Personality Assesment Tests and Analysis

Wouldn't it be nice to know your strengths and innate talents; your enduring patterns of behavior (borrowing a definition from the study documented by Marcus Buckingham in "First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently")? I suggest it is critical you find out. You may be blessed with a manager, mentor, or teacher that can help you, but the odds are against you. You could spend your life failing to find your passion(s). Likely, you've taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test. But have you taken it enough times to determine what your long-run types are, what mix you are? A friend (Bill Liptak) suggests reviewing the tests in BusinessBalls.com like William Moulton Marston's DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance). Also, he suggests looking into the Kuder Preference Record. Our newest researcher (Cassandra) suggest two fundamental challenges with Kuder Preference Record (now the Kuder Career Search with Person Match); it asks questions about a person's perceptions about activities. From personal experience with classmates at West Springfield High School, few students have a range of experiences outside of school. So questions about how they feel about growing flowers, going shopping for a sick person, etc. are answered based on perception, not fact. Likewise, for activities students have tried, there is a risk of "rosy introspection" where the recollection is based on the perceived feeling at the time, not reality. An article in the August 2011 issue of the Journal of Career Assessment by Itamar Gati and Lisa Asulin-Peretz, "Internet-Based Self-Help Career Assessments and Interventions: Challenges and Implications for Evidence-Based Career Counseling" (19: 259-273) would be interesting (but I'm not ready to pay $32 for the privilege of reading),