Recently, some netizens shared the recruitment process encountered at this year's job fair on social media, among which the "50 to 300 questions online personality assessment" sparked heated discussions, and the most discussed was MBTI.
MBTI is an abbreviation for Myers–Briggs Type Indicator. In 1942, the American writer Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother compiled 16 personality coordinates based on psychologist Carl Jung's theory of psychological types.
▲ MBTI cartoon image that has become popular in recent years Source: Internet
The MBTI16 personality test has become very popular among young people in recent years, and has been ridiculed as "cyber fortune telling". But when it suddenly becomes a "standard" in the recruitment process, appearing in the recruiter's online communication with you, or in the interviewer's questions, or even directly in the hiring requirements, many job seekers feel uncomfortable.
The MBTI is on fire, but job seekers are deeply disturbed
Xiaobai, a "post-95" Beijing citizen, has encountered it in the process of job hunting, and every time she submits her resume, she forces herself to do an MBTI test, and only when she tests the "perfect personality" will she send her resume out with confidence.
Xiaobai's doing this is not for nothing. The reporter of "Rule of Law Daily" has seen on some Internet recruitment platforms that many job seekers complained that "after the end of the company, they were dismissed because the personality test results did not match the job requirements"; The experience post of "how to do a personality test in a company interview to ensure that you are not eliminated" also has a high number of views.
▲ Source: Internet
Among the personality tests, the most popular one at the moment is the MBTI test. Data shows that on Weibo, the most popular topics related to MBTI have been read by more than 2.4 billion people and discussed by nearly one million. On Douban, 260,000 netizens have participated in the "Personality Temperament Psychology" group. Some netizens enthusiastically discussed each other's personality types while using playful emojis to ridicule the attitudes of different personalities. Some employers even use this as a criterion to determine the career prospects of their employees.
Is the MBTI accurate?
It can be said that it is accurate, or it is not accurate, and the focus is on how to look at the results of the MBTI.
Millions of people use the MBTI every year to make career-related decisions, and it is arguably the "most popular personality test in society" at the moment, which can help us distinguish between different types of people and help people better understand themselves.
But MBTI does have its limitations. Those who have done the MBTI will find that there are only two choices for each question, and if we feel that both situations will occur, we will eventually be forced to choose one answer.
For example, some questions are like this: When you are with a group of people, you will usually: A. Join the discussion; B. Talk to only one person at a time. Some people may choose A decisively, while others will think carefully, think carefully in different situations, and finally choose A in a tangled way, obviously they are different. If you continue to do this, the final result may be quite different from that real self. The results of the MBTI are obtained by judging which end of each dimension is more dominant. For example, two people get ISTJs, but one person's S and N are very close, while the other person is far apart. Although they are the same personality type, they can be very different in life. To put it bluntly, it is the problem of this black-and-white division itself.
Some people will say that the results of the MBTI will be very different between the two times before and after, and this is also normal. For example, if there are a total of 10 questions used to measure the distinction between introversion and extroversion, I may be a more middle person, and the tendency is not so obvious, if I choose 4 extroverts and 6 introverts this time, the test results will determine that I am introverted. Next time, I choose 6 extroverts and 4 introverts, and the test results will determine that I am an extrovert. In fact, there are only two options before and after.
In addition, the difference in results from measurement to measurement may be due to the fact that personality and personality, although a relatively stable trait, can also change, and it is influenced by the environment, culture, parents, and even recent major events.
Spend money to unlock test results
▲ Source: Internet
Dr. Huang, a psychotherapist in Beijing who holds a doctor's certificate, said that MBTI is a universal personality test scale, and in the field of psychology, there are many such personality test scales, and there are more accurate than MBTI Cartel 16PF (16 personality) test, etc., "The MBTI test is not metaphysics, its advantage is that it is more convenient and simple, the number of questions is relatively small, it is more suitable for operation, it belongs to a formal psychological test, and it is more credible than horoscope." It is worth noting that the test may have the function of relieving anxiety, 'lubricating' social interactions, and helping people find a sense of belonging and identity in the group, but the test results do not have a definitive answer once and for all, and the test should not be deified."
