Because I’m writing a book about career ownership, I spend part of my time taking self-assessments – the kind that tell you what your skills, style, values, and interests are – to find out if they are worthy of my readers (i.e. you). If they are, I write about them.  If not, I whine about them all the way through and then forget about them.

As I promised in an earlier post (Making – or breaking – Sustainable Career Decisions), these are the tests that I’ve used to develop a snap-shot of Me Inc.

(And for the record, I do not and will not get any remuneration from any test provider if my readers- you – buy or use these assessments.)

So what’s my personality – the way I do the things I do?

After months of testing assessments, I now know that according to the most common personality test on the career counselling circuit, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI for short), I’m either an INTJ (a.k.a. Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judging) or an ISTJ (a.k.a. Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging).  To find out more about my types and all others, go to: http://typelogic.com or to www.personalitypage.com or type the actual initials in a search engine and you’re likely to get a list of sites that define each type.

In essence, according to the MBTI I’m undecided when it comes to being either sensing or intuitive. And I’m not so sure what to do with that information. Maybe my career coach does.

For now I’ll stick with the INTJ (intuitive) type since Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Rumsfeld, and
General Colin Powell all have that same type.  But especially because Eeyore, the donkey in Winnie Pooh, is an ISTJ!

I also know that to take the original version of the MBTI test you need to pay a fee.  Although there are some imitations offered online for free (www.similarminds.com/jung.html and www.wzsn.net/mbti.html), the original version is only available for a fee.  I recommend that you skip the free versions, and pay for a service, whether online or in person, that interprets your results.  It’s the interpretation of your profile that’s likely to benefit you the most.  There’s an extensive list of certified MBTI counsellors at www.myersbriggs.org It’s also possible to take the test online at www.personalitydesk.com which includes a personalized interpretation.  I found the test to be quite easy to complete and their staff quite helpful and accessible and clued in.

What are my interests – or what am I drawn to?

According to Dr. Holland’s Self-Directed Search (SDS for short) which he designed 20 plus years ago to assess a person’s predominant career interest, I am Realistic and Artistic. Is that possible?  Oh, that’s why I’m a writer.  (I get it now) 

If you’d like to find out more about this test, visit: www.self-directed-search.com.  For a free (award winning) assessment based on Dr. Holland’s work, go to the University of Waterloo’s career centre at www.cdm.uwaterloo.ca/step1.asp You’ll be able to find out your interest type, after you complete step 5. The templates on this site are very user friendly and I’ve found that career centres in universities across the US refer to it as well.  (I’m sure that they’re onto something…).  At www.personalitydesk.com you’ll also be able to assess your interest and get an interpretation of your results.

What am I good at?  Actually what am I better at than most?

I decided to add some spice to my personal inventory and find out about my strengths.  According to Donald O. Cliffton, author of Soar With Your Strengths, our strengths are different to our skills.  They are those things that we’re naturally good at, not just what we can do or are skilled at.  On the other hand, our weaknesses are those things that no matter how much we practice and focus on them, we’ll only be average.  In other words, why bother and waste time with our weaknesses when we can instead focus on our strengths and potentially become world class.  Sold on this theory, I decided to take the Strengths Finder test.  To access the test online you need to have a code that is found inside the book by Tom Rath: Strengths Finder 2.0.  A copy on Amazon is anywhere between $12 for a new copy and about $8 for a used one.

It turns out that my strongest themes are (in that order): Focus, Learner, Intellection, Self-Assurance and Futuristic.

After I did some research to find out what that meant – and with an ego that was about to burst – I realised that according to the different theme quadrants (please refer to exhibit 1) I can work hard and smart, but I’m weak at influencing people and relating with them.  Pop! went my ego…

Here’s exhibit 1 as evidence of my findings:

The Building Blocks of the MBTI

The MBTI is a test that tries to find an individual’s preference for four certain personality traits, or attitudes. The subject is then categorised as having one of the 16 personality types which illustrate all possible combinations of the four attitudes. These four were predominantly based on personality types defined by the pioneering psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. One of the more important contributions to modern psychology may have been Jung’s attempt to show that people did not behave in unnecessarily random ways. Rather, they behaved in orderly ways, which could be predicted if their personality types were correctly identified. He divided these types into three separate categories:

Extraversion and Introversion is the category devoted to a person’s attitude to the world and how they receive energy. An extraverted person gets it from the world around them and from physical interaction; an introverted person gets it from their own self and from the inner world of abstractions and ideas.

Sensing and Intuition refers to how people process the information they receive. Do they rely predominantly on the hard facts gathered through their five senses, or do they often rely on an intangible sixth sense, their intuition?

Thinking and Feeling divides people based on how they make rational decisions. Do they make them based on quantitative information and numbers? Or are they less analytical and more feeling, choosing instead to consider the harmonious whole?

Judging and Perceiving is the final category, added by the creators of the Myers-Briggs Test. Those who prefer judging are seen as more structured and apt to make plans, while those who prefer perceiving are seen as more spontaneous, adapting flexibly as their environment changes.

The Test, Then and Today

Isabel Myers originally developed the MBTI with help from her mother, Katherine Cook Briggs, to apply the theories of Jungian types in a practical way: job placement. The second world war found many patriots looking to help the war effort, but finding themselves in positions they disliked. The test was a way to show people that many types existed, all with potential strengths that could be maximised when paired with suitable expectations and environments. The test continues to be used in work environments today, to emphasise the variety of personalities, and to encourage people to find like types as well as keep communication open with personalities that may be naturally more conflicting.

Indicating, Not Defining

Taken through a series of forced answer questions (the number depending on the version of MBTI taken), the subject is asked to choose their preference for various, often similar, situations. The end result is a distillation of not the subject’s raw personality type (rarely is anyone 100 percent in accordance with any one trait), but of their leaning or preference for one of the two ends of each type. While individual takers may see one end of a type as more attractive than another, ultimately, the types reflect preferences, and each has strengths.

This brings us to perhaps the greatest limitation of the test: That its takers may mistakenly believe the results give them a definition of their type. In fact, because it shows only the preference, this means the non-preferred dichotomy is still very much existent. The test questions often force the taker to choose between two options which mutually exclude one another, and this must be kept in mind when considering the results.

Which leaves the question of how we can incorporate the results of a test such as the MBTI into our personal lives. Finding our type can be useful if we use it as a clue to better knowing ourselves, rather than an end-all definition, which can in turn help us choose our productivity systems better. An organisational system can be extremely helpful for stream-lining our private and professional lives, but not if it goes against our natural tendencies. A person showing a clear preference for sensing and judging may thrive under a system that demands control over the smallest detail of the day. Conversely, a system like that may be stifling for a person who shows a tendency to use their intuition or who requires a sense of spontaneity or flexibility.

The MBTI is another possible tool for identifying more clearly what kind of preferences we have when it comes to organising and productivity – and the more we know about our preferences, the better we can find the perfect system for ourselves.

Click here to take a free online version of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator.