Personality Assessment Tools

A personality assessment is a tool used by professionals such as therapists or psychologists to evaluate traits and characteristics of a person's personality. These can be used to help in therapy sessions, to better evaluate a candidate for a career or to better understand yourself. A personality assessment differs from a psychological assessment as it uses only question and answer formats, whereas a psychological assessment may use a variety of other tools.

Myers-Briggs Test

• The Myers-Briggs Personality Test is one of the most popular tools used to assess personality. Through a series of questions given by a certified MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) Master Practitioner, you can be evaluated among 16 different personality types to find which suits you best. The types are given with acronym titles such as ISPF meaning introverted seeing perceiving feeling. The test can be used for better personal understanding or in the work environment.

Big Five Personality Test

• The Big Five was originally derived in the 1970s by two independent research teams. They believed personality traits can be boiled down to five dimensions regardless of culture or environment. It uses a question and answer format with feedback based on the study of over 10,000 applicants. With answers ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree, users answer questions about personality traits that apply to them.

Career Testing

• Most large chain franchises now use personality assessments to evaluate how well a candidate would work in a position and within the company. In addition to basic questions in most applications, personality assessments ask questions about how well the applicant works with a team, how he feels about taking direction, what he would do if he saw something illegal within the company and so on. While these are tailored to specific jobs and companies, you can also take a career personality assessment that would tell you what field you may do best in based on your personality traits.