Diversifying your Procrastination: Personality & Characteristic Quizzes
So, it has come to that time of year where you’re starting to heavily disassociate with the amount of uni work coming at you from every angle. Buzzfeed quizzes were left in 2017, Vine 2.0 still hasn’t been released and probably won’t live up to its former glory, social events have dropped off, and the dead loop of Facebook page meme queens is no longer doing it for you. Well don’t despair! I have the solution for you.
PERSONALITY TESTS AND CHARACTER STRENGTH SURVEYS!!!
Not only do these handy pseudo-science psychometric predictions give you bounds of knowledge for your resume and upcoming job interviews, they will flatter your ego and unveil parts of yourself you never knew to be so true. The perfect procrastination tools.
Let’s run through a few of your best options:
MBTI – Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
This handy 12 minute introspective self-report questionnaire will give you one of sixteen different personality types. I’m sure you’ve all heard of Carl Jung? Ok he didn’t invent this, but MBTI is heavily based on his theory of psychological types. Developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, MBTI is currently taken by more than 2.5million people per year and is used by 89 of the Fortune 100 companies, so it’s a handy thing to drop in the middle of a corporate cocktail chat.
I am an ENFJ. This means that I’m more Extraverted than Introverted, Intuitive rather than Sensory, Feeling than Thinking, and Judging over Perceiving. It’s all about the interaction of your function stack anyway… but forget I ever mentioned it. That resume update is waiting.
To do yours go to https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test
ENNEAGRAM
The Enneagram, the most modern of these referred to as the Riso-Hudson Type Indicator, is another self-report questionnaire that results in nine different categories with the addition of a wing which is usually one of the two types adjacent to it on the circumference of the Enneagram diagram. For example, I am a 2w3 meaning my dominant personality type is number 2 ‘The Helper’ whilst my wing is 3 ‘The Achiever’, but I could have just as easily shared my wing with 1 ‘The Reformer’. Enneagram draws certain similarities to MBTI however the key difference is that Enneagrams are said to rely on nurture, suggesting that these types emerge as a response to early childhood experiences rather than MBTI which suggests it relies on nature or the fundamental characteristics of you that are virtually unchangeable.
The Enneagram Institute asks you to pay $12 to access their survey, but if you’re like me, here are links to two free versions of the test. I suggest doing both to make a comprehensive typing assessment:
http://www.9types.com/rheti/index.php
https://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test
VIA CHARACTER STRENGTHS
The VIA Institute on Character was recommended to me by a conference I am going to in which we have to dress with ‘a touch of your top character strength!’. If that doesn’t sound like this is the one that makes the loins of your future employer tingle, I’m not sure what else will. According to the VIA website, this survey is the only free scientifically validated survey of character strengths. Make of that what you will. This 15-minute test leaves you with a long list of your character strengths from 1-24. Making you feel equally as elated about the first five, as disappointed you are in the bottom ten. But hey, it’s a good buzzword booster for any upcoming interviews that will definitely ask you to list your strengths and weaknesses.
https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/account/register
DISC
The DISC assessment contains a series of 12 questions, for each you answer with your most likely and least likely response for each scenario. You are then given a combination of Dominant, Inspiring, Supportive and Cautious traits. Sometimes a combination of all four, sometimes predominantly one or two. Apparently, a version of this is used by employers as a pre-screen to assess your employability.
I have an almost even blend of all traits. Boring.
This website does try to sell you a “full DISC assessment” but with the information given, I’m sure a quick google search will link you to a fulfilling reading about your DISC.
https://discpersonalitytesting.com/free-disc-test/
All in all, I’m an ENFJ 2w3 my disc style is LEVEL with my top character strength as KINDNESS and have just killed a three hours, hbu?