Personality Test Exam

What Are The Personality Test And How To Pass It?

Personality tests measure and characterize one’s personality traits, mindset, and behavior tendencies. Although personality tests have numerous purposes, one is to estimate how many candidates are a good fit for a particular job position during their hiring process.

This article will tell you everything you need to know about personality tests — what they are, what they measure, what kind of questions they have, and how to pass them. Most importantly, we will refer you to the best online resources for personality test practice materials.

What Are Personality Tests?

We regularly evaluate or categorize people’s personalities. Various aspects of a person’s individuality are commonly discussed when we speak about ourselves and others. Psychologists apply the same principles when evaluating personality but far more methodically and scientifically.

Personality screening and analysis assess individuals’ recurring habits in different everyday scenarios, their world outlook, their way of thinking and making decisions, and their social skills.

Extended questions about a person’s attitudes and working behavior make up personality exams. Typically, the questions ask you to rate how much you agree or disagree with statements. The test provides a personality description as a result/score.

Businesses evaluate a participant’s individual qualities for solid job performance based on the whole set of characteristics.

What Do Personality Tests Measure?

Positive woman working on laptop and writing in notebook

Personality assessments are used for a variety of reasons, such as:

  • Evaluating psychological theories
  • Evaluating individual mindsets, behavioral tendencies, and personality traits
  • Identifying psychological issues
  • Assessing the success of therapy
  • Examining alterations in personality
  • Selecting applicants for jobs

Personality assessments may be used in hiring checks, diagnostic psychology, interpersonal mentoring, professional and work-related coaching, and educational programs. In the rest of our article, we will pay attention solely to personality tests used for hiring purposes.

What Are Personality Tests Used For?

Numerous businesses employ personality assessments as part of their recruiting procedures.

They are created to assist companies in learning more about every applicant’s preferred methods of working, their working style, their mindset toward work and responsibilities, and team cooperation, as well as their compliance with the company’s culture and preferred candidates’ mindset.

It may be somewhat disturbing to be asked to take a personality test during the test if you have never done it previously. Personality tests should not be feared. They merely serve as instruments for job recruiters to effectively comprehend your perspectives, individual qualities, and conversational skills.

What Are The Four Types Of Personality Tests?

There are more than 2000 different personality tests, all concentrating on measuring similar or different personality traits. Nonetheless, four personality tests are most often used to determine an individual’s personality traits.

The following sections will explain the four most used personality tests.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, created in the 1920s by the mother-daughter team Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, tries to characterize personality forms centered on where you lie within four classifications:

  • Favorite world – focus on the external world (Extroversion(E)) or own inner world (Introversion (I)).
  • Information– focus on the outer information you perceive (Sensing (S)) or preference to interpret and add meaning (Intuition (N)).
  • Decisions – looking at logic and consistency (Thinking (T)) or looking at the people and special circumstances (Feeling (F)).
  • Structure – focusing on making decisions (Judging (J)) or openness to new information and options (Perceiving (P)).

On the Myers’ Briggs Indicator, people will be closer to one of the two options in each category. So, the final profile on the MBTI will be a set of four letters expressing your tendencies in world outlook and behavior.

To learn more about the MBTI personality test, you can use the help of JobTestPrep and their MBTI article.

Through the years, the MBTI personality inventory was modified multiple times and used for different purposes. One MBTI modification is called the California Psychological Inventory (CPI), which aims to identify leaders. You can learn more about the CPI here.

16 Personality Factor

The total sum of possible Myers-Briggs personality profiles is 16.

The different abbreviations were later classified into four different categories based on similarities:

  • The Analysts: INTJ, INTP, ENTJ, and ENTP.
  • The Diplomats: INFJ, INFP, ENFJ, and ENFP.
  • The Sentinels: STJ, ISFJ, ESTJ, and ESFJ.
  • The Explorers: ISTP, ISFP, ESTP, and ESFP.

To learn more about MBI 16 personalities, head to JobTestPrep and their explanatory guide.

The Big 5

The five personality traits in this approach, which was created in the 1980s, are commonly abbreviated as CANOE or OCEAN:

  • Conscientiousness: efficient and organized vs. extravagant and careless
  • Agreeableness: friendly and compassionate vs. critical and rational
  • Neuroticism: sensitive and nervous vs. resilient and confident
  • Openness to experience: inventive and curious vs. consistent and cautious
  • Extraversion/Introversion: outgoing and energetic vs. isolated and reserved

If you want to learn more about the Big Five, head to JobTestPrep’s extensive article and guide.
The NEO PI – R (Neuroticism-Extraversion-Oppenenss Personality Inventory-Revised) test measures the same personality traits as the big 5. You can learn more about NEO PI – R on the JobTestPrep website.

