Personality tests can pose problematic legal and ethical challenges, when used to vet prospective employees or when imposed upon students or other individuals who have little ability to resist taking them. They can function as blunt, multiple-choice instruments when objectively administered like the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) or, as in the case of projective tests like the Rorschach inkblots, they are highly subjective in their scoring. To assess projective tests requires an intensive education in the various possible interpretations of the client's responses, and many schools and even mental health clinics do not have the time or trained personnel to administer projective tests effectively.
However, if a client wishes to take such an objective test, and use the process of taking the exam as a means of self-examination, these tests can be emotionally fulfilling and helpful, provided that undue weight is not given to the responses. The value of the process of taking personality tests is one possible reason for the explosion in popularity of projective tests online. However, offering a legitimate Jungian personality inventory to an individual undergoing career, college, or other types of counseling in a school or vocational setting can be useful in helping the individual gain a sense of what he or she enjoys doing, and his or her personality orientation.
The Jungian personality inventories are to some degree 'Westernized' one could argue, in the sense that they were originally developed by the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, around Western archetypes of personality. The MMPI also makes use of such tests in its more extensive survey, but more flexible use of the Jung system has yielded less dogmatic career recommendation and personality type instruments. After answering a series of questions, the tester receives a certain personality 'typing,' based upon whether he or she is primarily extroverted or introverted, sensing or intuitive, thinking or feeling, judging or perceiving. The tester can use this typology as a guide, not a diagnosis set in stone, on his or her path to achieve clearer self-understanding.
References
Jungian psychological typology. (2009). Personality tests. Retrieved October 20, 2009 at http://www.mypersonality.info/personality-types/
