Megan Riksen (00:04):

Hello, and welcome to the Work Like a Laker podcast. I'm Megan Riksen and today my co-host is Brian Bossick. Hi, Brian, how are you? I'm pretty good. How are you? I'm doing good. Thank you. Good deal. All right. So today we have a fun topic. We're going to be discussing personality assessments and how they can be used in your own personal career development. And we'll be focusing most specifically today on the Myers-Briggs type indicator, but then we'll definitely touch on some of the other assessments that are available after that. So, Brian, I'm excited to have you here because you work on our crew development team and you use these assessments with students all of the time. So can you just start by giving us a brief description of the Myers-Briggs assessment and how we use it in the career center?

Brian Bossick (01:07):

Yeah, absolutely. I love talking about the Myers-Briggs just because it is, it's a fun one that you can apply to so many parts of your life, right? Your, your career, your personal life communication styles group work. So it's a really great starter. I think for our students in a lot of ways, the Myers-Briggs goes way back when he talked about a psychological types and he believed that the differences between people really aren't random references. It is a really interesting thing. What happened is the Myers-Briggs was developed by Isabelle Briggs Myers and her mother Katharine Cook Briggs in 1943. And they took this notion of psychological types and preferences and put it into this assessment. So the Myers-Briggs at its core is really based on like personality preferences, and it's really it's set on a scale. So the idea isn't that you say come out to be an extrovert versus an introvert that you are just locked into extroversion, right? So you might be really close and it can be challenging as you talk to people about when they take this test, I'm super talkative. But when I go to work, I don't want to talk to anybody. And it really boils down to if you had your base preference, absolutely choose that you feel most comfortable with. So it's a really fun one and it looks at four different areas and it helps people to kind of figure out how the whole personality and preference comes together.

Megan Riksen (02:48):

Nice. Awesome. Thanks. That's really helpful. So I know as you mentioned that these assessments are used in a variety of ways, and I know I've heard of some companies who are even using these assessments in their hiring practices. So asking applicants to take the Myers-Briggs at some point in the interview process do you think that helps to determine how good someone will be at any given job?

Brian Bossick (03:14):

Ah, good question. That's a whole different measure. We'll talk a little bit more about those a little later on what they might be looking at is if they're looking at a team dynamic and how people kind of work together, that's where that Myers-Briggs might be measuring. So one of my favorite presentations with this is to go to classrooms where students are grouped in different teams and they've got to work all semester on a problem and we'll give them the Myers-Briggs to see like, all right, how do you, how do you with, let's say four very distinct personality types and styles work together to accomplish this goal. So that's more likely what you're going to see versus kind of a measurement of skill.

Megan Riksen (04:00):

So not necessarily a right or wrong answer there that somebody feels super judged on.

Brian Bossick (04:06):

Definitely not at all. And you would hate to like misrepresent that and then be miserable on a team.

Megan Riksen (04:13):

Exactly. Okay. So I know enough to be dangerous with the Myers-Briggs. So there's four letters. Can you tell us about the four letter codes and what that means and then what you do with that?

Brian Bossick (04:24):

Yeah, absolutely. So there's, there's four different areas and they kind of look at your personality again, your preferences and your temperament. And I think you brought up a great point that there's, there is no right or wrong, right. So you can be, if you come out extrovert and you want to be introverted, so what we'll do is we'll talk through the four areas if it's okay, I'm going to kind of cuff those questions back to you. So you have a chance to kind of answer as an example of how this might work and then we'll go from self-reflection perfect. That's exactly it. And we'll have it recorded. So you can't change your spirits.

Megan Riksen (05:01):

I'll have to steal the, the audio files later, I guess.

Brian Bossick (05:09):

So we've got four different styles are four different types. And what we're looking at that first area is that extrovert versus introvert and the basis for that one really is where do you get your energy? I think when people first hear this one, they're so often thinking about how talking to somebody versus and that's a part of it, but ideally we're just going to look at where kind of do you recharge. So, you know, for yourself, if you think about like a really exhausting, busy day and you come home from work and how do you recharge it, what are the things you do to kind of find it?

