A range of personality tests

When we are casting about for our next logical steps in a career journey, sometimes it is worth doing a number of assessment inventories to see if they will show us something new about ourselves: or if we will see a new pattern in a broad range of results which was not visible to us previously. There are a range of assessments which we can take, which you can read more about here. 

Following are some free assessments which we can take to explore a number of facets of ourselves:

• The Big Five Inventory, or the OCEAN quiz, which is a personality traits test. This is the only test reputed to have scientific validity, but we need to remember that it was created in the USA, testing professional men. Download the page here (Daft, 2007)
• The personality sorting hat of MBTI, a personality test, via a workbook (here) and results analysis (here; McNeill, 2004). Read more on this assessment here
• A fast and dirty HBDI quiz (here), a thinking styles quiz. Learn more about this test here (Jamieson, 2011)
• What type of follower are you, here (Rohde & Ford, 2007). Learn more about Kelley's followership styles here
• One for fun, Smalley's personality test here (Smalley, 1997). The value in this test is considering the "alternative" way that our attributes may be seen
• An online values test here, based on Schein's Career Anchors (123 Test, 2024)
• An interest inventory, Holland Code or RIASEC test here (Open-Source Psychometrics Project, 2024a)
• A personality test, DISC inventory, here (Tripp, 2024)
• A communication style quiz here (LeadershipIQ, 2024)
• A range of other tests can be found here (Open-Source Psychometrics Project, 2024b)

As these are (a) self-reporting tests, and (b) free versions, some tests may not evaluate us well. Further, if the results of any tests seem off-track, we should get someone else to give us a double-check for sense. If any test results feel very insightful, we may decide to seek out a professional paid version with a consultant debrief to give us a better quality exploration.

I hope these are useful!

Sam

References:

123 Test. (2024). Work values test. https://www.123test.com/work-values-test/

Daft, R. L. (2007). The Leadership Experience (4th ed.). Thomson South-Western.

Jamieson, K. (2011). HBDI NMIT Students Presentation. Jamieson Harvey & Associates

Human Metrics. (2024). Discover your personality type. https://www.humanmetrics.com/personality

LeadershipIQ. (2024). Communication Styles Quiz And Assessment. https://www.leadershipiq.com/blogs/leadershipiq/39841409-quiz-whats-your-communication-style

McNeill, G. (2004). A Brief Introduction to Myers-Briggs. Careers New Zealand.

Open-Source Psychometrics Project. (2024a). Holland Code (RIASEC) Test. https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/RIASEC/

Open-Source Psychometrics Project. (2024b). Recommended tests. https://openpsychometrics.org/

Rohde, S., & Ford, D. (2007). Determining Your Followership Style. www.roosevelt.edu/hr/td/documents/DeterminingYourFollowershipStyle.ppt

Smalley, G. (1997). Chapter 10: Understanding Personality Types: A Key to Lovability in Making Love Last Forever. http://www3.dbu.edu/jeanhumphreys/SocialPsych/smalleytrentpersonality.htm

Tripp, R. E. (2024). What Color Is Your Personality? (Very in-dept Test!). https://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=mtm5ntkznwk5rq