However, many platforms have seen the huge business opportunities contained in the MBTI test, and have launched various types of personality tests: no love experience version, college entrance examination major selection version, and situational corroboration multi-verification personality version...... The quiz questions under various names are dizzying, ranging from a dozen to hundreds in each version. Most platforms claim that the questions are developed by a team of professors from major professional institutions and universities, and testers only need to choose their preferred option based on the content of the questions intuitively to know which personality type they belong to.
The reporter of "Rule of Law Daily" opened a MBTI test link with a high click rate on the Internet, and after spending 15 minutes to complete 93 questions, the platform showed that he needed to pay 19.9 yuan to "unlock the report". In the face of such a situation, the psychology of many testers is: after spending so much time and energy on the question, if you don't know the answer, it will be in vain, and it is better to spend some money.
MBTI results cannot be made absolute or unique
On social platforms, many netizens shared that they were brushed off by the company during the interview on the grounds that the MBTI did not meet the requirements. Luo Luo once passed the initial and re-examination successfully during an interview with a company, but in the final interview, the interviewer asked her to take the MBTI test. A few days later, Luoluo received a call from the company's personnel, and the staff euphemistically expressed that Luoluo's MBTI personality type did not match the position, and there was no way to admit her. In this regard, Luo Luo said that he was very puzzled.
▲ Source: Internet
There are differing views on the practice of including the MBTI in interviews.
Luan Tingting, business director of Beijing West Delta Personnel Technology Research Institute, expressed her understanding of this: "After seeing many cases of employees whose personalities do not match after joining the company, causing losses to the employer, many units will use some personality assessments or mental health tests as a tool to screen interviewers. But she also said that no company has yet used personality tests as the only criterion for judging. Enterprises are very cautious when recruiting and employing people, and basically do not use any single method as the only evaluation criterion. If an interviewee is eliminated on the basis of the MBTI test results, there may be reasons for a mismatch between personality and the position, but it is more likely that there are other reasons that are not easy for the recruiter to say. Luan Tingting also pointed out that many companies are still in a preliminary stage in the application of assessment tools.
In the view of Tian Lili, director of the Department of Applied Psychology of the School of Psychology of South China Normal University, the decision to admit interviewers based on the results of the MBTI is a "lazy" behavior of the employer to simplify the interview behavior, which is not advisable. "The MBTI only provides a reference and should consider the interviewee in combination with a variety of indicators. Moreover, MBTI has certain limitations in terms of reliability and validity, test questions, and sinicization, and these limitations must be considered when using it. ”
It is worth noting that the wide application of MBTI in interviews has accelerated more people's awareness of it, and many interviewees have also come up with countermeasures. On the Q&A platform, under the experience post of "How to do a personality test in a company interview to ensure that you are not eliminated", the number of views remains high.
Some interviewers have found that interviewers will take the initiative to inform their personality type when introducing themselves, increasing their probability of being selected. In the beginning, this will really deepen the impression of some interviewees. But as more and more interviewers do this, doubts arise: "For example, when interviewing for a marketing position, five out of seven people introduce their MBTI as an ENTP (Candidate Personality). ”
In fact, some interviewees have figured out the rules of answering questions after doing the MBTI many times, and know how to operate to choose their own advantageous personality. On Weibo, some netizens shared their similar interview experiences. "In an interview, HR asked me to do a test question, and I knew it was MBTI as soon as I saw the question, and I had to do it several times a month, and I was very witty to choose the right answer for each option."
It can be seen that when the MBTI is used too much in the interview, or is used as the only reference, it may also make the employer passive.
"As a personality theory and application technique, MBTI has a certain theoretical basis and empirical validity, which provides a reference for employers and individuals to understand themselves. However, we cannot make the results of MBTI absolute and unique, and we must use multiple approaches and perspectives to understand individuals. Tian Lili said.
Source: Xiaokang Toutiao WeChat public account comprehensive tide news, China Youth Daily, Rule of Law Daily, China Women's Daily
Editor-in-charge: Zhou Jingtao
Review: Wang Fang