Megan Riksen (05:46):

Absolutely. I feel like if I've had a busy day, even if I know I have plans later in the day, I like make time to come home for just a little bit, because I feel like that is of my recharge place. Now home for me is a little bit more rambunctious than it used to be. Cause I have two little kids. So, you know, you kind of are forced to not forced. I love my children, but you know, you're around people more, but yeah, in an ideal situation I would have like, even if it's just a half an hour to just kind of decompress and watch TV or read a book or have a snack or whatever. But and I find myself needing that more and more as I've gotten older as well. I feel like in college, I probably just would have been like, Hey roommates. Well, you know, when I got home, like ready to hang out and got my energy from that. But yeah, I think I'm definitely

Brian Bossick (06:45):

Okay. That's, that's a great answer. And I think that makes a lot of sense. And in the way you kind of phrase that you know, when you look at what kind of energy and engaging energy, right? So introverts tend to get their energy from downtime and they can be very social. But when they need to recharge, they're going to step back and kind of like take that downtime. So that's an excellent example on the flip side, extrovert may come home and the minute they see like kids, family, like, Hey, and then they're picking up the phone to call somebody and then they're off to go grab food with people. Right. So that's kind of that energy, so excellent. Our second category is sensing versus intuition and that one is, it's always a little harder to describe

Megan Riksen (07:27):

It sounds hard like the words saying them, like they could almost feel like the same thing to me.

Brian Bossick (07:32):

Yeah. It's funny. And it's the same thing when you see it, you kind of know it, but it's a hard one to describe this one talks all about how you take an information from what's your preferred ways of processing. So we break it down like sensors. They tend to take in information in detail and reason and logic. They, they really are good with like names, numbers, facts, and figures. They're excellent at taking a big problem and breaking it into those smaller parts. So here's what we can do here. Here's how we break this down and they really do very well with kind of logic and reasoning. Whereas if someone's more intuitive they focus more on ideas and abstract ideas. So they take in the world and bigger picture ideas and they may struggle about breaking something down, but they're really good at generating an idea for stuff. Well, we can try this, we can try this, we can try this. And then if you ask them, well, how are you going to do that? I don't know. They haven't really gotten that far. So that's why teams work really well together.

Megan Riksen (08:41):

Yeah. So out of those, I think I'm definitely an S I'm a to-do list maker. If I have a big thing ahead of me. Yeah. I'm going to break it into those smaller chunks and figure it out and ask the people I need to for, yeah. I, I definitely approach work. And that way, I guess it's hard for me to kind of think of examples in personal life, but yeah, at least, at least from the work side.

Brian Bossick (09:08):

Definitely. That makes sense. So our third one is one that looks at like our decision making. So how do we kind of process information and then make decisions? And one of my favorite questions asked for this one is to present a scenario. So we've got this situation that you get a call from one of your good friends. They say, Hey, somebody just broke into my house. What are some of the first things that you think you'd do? Interesting. So I get the call. I'm not with the person.

Megan Riksen (09:46):

I mean, I think I'm first going to be like, where are you? Where did you go? What is happening? Are you safe? How are you feeling? Like, are you still in a situation where you're, where you're in harms way or are you okay and how do we get you to a place where you're okay. Okay. Excellent. Good answer. It's interesting. I think you answered for both sides of it, you with decision making for all of us, and it's just going to depend where we tend to fall more often than not. I think there's going to be, where are you? What was taken? What's the situation? Have you called the police? Do you have insurance? Kind of like taking it step by step?

Brian Bossick (10:42):

Can I get you to safety? There we go.

Megan Riksen (10:49):

And I think that's why I've struggled in the past with the NBTI, because I do find myself like seeing both sides and feeling like I could potentially fit there, which I'm sure is fairly common that people have trouble picking one side or the other. And there are certain categories, folks find themselves and they never use just one style that they're going to use a little bit about to figure it out. Cool. So our last one is judging versus perceiving, and this is interesting. Everyone's like, I don't want to be judgmental.

Brian Bossick (11:45):

So for this example, take a moment and just think about a recent vacation and how was it pretty planned out?

Megan Riksen (12:00):

Yeah. I like to know what's going to be happening. Like I can allow for chunks of time where I don't know, I think they're happening, but I like to like I always look up restaurants in advance and like read reviews of the restaurant so that I know we're not stepping into something disgusting. Right. The hotel, like I, yeah, like it would be my nightmare to go on vacation and like, not know where we're staying at night. Like I researched the heck out of the Airbnb or wherever we're staying. And I actually find that's pretty fun. Like I think I could be a travel agent. Like I enjoy that kind of stuff. So I'm probably giving you enough there. I feel like I definitely land on one side [inaudible] that says it very well.

Brian Bossick (13:04):

And that's a really great example of on spring break, where you going? I don't know. I don't know. We're going to drive down and we'll see what's open and we might crash with some people, and for anybody who likes structure. That feels more clear. So based on your answers your a J.

Megan Riksen (13:31):

I think I did a good job of trying to think about myself before this and then when you were doing it, I confirmed. Awesome. That sounds great. That sounds excellent. And that's one of our 16 types. Let's say that that's, you know, if it's really close to the middle. Nice, nice. So that was a pretty informal way of figuring out my type. What would you suggest for if I wanted to go a little more in depth and kind of double check there's a couple of ways you can do that. So at the career center, we've got a more in-depth version of the Myers-Briggs. Um so we can offer that one to students and they could take that. There's also a lot of free versions online and it's one of those that is out there. One of the websites I love is truity.com. So it's true. So T R U I T y.com. And if you go to there there's a sample test you can take, plus they have information about every different 16 of the Myers-Briggs types and it breaks it down on jobs, personal life, general information types that you work really well with. So it's a, a wealth of information for students to dive into.

