There are a lot of personality-profiling tools out there. Most seem to be based on some variation of the Myers-Briggs system or other established psychiatric tests. Yet few of these tests are designed to assist us in understanding ourselves better. Often they seem to be better suited for doctors explaining what mental ailments we have. These formal tests simply don't relate well to our lives.
This is likely why thousands of variations of these tests have started appearing all over the Internet. Now you can even take a Dr Seuss-themed personality test on Facebook. A simple search of "personality profile" on google turns up about 800,000 unique sites. A rough estimate would be that there are around 10,000 formalized personality profiling tools, and maybe 2 to 300 professional tools used by companies and coaches. Choosing the right one is a complete waste of time.
To save time (and your sanity), I recommend being very specific about what you want to measure with the personality profile and for what purpose. Those two questions will help you narrow down your choices. If you are looking for a general overview profile, I can recommend two:
Formal Profile: Emergenetics: I had a great experience with this class and profile. It isn't too expensive and the profile includes a training course
where they teach you about how to understand and manage the profile. They have offices in most regions in the world and seem willing to adjust to the requirements of the students. If you are located in Asia Pacific, I can introduce you to the contact if you drop me a message.
Less, Formal Profile: "Strengths Finder"
In the end, the actual tool you chose matters less than the reason you are looking for a tool to begin with. Learning all this stuff is great, but how you apply it is what truly matters. We can't change ourselves, but we can understand ourself and others better. And maybe that is true progress?
Picture Source: http://salesmanage.com/blog/category/personality_profiling/
