Aibu to say I don’t want to take a personality test at work

[PenelopeWhipStop]

My manager has told me he intends to have us all take a personality test as part of our 1-2-1 meetings. I queried whether this was an organisational thing or his own personal decision (it’s his idea). It’s to help determine if we’re introverts or extroverts, how we learn, possible career paths.

I already know I’m an introvert! Was I being unreasonable to tell him I’m not keen for n his idea?

Like I said - no, of course not.

Is there any reason why a decent workplace and a decent manager couldn't create an environment where it's fine to just say "I need to go away and think about that carefully, you'll get an answer by the end of the day", without having to spout a string of letters?

As an INFJ I need to go away and think about that carefully, you'll get an answer by the end of the day

But they’re bullshit. They’re all bullshit. Anyone who said that to me when requesting something at work would be met with a look of disbelief.

You may as well be saying, “as Saturn comes into retrograde, as an Aquarius thriving on a waning moon, I need to have an ice cream soda and a lie down, Instagram the fuck out of it and I’ll send you a email on October 23, at daybreak…”

Like I said - no, of course not.

But why? It's equally true of each.

Kind of bolloxes up people who aren't able to identify as that, though. You can be an extrovert who is feeling overworked and needs some time to give something uninterrupted thought before replying 'but that's not you! I want the answer now!.'

Plus I think most people's inclination to give a quick answer depends more on whether they know the answer, usually based on experience, than whether they are introverted or extroverted. In my workplace, I tend to get a quicker response from other introverts, than from the extroverts who might be unavailable because they are having an extended confab about all or nothing with the other extroverts.

We have them. We make every new employee do the test as part of our interview process. It is amazingly helpful when taking on members of staff for particular roles. Lets face it, an interview is quite often a person putting on as much of a positive act as they can whilst trying to tick all the boxes they think you are looking for. A psycometric test can often show traits which would make a candidate most unsuitable/suitable for a role.

Anyhow i wouldnt look at it as a negative in your role. Introvert/extrovert, whatever. These test can be used to show a persons preference to communication. Barriers to how they learn and why some members of a team maybe struggle to get along when there is nothing particularly to disslike about either of them. Is someone a visual person. Is someone a facts person.

I did one. I am a red. Very red. I dont listen to my collegue who likes to explain everything. I just want the facts and i get frustrated listening to them, waiting for the facts. Eventually when we discussed it we came to understand why i was sat there being impatient and why the other person was chatting away.

I have a boss who is a bit of everything. He can be like a chameleon changing his attitude to match the person in front of him. I dont trust him as far as i can throw him.

In the end, you either go with it or you fight it. Is it worth fighting to possibly find something interesting that might help you. I have never witnessed it be anything negative tbh.

As it was the idea of your manager and not a company wide policy, I think you were correct to voice concern.

A psycometric test can often show traits which would make a candidate most unsuitable/suitable for a role.

No they don't. It's really worrying that somebody could lose (or gain) a job over this unscientific bullshit.

Yes. There's nothing scientific about it.
I have a degree and some postgrad in Psychology. I would never take one.

There are many more options out there than Myers Briggs.

By the same token, you can step in dog shit, cat shit or fox shit near where I live. But we're not really grateful for the options.

A psycometric test can often show traits which would make a candidate most unsuitable/suitable for a role.

But what is to stop the candidate giving the 'right' answers rather than truthful ones? Unless you're monumentally thick, it's perfectly simple to answer like, for example, a confident sociable team-player.

Well, one of them is based on me answering - truthfully- a lot of questions about my preferences, how I like to interact with people, how I come to decisions, etc. And one of them is based on, i dunno, planets and stars and stuff. And I’ve never told the planets and stars anything about my interaction and communication preferences. So I don’t think they know much about them.

How do you handle the inclusivity issues with these sorts of tests?

If you're using them to determine who is most suitable for a role, you must have come up with some innovative ways to reduce the inherent biases. Your company could make a fortune if it genuinely has cracked this.

We did a team exercise based around Myers Briggs and it was actually useful (I was sceptical!)

In my job I am confident and reasonably assertive because I am in my comfort zone as a technical specialist. I also exhibit various learned behaviours as I've become more senior. As a result I'm assumed to be an extrovert, including by my own boss. It helped my relationship with him no end him seeing my result come out as a clear introvert. He hadnt realised how much of an effort it was for me doing the people side of our role.

It was also really useful seeing the overall makeup of our team. We had external advisors leading the workshop who helped us understand how to consider the results in our ways of working and play to our strengths.

If you're using them to determine who is most suitable for a role, you must have come up with some innovative ways to reduce the inherent biases.

Our team realised that having a range of personality types was good for team dynamics and that we were totally missing a whole quadrant of types. It opened our eyes a bit as to whether our recruitment process was creating barriers to those types of people getting through.

Use in aggregate like that does make some sense. It's applying it to individuals that seems silly.

Gosh i had to do one of these years ago. They used it against me for about 2 years after.
every 1-1 oh well we know you’re like this so you need to work being the opposite
oh you like to take x role, we think you’re doing that too much / not enough

the whole thing defined my entire personality and how I did my role for the rest of my time there until I left
no matter what I did I couldn’t get away from being that person. Even when I did things more or less than other people who weren’t defined by my apparent personality traits it didn’t matter, everything was viewed through the lens of my personality test. And crucially the negative interpretations of it.
for example being a leader is also being bossy
being introverted is often assumed to be too shy
Being task orientated means you don’t care about the people you manage

theyre just examples not the real issues I had, but you can imagine how frustrating it was. It took me a while to get over it

It's up there with, 'bringing your whole self to work' and team building exercises.
I work to earn money to fund my lifestyle. I am lucky I do a job I enjoy and am good at and I can do all the 'self motivated but excellent collaboration skills' that is necessary, but if a won big on the lottery I'd bin it off tomorrow.