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 characters that have become popular in recent years
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. At the same time, there are also many "people who have come over" on the Internet to teach job seekers how to create a "persona that leaders like".
Can personality tests really determine a person's path to finding a job?
Looking for a job, take a personality test 4 times in two months
Stepping on the tail of the "Golden Three Silver Four" spring recruitment, Zhou Yang, a native of Hangzhou, finally went to the company to report last week.
The company he joined is an automobile company, and his position is offline event operation.
For this job, Zhou Yang said that he doesn't like it much, "but I definitely cherish it."
There are two reasons to cherish it. On the one hand, it is because of the job search environment, and on the other hand, it comes from himself: "In the past, I heard that only foreign companies and large companies would use the MBTI test when recruiting, but now I will encounter it wherever I apply for a job. Some HR just ask you which type you belong to, while others ask you to do a test and take a screenshot. ”
MBTI has a different number of question banks
In the MBTI test, each coordinate contains four dimensions: the direction of the source of attention (extraverted E/introverted I), cognitive style (real sense S/intuitive N), judgment style (thinking T/emotional F), and lifestyle (judgment J/perceived P). The different combinations of the four dimensions form 16 personality coordinates that tell people "what kind of person you are".
No one expected that this set of test questions, which was released in the last century, would suddenly become the most popular social game among young people in the 20s of the 21st century. On Weibo alone, the topic of MBTI has been read 4.62 billion times. On the Bilibili website, an interactive video of the MBTI test category has been viewed 7.975 million times.
On the Internet, there are also many complaints about how MBTI has changed from an entertaining "cyber fortune telling" to a serious "recruitment standard":
"When I communicated with HR online, the other party suddenly threw me a small program to do MBTI, because I was afraid that it was telecom fraud."
"I just finished talking to the interviewer about my internship experience, and the next question is to ask me about the MBTI type, brother, are you serious?"
"Why is there still a direct entry into the recruitment requirements for 'demand E people'? Aren't I people worthy of work? ”
Netizens' complaints about MBTI's entry into the recruitment process are taken from Xiaohongshu
Shi Lu, a senior HR who has been in the industry for many years, told reporters that in fact, MBTI has not only entered the recruitment process in recent years, and many large factories have such precedents in the early years, and it is more common in foreign companies. Shi Lu's last owner was a large foreign-funded company, and the company used the DISC personality test at that time, "It is not as popular as MBTI on the Internet, but it can be said that it is not comparable to MBTI in the field of corporate talent assessment." ”
The company where Shi Lu now works uses the MBTI test. From her point of view, more and more companies are adding MBTI to the recruitment process, which is not unrelated to MBTI becoming a popular cyber social game among young people in recent years. It also shows that the company itself is tolerant of the culture of the younger group. ”
It sounds a bit like a boomerang stuck in the young man himself.
Shi Lu said that this kind of test is only used as an evaluation tool, not an evaluation standard, when recruiting on a large scale such as school recruitment. From the perspective of assessment, MBTI is more about showing the state of people's psychology, which may affect behavior, but does not directly define behavior. Therefore, the reference degree of whether the position is matched is not so large, "It still depends on the situation of the applicant." For example, if you apply for a sales position, but you find out that you are an I, can you accept frequent phone calls with customers? I'm not going to let me screen you, but if you can't talk to the customer on the phone, that's not going to work. Rather than I or E, the company is more concerned about the matching of personal ability and position. ”
Changing the "personality" for job hunting
When he joined the current company, Zhou Yang's MBTI test result was ISTJ. This type of personality is labeled as "introverted/feeling/thinking/judging", or more figuratively called "logistician personality" or "inspector personality". In the analysis of results, this personality is described as "pragmatic, reliable, with a strong sense of responsibility and organizational skills, like order and planning, and can focus on completing tasks".
ISTJ image
And netizens labeled this genre as: "Heavenly Chosen Workers" and "Leaders' Favorite Employees".
"But I was an INFP just over a year ago." After saying this, Zhou Yang sent a crying and laughing expression to the reporter.
INFP, also known as the "mediator personality", has been described as "an artist and dreamer full of idealism and deep emotions". However, because the analysis describes this type of shortcomings as "too sensitive, difficult to make decisions, easily frustrated, and not good at handling conflicts", the impression of "poor workplace survivability" and "unsuitable for work" has been formed in everyone's minds. On social media, I can find a lot of sharing posts saying that I missed my job because I am an INFP, which can be said to be almost completely contrary to ISTJ's workplace reviews.
INFP image
Zhou Yang himself feels that behind this kind of personality "explosion" may be his job search anxiety.
He said that during his job search, in order to relieve anxiety, he frequently watched various job search experience sharing on social media, and then the big data algorithm recommended some posts to him, such as "teach you to change from P person to J person" and "how to create a leader's favorite persona".
At first, he just had the mentality of having fun, but after reading it, the impression of "I people are introverted, E people are extroverted", "P people are casual and J people are rigorous" may have had a subtle impact on him, and after doing the same test many times, he can already clearly know which question is testing which aspect, so as to choose the option that is more conducive to the workplace, "Sometimes I am not sure if I really think that."
In this regard, Chen Zhengxin, director of the medical office of Zhejiang Provincial Tongde Hospital and Zhejiang Provincial Mental Health Center, said that there is a learning effect when people do tests, and if there are more questions, they will naturally understand which question corresponds to which tendency, "Even if it is the first time to do the test, as long as they have a certain judgment ability, they can clearly know what kind of people are needed for the position, and what kind of answers I can use to fit the position." Therefore, Chen Zhengxin believes that when candidates take the test with a clear purpose, the results will be "beautified" and no longer accurate, "so the MBTI can only be used as a reference when recruiting, not a decisive factor." ”
How the MBTI is asked
Chen Zhengxin's point of view was recognized by Shi Lu. Regarding the hot topic of "failing to find a job because I am a certain type" that is hotly discussed on the Internet, Shi Lu said that this is more like the emotional catharsis of the unsuccessful candidates. "More than the results of personality tests, HR is more concerned about weighing more practical factors such as job fit, salary, and stability among multiple candidates, but these trade-offs HR will not tell the unsuccessful candidates."
Test results are only one part of a diverse group of individuals
In Chen Zhengxin's view, the test results of MBTI should not be a "labeled" classification, but should be regarded as a multi-dimensional coordinate, "For example, on the coordinate of introversion and extroversion, if the forward is extroverted and the reverse is introverted, you get a score of -5, which does not mean that you are an introvert, but that you are introverted by 5 points." This bias is not set in stone, nor is it a lifelong stereotype, but just a reflection of your current state. ”
On the other hand, Chen Zhengxin also feels that there is no need to take the personality test too seriously when applying for a job, although the MBTI test seems to be dressed in a scientific coat, but in essence, it is not much different from the horoscope personality analysis and blood type personality analysis, all of which use the "Barnum effect", giving people some specious explanations, "When you find that there are indeed one or two situations that match you, you will unconsciously put yourself into other descriptions, but in fact, there is no correlation between these descriptions." ”
"The MBTI test is only used as a rough reference, and we will ultimately make a judgment based on the overall quality of the candidate." The main person in charge of an enterprise said.
So, just take a look at it, don't worry too much about it, and don't rush to put yourself in the box.
Source: CCTV