Type A, B, C, and D Personalities

  • Type A: Known as The Director, The Go-Getter, or The Overachiever, this profile of people are natural-born leaders who want to have control over situations. But they are also prone to smothering people or being pushy.
  • Type B: Known as The Socializer or The Peacemaker, Type B’s are opposite from Type A personalities and are outgoing, easygoing, and enjoyable to be around in positive situations. But, they can become needy and look for social validation.
  • Type C: Known as the Thinker or The Analyst, Type C personalities are logical and rational but can be overwhelmed when they can’t control a situation. They are similar to Type A in their focus on details, accuracy, and control, but Type C personalities are typically more introverted.
  • Type D: Similar to Type B personalities, Type D personalities are in touch with their emotions and can have difficulty feeling optimistic. They can experience positive emotions like happiness more intensely than others but can become more easily anxious and depressed as well.

In the hiring process, companies often hire outsourced hiring experts, psychologists, or candidate recruitment companies that assess candidates with their own versions of a personality test.

If we haven’t covered the personality test that you are about to take, you can search for it at JobTestPrep and its extensive library.

What Kind Of Questions Are There On The Personality Test?

Image Source: Courtesy of JobTestPrep Sample Personality Test

If you want to see more personality test sample questions and take the Free Personality Test, use the help of JobTestPrep and their Personality Tests article.

How To Pass The Personality Test?

Young Boy wearing blue working on laptop

As you might have understood from the sample questions, different job positions need different personality traits. So, if you want to pass the personality test for the job position you’ve applied for, you should:

  • Learn the requirements and responsibilities of the job you’ve applied for
  • Think about the qualities that an ideal candidate for that job position would possess
  • Try to acquire the qualities needed for the job position
  • Use JobTestPrep and their Personality test practice materials
  • Find the most suitable practice materials for the personality test you’ll take
  • Practice the test and use the study guides provided to help you improve yourself
  • Use the helpful reports to spot your strengths and weaknesses
  • Fortify your strengths, and work on bettering your weaknesses

Practicing the personality test before taking it will familiarize you with the types of questions and the optimal answers. Furthermore, practice trains you to understand what each personality test question is supposed to measure.

Ultimately, preparing before the examination is the best way to improve your weaknesses and adapt your personality to reflect the perfect employee that your desired employer company looks for.

Some candidates hope to manipulate the answers and answer as desired but not as accurate.

This perspective has a downside – even if you get employed, soon your managers will notice that you don’t actually show what you previously named as your personality traits. This can quickly end with the termination of your work contract.

How Can I Do Well On My Personality Test?

It is natural to experience anxiety before getting a personality assessment because you are required to complete a psychological exam that you are entirely unfamiliar with and unsure of the assessment standards.

You only understand that the exam will reveal aspects of your personality that have been kept secret, which could be disturbing.

Nevertheless, if you are not overly stressed and know what to expect, you will come across as comfortable and at ease. This is especially important since proctors are also trained to notice the candidates’ behavior during testing and gather cues about their non-verbal behavior.

  • Answer straight from a professional mindset
  • Check the instructions carefully
  • When answering questions, keep the employment position in mind
  • Don’t attempt to lie your way through the questions
  • Be uniform in your replies
  • Take your time, don’t rush your way through the test, but also don’t overthink the answers
  • Prepare for integrity questions whose primary purpose is to measure how prone you are to lie about your true personality.

Conclusion

Personality tests are used for numerous reasons as a way to gather and understand the personality traits of the person who takes the test. One significant use of personality tests is during a hiring process as a way to check if the candidate fits into the company culture and way of doing business.

This article explained what personality tests are, how and when they are used, and what kind of questions they utilize to measure personality tests.

Furthermore, we provided you with some sample questions, advised on how to pass the personality tests, and directed you to JobTestPrep, the best place to find personality test practice materials.

​Written by Victoria Todorovska

Victoria (or Viki) is a Freelance Writer, Psychologist, and Gestalt Therapy Consultant. With years of experience in higher education as well as counselling others, she is well-placed to offer expert advice on guiding others up the career ladder.