forwardslash has been interviewing for jobs at startups where they place a lot of emphasis on personality and fitting in with the culture. For that reason, the poor guy has taken a ton of personality tests over the last few weeks. He shared this with us on his weekly call and thenewgreen and I took one of the tests and compared notes. It indeed was a bonding experience - we laughed our asses off at what was "right" and "wrong". It's a bit like astrology: it's vague enough to fit most people but specific enough to make you say "whoaa! That is totally me!!" Here's mine The more people around me that took it, the more I realized how vague it was. We scored differently by about 50 points on some of the traits but the little blurb was the same. I think that these sorts of tests are nothing more than a stupidly fun way entertain yourself for 15 minutes. I would be very hesitant to hire someone on this test, knowing how wrong it was about some of my traits.
I have to disagree a bit. I think it's dependent on the ones you take. Some are very long and very involved and give you more than just a "score" but actual examples of how you would react in certain situations etc. Also, when taking them with a large group I found that most peoples feedback was different and it seemed much more tailored to the individual. I found it creepily accurate. I forget the name of it but I could probably find out.