Disclaimer

The Big Five describes ordinary variation between people. A high score on emotional reactivity is not anxiety or depression; a low score on extraversion is not social anxiety; low conscientiousness is not ADHD. Those are clinical judgements that depend on history, context, impairment and a qualified professional — none of which a fifty-item questionnaire has access to.

Nothing here is supervised, interpreted or reviewed by a psychologist, and the paid report is generated automatically from your scores by fixed rules. Treat it as a well-informed description to think with, not as a finding about you.

There are three reasons, and each is sufficient on its own. It is unreliable: self-report personality measures are easy to fake when something is at stake, and applicants reasonably do exactly that. It is invalid for the purpose: this instrument was never validated as a selection tool, has no job-relevant criterion evidence behind it, and carries no adverse-impact analysis. And it is legally hazardous: in many jurisdictions, personality screening in employment is restricted, and automated decisions about people based on such data can breach employment, disability and data protection law.

Using results in a team discussion that everybody joins voluntarily, in coaching, or in a conversation about how you prefer to work, is a completely different matter. The line is consent and consequence: nobody should gain or lose anything because of a score.

The interpretations and the report are general information, not advice. They are not medical, psychological, psychiatric, therapeutic, legal, financial or career advice, and reading them does not create a professional relationship of any kind between you and the operator.

If you are weighing something that matters — a diagnosis you suspect, a relationship in trouble, a career you are unsure about, medication, a legal position — talk to somebody qualified who can ask you follow-up questions. A report cannot.

• A percentile compares you with a reference sample of other adults who answered the same items. It is not a score out of 100 and it is not a grade.
• Every measurement carries error. Differences of a few percentile points are noise; retaking the test on a different day will move your scores a little.
• You are answering about yourself, which means the result reflects your self-image today as much as your behaviour over a lifetime.
• The norms come from large community samples of mostly English-speaking respondents, not from a census of your country. If your background differs from that sample, read your percentiles as approximate.
• Traits predict tendencies across many situations, not what you will do on Tuesday. They are weak predictors of single actions and better predictors of patterns.

The methodology page goes through the instrument, the scoring and the known weaknesses in more detail.

Describing yourself honestly for six minutes can be uncomfortable, and occasionally a result lands harder than expected. If reading your result leaves you distressed, please talk to somebody: a doctor, a therapist, or someone you trust.

You are free to use your results however you like, and the consequences of doing so are yours. To the extent the law allows, the operator accepts no liability for decisions made on the basis of a result or a report — see the terms of service.

Use it the way it is meant to be used: as a mirror that is honest about being a mirror.