Stahl’s article fails to educate you on how to use your Myers-Briggs personality type to enhance your job search process.
So, how do you find out if your personality will fit in with the company? CNBC’s Benjamin Snyder suggests that you:
Stahl’s article also does not analyze whether the MBTI provides accurate results. University of Pennsylvania professor of psychology Adam Grant argues in his article on LinkedIn that MBTI is not reliable, valid, independent, or comprehensive. Grant refers to a book by Annie Murphy Paul in which she writes that “as many as three-quarters of test takers achieve a different personality type when tested again,” meaning that the test does not always yield consistent results, making it unreliable. To disprove the validity of MBTI, Grant argues that there is not enough evidence to prove that someone’s personality type indicates what jobs they will perform best. Grant also argues that the spectrums that MBTI tests are not necessarily independent attributes, referring to research that indicates a positive correlation between thinking and feeling. Grant claims that MBTI is not comprehensive because it fails to test for “emotional stability versus reactivity… the tendency to stay calm and collected under stress or pressure.” Additionally, Grant mentions that on the introversion- extroversion spectrum, most people fall somewhere in the middle (Grant, 2013)*.
In contrast to Grant’s argument, the National Academy of Sciences committee reports that while the introversion-extroversion spectrum shows validity, the sensing-intuition and thinking-feeling scales do not. The difference in the arguments of these two opposing parties weakens their claims that MBTI is not valid, by suggesting that the data of at least one of them is not accurate.
So, how do you find out if your personality will fit in with the company? CNBC’s Benjamin Snyder suggests that you:
- Research about the company and their leaders
- Conduct informational interviews
- Look into fields that will make you happy in your career
- Connect with current employees and gauge the type of people that tend to work there
Stahl’s article also does not analyze whether the MBTI provides accurate results. University of Pennsylvania professor of psychology Adam Grant argues in his article on LinkedIn that MBTI is not reliable, valid, independent, or comprehensive. Grant refers to a book by Annie Murphy Paul in which she writes that “as many as three-quarters of test takers achieve a different personality type when tested again,” meaning that the test does not always yield consistent results, making it unreliable. To disprove the validity of MBTI, Grant argues that there is not enough evidence to prove that someone’s personality type indicates what jobs they will perform best. Grant also argues that the spectrums that MBTI tests are not necessarily independent attributes, referring to research that indicates a positive correlation between thinking and feeling. Grant claims that MBTI is not comprehensive because it fails to test for “emotional stability versus reactivity… the tendency to stay calm and collected under stress or pressure.” Additionally, Grant mentions that on the introversion- extroversion spectrum, most people fall somewhere in the middle (Grant, 2013)*.
In contrast to Grant’s argument, the National Academy of Sciences committee reports that while the introversion-extroversion spectrum shows validity, the sensing-intuition and thinking-feeling scales do not. The difference in the arguments of these two opposing parties weakens their claims that MBTI is not valid, by suggesting that the data of at least one of them is not accurate.
*Grant, A. (2013). Say Goodbye to MBTI, the Fad That Won't Die. LinkedIn Pulse. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130917155206-69244073-say-goodbye-to-mbti-the-fad-that-won-t-die/