Personality testing at work

[gooblax]

At my workplace, there has been fairly casual discussion about performing some kind of personality testing within the team. Although it's not yet a scheduled activity or anything, I think it will be happening at some point. Would it be unreasonable to refuse to participate due to invasion of privacy or a belief that it's entirly unreliable?

 

[eva]

I'm not sure why your workplace would need to do such a thing, but I think it would fair of you to opt out. It's an issue of privacy and mental health, so you should be able to opt out without your boss or colleagues trying to "punish" you for it.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I think both issues - privacy and validity - are legitimate concerns.

My guess is they're thinking about the Myers-Briggs test? That seems to be a favorite in organizations but it really is little more than a parlor game. It has little or no validity as a genuine test of personality.

 

[gooblax]

Thanks guys.

They were definitely mentioning Myers-Briggs in the discussion, but I'm not sure what they were considering for actually conducting the testing.
Either way, it's good to know that my reasons for not wanting to participate are valid.

 

[making_art]

I recently met a young woman who said she was not hired by one of the school boards here because they had her do a personality test and then told her she did not have the personality for the job. I was shocked! The HR dept has taken their job one step too far in my opinion....holy cow.