or DISC to predict occupations or job fit is like saying all tall people with dark skin will be great basketball players and all short, skinny kids with glasses will be great accountants. Sure, there is a reasonable chance in life these stereotypes may be true, but my advice is don't over-rely on behavioral assessments to predict careers and job fit (hiring).
The best constructed/validated assessments for predicting job performance are based on the Five-Factor model. I describe these five-factor tools as checking under the hood, as compared to a quick visual. What you see is not always what you get when it comes to career matching.
Much of the work on emotional intelligence is linked with the five-factor model as well. I'm confident that Jason Bourne's personality and behavioral style are similar, indicating why he's the world's best hitman. Unfortunately, my experience finds that 1/3 of the time personality and behavior preferences differ. That's an expensive proposition with high risks for an employer to hire/promote employees relying on MBTI or DISC alone.
And for anyone who hasn't seen Bourne Ultimatum, it's the best of the series and a great movie!
Ira:
As always, your comments are insightful. I was a little unfair to you and modified the post after you commented. I added the question of how hit men and dental hygienists might have the same personality type. Maybe you can comment again on this part of the post.
As a person who has spent a lot of time designing and reviewing personality tests intended for employee selection, its nice to see this balanced discussion of their strengths and weaknesses. The strength of personality tests is that if they are appropriately designed and utilized they can systematically improve the accuracy of hiring decisions. Their weakness is that its relatively easy to create personality tests that look like they should work but don't, or to use a personality test that predicts things that aren't all that relevant to performance of the particular job you may be staffing.
A lot of scientific research has shown that the concept of personality testing is sound but this research has also shown that "the devils in the details" in terms of making sure they work as intended. And these details mainly involve a lot of fairly complex statistical analysis referred to as "psychometrics". My general advice is never just use a personality test because someone says its valid or measures useful things. Ask them to show you results of empirical validation studies demonstrating that it predicts behavior that influences performance in jobs similar to the ones you are staffing.
Pfeiffer/SHRM just published a book I wrote that delves into this topic in some detail. Its called "Hiring Success: the art and science of staffing assessment and employee selection". I'm naturally biased since I'm the author, but I think you might find the book interesting. Its available on SHRM's website or on amazon.com (search on "Hiring Success").
My understanding is that it is not only personality type that makes a difference in choice of career. Background, upbringing, education, beliefs, morals, religion etc. all play a strong part.
ISTP + psychopath = hitman.
ISTP + normal psychology = hygienist. (OK, maybe they need to be slightly sadistic!)
You might be interested in the Hogans Development Survey which look s at the "Dark Side" of personality. See http://tinyurl.com/35r9q8 for an article
I've been in HR for years and talks of using Personality Tests alone for hiring scares me. We use the Myers-Briggs Personality Testing for screening of canidates. However, we will not use the test unless their potential direct report manager has screened them first. I cannot believe that some companies will actually use any personality profile for initial screening. You will miss a great deal of good canidates by looking at their profiled personality.
But, using it as a screening tool after you have lined up good canidates is a good idea - at least to me. Recently I had two canidates who looked very similar - Both has roughly the same education, work experience and credentials. One of them had a better looking personality profile - it was more in line with what we were looking for. So we went with them.
I think use of these tools makes sense in this context.
Anyone have a thought?
Janice,
While it sounds like you're using MBTI with good intentions, it is still important that you ensure it is job related. The problem you might find if ever forced to defend MBTI in the selection process is this: how can you validate that one type is a better performer than the other? Anecdotal evident will not likely hold up under EEO scrutiny.
On the other hand, I do recommend DISC (not MBTI) as part of the hiring process. I don't however use it to predict job fit but as a tool to explore if HOW this individual approaches the job will be a good fit in the organization and on the team. The information provided allows the hiring manager to explore these questions during the interview. IF you are using MBTI to explore cultural/team fit, you might have a defense. But if you're using it to predict a skills fit, you might be putting yourself at risk.