Top 5 alternatives to the Myers-Briggs test
Top 5 alternatives to the Myers-Briggs test
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (“MBTI” or “Myers-Briggs” to its rapidly dwindling group of friends) is the personality test people love to hate. Our spotlight on MBTI’s shortcomings was the most popular post of 2014. Now it’s time to talk alternatives.
“The mistake is that people look at it as if it’s the beginning and end of it all, and that’s a mistake,” says Jacob M. Engel, author of The Prosperous Leader. “You need a multi-disciplinary, multi-tool approach.”
Big Five
As MBTI comes under fire, the Big Five’s star is in ascendance. Unlike MBTI, which focuses on a set of binary, this-or-that results on four dimensions, the Big Five delves into degrees and relative strengths. This eliminates the “clubby” aspect of MBTI typology, in which support groups and “hate threads” are quite common. It also deals more directly with characteristics that are desirable, or otherwise, in an employee, teammate, or manager.
In last year’s article, Adam McKibbin remarked that “In Myers-Briggs, basically everyone is a winner.” Definitely not so in Big Five, where a measure of one’s neuroticism is on the table. (Agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness are also on the table.) Tested subcategories in some variants of the Big Five include “immoderation,” “depression,” “anxiety,” and “anger.”
Just as there are multiple instances of MBTI testing, there are several approaches to gauging the Big Five. Check out a free Big Five variant which provides a raw score readout, percentile ranking against other test-takers, and some basic personality conclusions.
Predictive Index (PI)
Administered by PI Worldwide, founded in 1955, the Predictive Index isn’t a test taken for laughs. It’s all business, baby. “MBTI is also used in academia and in personal coaching, but the Predictive Index was specifically designed for a business context,” says Matt Poepsel, VP of product management at PI Worldwide. Read more
