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Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types
221–230 of 251 posts
Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types
#222> 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".…
> basically the deeper theory is that any given personality type is similar to an illness in a lot of ways. Yet oddly enough just about everyone has at least one MB type.
Well, yes.
The religious right embraces the doctrine of "original sin". The secular left focuses on the concept of "unconscious bias". It seems to be part of the human condition across all cultures and ideologies to view people as inherently flawed, and to see the path toward sanctification as being recognition and never ending struggle against those inherent flaws.
Myers-Briggs is just the LinkedIn counterpart to this. Fodder for "Tell me about your strengths and weaknesses, and a situation in which you've had to overcome the latter" interview questions. You're supposed to don your hairshirt, beat your breast, and talk about your struggle for salvation in order to demonstrate piety to the interviewer.
Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types
#223Earlier 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…
> If you know how to differentiate between those types, or have friends who are of those types, it's going to be hard not to make a close guess.
But it's still a guess. You don't actually know.
But it's irrelevant in a sense. As you say, there are so few types that it's not hard to make a better-than-chance guess for pretty much anybody you meet. As a job applicant, this is no different than what I expect -- the interviewer is going to be making a subjective assessment of me and how well I would fit into the team.
I wouldn't ever take an actual personality test for employment, though, because a company's willingness to engage in straight-up psuedoscience as a factor in making important decisions tells me something important, and unflattering, about that company.
Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you need to spend $2000 plus $49.99 a head plus travel, catering and room hire to be told "It's useful to understand that people priorities things and think differently from each other?" If the specifics don't matter, what are you actually paying these consultants to do?
Is it worth $2k (or $20k) to communicate to a bunch of new managers that "we, as a company, feel that thinking about how your team of individuals thinks is worth spending money and time on"? The specifics aren't the point -- the demonstration that this is a priority, and part of your job that you're expected to spend time on, is the key. An e-mail saying "hey you're a manager now think about people!" doesn't have the…
> to communicate to a bunch of new managers that "we, as a company, feel that thinking about how your team of individuals thinks is worth spending money and time on"?
Interesting. It wouldn't have occurred to me that was the message at all until you said this. My takeaway would be "a really good salesman caught the ear of some executive somewhere."
Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types
#225Hopefully we INTJs will soon be able to apply for disability on account of being too arrogant and boorish to work with other people.
Every dev ops developer I know is an INTJ. They're usually the biggest assholes in the company - though necessary assholes in order to protect the service from going down. I would 100% hire an INTJ for dev ops.
> Every dev ops developer I know is an INTJ.
How do you know this?
Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types
#226Earlier 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.
For those that are interested, here's [0] where he talks about polygraph tests.
[0] https://youtu.be/T3FC7qIAGZk?t=5941
He says it's not a lie detector test, but a variance detector. /shrug
I expect the CIA polygraph detectors are super skilled and can detect if you're messing them around. Also I think there's a difference if you're trying to mess with a civilian polygraph detector (to cause confusion for a crime), verses one where you're trying to get a job at the agency.
Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
A friendly reminder that height is not normally distributed either. Within a population it has a bimodal distribution. Also a friendly reminder that a quarter standard deviations above the mean vs. the same distance below the mean is quite often a trivial difference in population statistics. And it should be nonsense (pseudoscience if you will) to make the distinction. A much more interesting statistic are the outlie…
Does it have a bimodal distribution because you're combining male and female normal distributions?
Partially yes. But a distinguished homogeneous population of a single gender probably has a normal distribution. Luckily humans usually don’t live in a distinguished homogeneous population of a single gender, so comparing your self to the average is at best fun. (unless you are an outlier, then it can be interesting or medically useful).
Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note the correlations between MBTI types and Big Five personality dimensions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi... These are not insignificant, particularly in the social sciences. 0.45 would be a large effect size in most psychology papers; 0.72 is huge. I think a large part of whether people think MBTI is bunk or a useful tool depends on their willingness to overlook small details to get…
Does MBTI have scores for dimensions? For instance, does it report that one is 45% introvert and 55% extrovert? I've never heard of MBTI scores. To my understanding, it just reports one is more extrovert than introvert. In such a case, I don't think it would be meaningful to measure correlation to Big Five, which reports its results on a continuous scale.
Some tests will return the scaled dimension, yes. But the biggest reason it's so popular is it's so easy to communicate with binary letters, because if you're at the 45% mark on the introvert/extrovert scale your type will be I type. This is also the reason a lot of people get different retest results. If you're near the middle of the scale it's easy to lean on either side.
Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types
#229I was asked to take the StrengthsFinder test (imo kind of similar to Myers-Briggs) after being hired on at my current employer. The results basically said my strengths are ADHD, but in a really positive way. Nobody ever followed up with me on it or mentioned it again. Honestly it was pretty accurate. The job is extremely laid back, no hard deadlines, no emergencies, etc. It's been a huge challenge to maintain a simil…
This sounds so similar to my experience at a prior employer that I have to hazard a guess. Does this company, by chance, have (or had at least, prior to the pandemic) an elaborate on boarding ceremony?
Haha no, almost no onboarding. They did have the longest hiring process I've ever seen. Something like 3 months from first interview to offer letter.
Re: Why companies are interested in Myers-Briggs types
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're content to work within your network or and only care about the craft rather than the overall purpose of your company and tasks, then sure. Jobs your friends and colleagues get you don't require a cover letter.
I've been involved in hiring at several tech companies, including two top 5. Cover letters were never considered in any part of the interview process. Our recruiters didn't even include them in the candidate packet. So, there definitely isn't any uniformity in the way cover letters are perceived.
I agree with you, but people have strong opinions on this on HN. See past discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15934135
I wish I could find the golden comment of an HN user realizing that he has used cover letters to exclude candidates, but he can't do that for those who didn't supply one - putting the latter at an advantage.