The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

I've found that Meyers Briggs feels accurate to people whose classifications don't fall right on the margin. If two of the letters fall close to the margin, parts of the description will feel a bit inaccurate.

In my opinion, the Meyers Briggs is useful mainly because it can help people become more self-aware and more empathetic toward others.

I've observed that in a group of 15 people who just got their Meyers Briggs results, several usually think it was uncannily accurate, and a few are immediately defensive because the result does not jive with their self-perception (usually because the personality type is described as similar to some unsavory characters from history). When I read articles criticizing Meyers Briggs, I always assume it was written by one of these people.

If you are in a relationship, one interesting game to play with your significant other is to take the Meyers Briggs test and then read some of the stuff that has been written about relationship compatibility through the Meyers Briggs lens. I've found it to be quite accurate for many couples I know. There is also a very amusing book called Please Understand me II which has detailed write-ups about the characteristics of each type. It's great for parties to read out loud everyone's results over a glass of wine.

IMHO Personality tests are useful mainly to encourage self-awareness, introspection and empathy. As a Meyers Briggs ENTP I find the descriptions of an ENTP personality flattering and desirable. I suspect nearly any type would find their own type description equally flattering and desirable.

The weirdest job interview I ever went to was for a sales position at a software development company. These guys had me do a Myers-Briggs test online a few days before the interview. After taking a day off and making a long drive to see these guys, the manager introduced himself by saying "We don't want you for this job. With your personality type you can't be a salesman. I let you come here anyway, though, because our web developer is really overwhelmed. Would you be willing to meet him and talk about working for him?"

It was so bizarre it took me a while to decide if they were insane or just incredibly rude. Upon reflection, they were both.

That is a completely reasonable approach. Like astrology or tarot cards. Getting people thinking about big questions in a non threatening way can spark interesting conversations. There are a lot of cultural norms that prevent people from talking about themselves in that kind of way. A little hocus pocus can help cut through that.

In that same spirit alcohol is a pretty great social lubricant. A little bit of booze lowers people's inhibitions enough to have fun conversations.

Eh, I'm right on the E/I border and pretty strongly test one way in the other categories so I just say i'm barely an I and then NTJ.

At the company I work for, everybody took the test and then we all sat down with a coach to go over the scope of Meyers Briggs and exactly what each part meant. As we were going through this with our team we each had a card in front of us with our type on them.

Explaining the profile parts while seeing your team members profiles was a great exercise for us because it effectively taught us how to communicate better with each other. I'm an ENFJ on a team of highly technical introverts INTJ.

We learned how to work better together, how to communicate better and they also learned how/when to better utilize me for interactions with the rest of the company.

Until we did this exercise it was just some interesting test results.