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Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types

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141–150 of 251 posts

Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types

#141
I interviewed for a decent sounding software architecture position, where the CTO interview went very well. They moved me on to a Big Five personality test, which I failed somehow, and they wouldn't tell me the results or the criteria. End of the process.

Bullet dodged? Does anyone know what kind of pass/fail filter would be used here?

Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types

#142

I interviewed for a decent sounding software architecture position, where the CTO interview went very well. They moved me on to a Big Five personality test, which I failed somehow, and they wouldn't tell me the results or the criteria. End of the process. Bullet dodged? Does anyone know what kind of pass/fail filter would be used here?

Depends on the test. I wouldn’t sweat it. These tests have little correlation to job success. Why anyone considers them at all is beyond me.

Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types

#143

I interviewed for a decent sounding software architecture position, where the CTO interview went very well. They moved me on to a Big Five personality test, which I failed somehow, and they wouldn't tell me the results or the criteria. End of the process. Bullet dodged? Does anyone know what kind of pass/fail filter would be used here?

Bullet dodged for certain, but I have a hard time understanding why they’d ever make that a pass/fail kind of thing.

Maybe the CEO had a bad experience with someone claiming to be a ASSH?

Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types

#144

> And that’s it—there’s simply very little data on how well the Myers-Briggs (and other type-based personality tests) measures personality and even less on how it might predict job performance. I was surprised there wasn't any mention of a very interesting issue here, i.e. MBTI and other typological instruments come with user manuals, training, etc., and those materials specifically say "do not use this for hiring".…

I just come out and say it? There’s nothing wrong with knowing you are a certain type.

At least it’s helpful for me to point at the ‘challenges’ section and tell people ‘I do this, please keep poking me until I give you attention’.

In the same way it’s helpful to have a literal definition of how other people think, because the idea that someone might deliberately go with a suboptimal idea because they value peace is absolutely foreign to me.

Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types

#145

> And that’s it—there’s simply very little data on how well the Myers-Briggs (and other type-based personality tests) measures personality and even less on how it might predict job performance. I was surprised there wasn't any mention of a very interesting issue here, i.e. MBTI and other typological instruments come with user manuals, training, etc., and those materials specifically say "do not use this for hiring".…

Given that beliefs about personality types are so widespread, it shouldn't be too hard to guess which traits have positive and negative connotations, and learn to project the positive ones. This is not radically different than just making an effort to get along with people.

Context is king though. Traits or expressions have different good/bad connotations according to different types/type-informed contexts, that's the basic idea of how type works, how wars are started, etc.

Personality type theory shines exactly in those kinds of situations, where it works better to zoom in and look at group composition, isolating for specific perspectives and integrations, rather than zooming out to broader abstractions about humans or people in general.

It very often turns out that people have radically different ideas of what it means to get along, and who that should be done with, and when. Advising people to "make an effort to get along" can be extremely offensive when all parties have nearly exhausted their known resources for doing so.

Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types

#146

A previous company used Real Colors, an MBTI knock-off, and it was striking how attached people got to those results. People openly stereotyped whole groups of people because they appeared to cluster in one sector (e.g., SDEs must be Green). They disregarded all counter-examples because they conflicted with these biases. It was weird.

Funny enough my department took that test and all the sysadmins were blue/teal

Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types

#147
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The list of technologies the CIA has evaluated since it's inception is long and full of quackery.

Without commenting on Meyers-Briggs, the CIA/FBI still use polygraphs during their interviews despite widespread acceptance that it’s useless.

It is an interrogation technique—nothing more. If you get stressed about lying as most people do you will probably get more stressed during a polygraph and your physical response will be measurable. This allows them to pressure you into admitting something you rather not admit. If you are a sociopath or practiced you will probably do just fine.

In fact, my pet theory is that some of our problems with policing in the US are a direct result of hiring practices such as the use of personality tests and the polygraph. I suspect you may inadvertently pass people who are experienced liars at a far greater than normal rate under normal interviewing practices.

Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types

#148
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you are concerned your employer is going to misuse your MBTI type somehow A potential employer will never know what my MBTI type is, so they can't misuse it.

That depends. For example I was trained and tested to meet with a person and determine not only their MBTI type, but also their preferred cognitive processes, without ever talking about personality type with them. The testing was extremely difficult. But the skill is extremely valuable in knowing which questions to ask people as they try to navigate career and life change. You might be surprised to find how easy it i…

It does help that like 50% of people fits one of 4 types in the first place :)

Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types

#149
post #120

When I was managing, I informally typed people during the interview process, which was very helpful in predicting both how they would interact with other team members and how they would do at particular tasks. However, I learned not to rely on self-reported personality types or tests, which are often answered aspirationally, not realistically. To me, MBTI or Big 5 (not the actual tests, but their framing of aspects o…

>As a manager, I've found them incredibly helpful for avoiding problems (i.e., assigning the wrong task to a person). it sounds like you're assigning tasks based on prejudicial categorization of genetic traits (as MTBI claims to be) instead of actual demonstrated job performance.

I like to think that it means he doesn’t assign me tasks that require me to be in meetings 6 hours of every day.

Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types

#150
post #49

It's funny how defensive hn and other parts of the internet are about being put in made-up 'no-evidence' /psuedoscience boxes.... yet everyone here completely understands the dozens of archetypes and human personality portraits invoked by hundreds of ever changing memes and meme-speak... "don't be that guy" "tell me youre x without telling me ..." ms-paint wojacks, etc I think people who's pattern recognition works g…

Myers-Briggs provides 4 bits of information. If Myers-Briggs was astrology, then it should not be possible to build a classifier that could predict the results of a Myers-Briggs test based upon attributes of a person that are not self-reported. I highly doubt this is the case. And though you could argue that self-selection is involved, at the tech company I work at, a large informal poll revealed ~70% of engineers to be INTJ and ~20% INTP. Whether people like it or not, MBTI is at least predictive of something. Whether that something is useful for some other purpose is a different debate, but the types are certainly not uniformly randomly distributed.
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