Megan Riksen (15:19):

Awesome. That sounds like a good one. We'll we'll throw that one in the show notes. Yeah, totally. So kind of once I figure out what I am, how would I use that information to aid in my career, exploration Sam, a student.

Brian Bossick (15:37):

Absolutely. you know, this goes a little bit to one of our earlier points when we talked about does the Myers-Briggs look at skills? It looks a little more personality and that doesn't mean that certain personalities aren't drawn towards certain occupations, right? So you can take a look at a lot of, let's say therapists and teachers, and maybe you see a lot of folks that have a feeling versus thinking, right. And, and things like that. But there isn't always one specific type for one specific situation. But often students will use that as a way to start thinking about, okay, does this job description and this fit really well with who I am. Or if they're looking at, say a work environment, which one's really going to kind of play out my personality. So let's say I am INFP, or INFJ, you pull up that research. It typically says, Hey, these are your teachers, your social workers, your psychologist, but your passion is in engineering, right? So then maybe you take that interest and you go work for a place where you could use that. INFP ,INFJ energy as maybe a consultant in working with other companies versus more, just the detailed piece.

Megan Riksen (16:43):

Cool. So you can really, it doesn't have to be like, here are these very narrow things you can do with your life. You can still pay attention to like your own intuition, your kind of gut feeling of what you feel like you should be doing.

Brian Bossick (16:58):

That's exactly right. And you want to look at those that like, let you kind of like, be yourself and use the strengths that you have. And it's so interesting. A job title from one company to a job title or a different company could have such a different feel.

Megan Riksen (17:11):

Okay. Awesome. So that, that gives us a really good sense. I think of the MBTI. But there's so many other assessments, right. Can you talk about some of the other assessments you might use when you're working with students in the career center?

Brian Bossick (17:27):

Absolutely. So like I said, the NBTI is one of the things that we look at, we can look at personality. But when you really are kind of taking a deep dive into what's a good fit for somebody, you want to look at skills and you want to look at value and saying, you want to look at all those different things and how they come together. The strong interest inventory is one that we use quite a bit, and that really is a skills inventory. So students will take that and that will ask them, Hey, if you were to do this type of activity, how much would you like to do this? Or if you worked in this setting, how much would you like to do this? And from those answers they matched their answers to people in different job fields to see what the form of the call. So they take it and let's say a pharmacist took it and they noticed like a 90% crossover. So, Hey, maybe you should really be in pharmacy cause you're interested in skills or really match up with this. So as you start to like build a thesis, you get like the Myers-Briggs with personality, you get a little bit of skills. We also use, we use Clifton strengths, which is going to look at a person's top five strengths. And I almost like to look at those as values, right? Like what are the things that you really value within the strengths that you use? And when you start looking at majors and jobs, if you kind of start to see like, Oh, Hey, which of these really like play out best in this occupation? And which one, let's say one of your one of your strengths is input. Cause you like to take in information, which job really allows you to do that, to do research. And is this a strength you want to use at work? Or is this something you do on your own? So by having all of that information, you can really start to narrow down what might be a really good fit for a person as a full individual versus just one aspect of who they are.

Megan Riksen (19:05):

Nice. Yeah. Yeah. That's helpful. So sometimes you'll do all of them with a student. Sometimes you might just pick like one that makes the most sense.

Brian Bossick (19:13):

Okay. Yeah. I think depending on where they're at and how much they know about themselves and how far they want to go. One of the things we often recommend even before they meet with us is they can go onto our website under the self exploration or the career exploration area. And we have pathway, which is, which is an online kind of personality assessment of personality, skills, strengths, values. And it's a briefer version that we might do kind of individually with the students, but it's a great starter that will link their results to majors, to jobs, to job listings. So they can kind of see what's out there in the world of work. I want to research a title. So that is a wonderful, it's wonderful. It's quick. It's a great start. Even before they come see us.

Megan Riksen (19:55):

Okay, perfect. That sounds great. Well, I think we covered a lot here in not too long of a time. And hopefully all our listeners were given a pretty good sense of how these personality assessments really can play into some career planning and development. So thank you, Brian. I appreciate your time. It's been really fun having you here. Yeah. And just like we always do, as I mentioned, we'll be sure to provide links in the show notes to any of the resources we mentioned, like the MBTI, like Pathway U, that Brian was just mentioning. So you can continue the learning and the journey there. All right. Thanks everyone.

Brian Bossick (20:33):

Thanks Megan.