18 Free Personality Tests That Are Actually Fun

Psychology tells us that our personality type has a big impact on our life. It’s no wonder that free online personality tests and personality quizzes and analyses like Myers Briggs, 16 Personalities, and the Big Five are so popular to take. But, which personality test is right for you? Well, it depends on what you’re looking to find out. 

Some of us simply want to better understand ourselves while others are trying to figure out why and how we build professional relationships. If you’re curious and uninitiated with these types of quizzes, here are 18 free personality tests that and fun—even for those who don't consider themselves great test takers:

Full fledged personality tests

The Myers-Briggs, 16 Personalities, and Big Five personality tests tend to be the best-known for a reason. They are full-fledged analyses, and there are versions administered by official assessment providers (which usually involve some sort of cost, but also come with a certification). If you’re very serious about understanding your official results, you may want to go that route but there are plenty of free, online approximations which you can use to get a sense of them first:

1. Myers-Briggs Personality Test

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (also known as MBTI) test is the one responsible for the fact that people call themselves a combination of four letters like “ENTJ” or “INTP.” 

This one will look very similar to those who have taken the 16 Personalities test or the Jung Typology test (both discussed below) because the 16 Personalities test is a mashup of the Myers-Briggs and Jung Typology tests.

The original Myers-Briggs test taken through the organization is not free (it costs $49.95) but there are plenty of free online imitations out there.

2. 16 Personalities Test

Maybe you thought there were a lot more than just 16 personality types, but like Myers-Briggs, the whole idea is that the combination of four different characteristics defines our personality. Usually this test takes people less than 20 minutes to finish.

You answer the extent to which you agree or disagree with statements such as “You consider yourself more practical than creative,” or “You try to respond to your emails as soon as possible and cannot stand a messy inbox.” 

Then, at the end of the test, you’re told where you fall on four different spectrums: 

1. How much you like to make decisions versus keeping your options open 

2. How much you’re a details versus big-picture person 

3. How much you make choices based on emotion versus logic

4. How much you think aloud versus think before you speak 

Your results will be categorized into memorable archetype names such as “Defender” or “Commander.”

3. The Big Five Personality Test

Most professional psychologists use the Big Five model of personality to describe personality differences. The five factors have been defined as openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism, often listed under the acronyms, CANOE or OCEAN.

The big five personality traits are considered to have high reliability, internationally applicable, and even have basis in genetics and biology, such that neurologists have done work to map brain regions to these five traits.

4. The HEXACO Personality Inventory Test

For those who are not satisfied with measuring personality only along five dimensions, the HEXACO test adds a sixth element to the Big Five Personality Test (hence the “H”). H stands for the “honesty-humility domain” and is factored into these 100 questions that require roughly 15 minutes of your time.

5. Enneagram Tests

The enneagram tests help you find the specific traits that make up your personality type. According to the Enneagram Institute, there are nine Enneagram types and “it is common to find a little of yourself in all nine of the types, although one of them should stand out as being closest to yourself.” The one that stands out is "your basic personality type.” 

Psychometric tests and career assessment type personality tests

6. Human Metrics’ Jung Typology Test

Similar to 16 Personalities, this free personality quiz asks for your level of agreement with questions that ask how you interact with others and think or feel about certain stuff. The quiz is based on Carl Jung and Isabel Briggs’ Myers methodology which underpins the 16 Personalities test. However, the output is framed as both a personality assessment as well as a career assessment of which jobs and professions are best suited to different types of people.

Read this next: How Introverts and Extroverts Can Work Together (And Thrive!)

7. Career Values Assessment by MyPlan 

MyPlan is a website that offers many career planning tools, including career assessments. Career Values Assessment is one of their free career assessments, which they describe as 20 questions which will take you 12 minutes to complete. 

The end result is a description of how you work with six core work values such as recognition, achievement, independence, relationships, support and working conditions, as well as a rank ordering of your needs. To make it even more useful, you’ll get a ranking of hundreds of job titles reflecting your answers.

8. Career Clusters Interest Survey

This is not necessarily a full-on personality test, but this is a very interesting career assessment based on answers to questions about your personality type and activities you enjoy or things you like studying. The test takes five to 10 minutes and will result in a series of career clusters that was designed by university career services centers.

9. The MAPP Career Test

Launched in 1995, the MAPP (Motivational Appraisal Personal Potential) Career Test is a free personality assessment designed to help students, graduates, and working adults find the right career path. The test takes 22 minutes to complete online and your results are mapped against over 1,000 possible careers in the database.

10. The Holland Code Personality Test

The Holland Code Personality Test measures your interest level in the six categories of careers described by Dr. John Holland, whom the test is named after. It consists of 87 questions asking you to rate how much you like or dislike various activities such as “designing a magazine cover” or “analyzing the structure of molecules. 

At the end of the test, you’ll learn whether you are Realistic (building, fixing, working outdoors), or Investigative (thinking, researching experimenting), Artistic (creating, designing, expressing), Social (helping, teaching, encouraging), Enterprising (persuading, leading, selling), or Conventional (organizing, categorizing, recording).

11. O*Net Interest Profiler

Hosted at MyNextMove.org and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor Employment & Training Administration, the O*Net Interest Profiler asks 60 questions about work activities and how you feel about them. 

The output at the end of this personality test rates you on the same six dimensions as the Holland Code Personality Test. However, there is a practical and important difference. At the end of your assessment, you will be prompted to answer some practical information about what “job zone” (read: experience level) you fall into.

12. Sokanu Career Assessment

Sokanu is a free career testing platform that offers a career matching tool to help people find their ideal careers and with hiring decisions. Their test is free and takes 20 minutes to complete. At the end, you should receive three reports: 

1. An archetype report that explains who you are and what kind of work will likely fulfill you

2. A personality report wherein approximately 150 personality traits are analyzed

3. A trait report to help you understand where you fall relative to other people who have taken the test

Read this next: How to Make a Career Change at 40: Tips to Successfully Pivot

Partial personality tests

Sometimes you want to just understand an aspect of your personality and not spend the time on a full-fledged personality diagnosis. In this case, the following tests might help you isolate specifics, such as temperament or emotional intelligence.

13. The Typefinder Temperament Test

The Typefinder Temperament Test takes 20 minutes and will help you understand your temperament, which is a key component of your personality. You’ll discover whether you’re a Preserver, Responder, Theorist or Empath, which will help you better understand yourself and how you are perceived by others around you (at the office or beyond the workplace).

14. The Keirsey Temperament Sorter

The folks at the Keirsey Temperament Sorter describe this test as “one of the most widely used personality instrument in the world” used for people to identify their personality type. This online test includes 71 questions based on the best-selling books about temperament and character development by Dr. David Keirsey, a renowned psychologist.

The aim is to help you achieve deeper self-knowledge and not to suggest a certain type of vocation or job. Their theory is that you must deeply understand yourself before you can be effective at any role. 

15. Emotional intelligence Test

Emotional intelligence is considered a prime asset in life, and in the workplace. It’s also (stereotypically) thought to be a strength of women, in particular. How does your emotional intelligence and aptitude stack up? This test will help you understand whether you empathize well with others and express, perceive and assess other people’s emotions accurately.

Read this next: How to Use an Emotion Wheel to Get to Know Yourself (With a Downloadable PDF!)

Just-For-Fun Personality Tests

While different personality tests may or may not have scientific validity, let’s not forget one of the reasons that so many types of people love them: they can be fun. While we think all of the free personality tests we’ve listed are fun, the following quizzes are particularly entertaining. Sadly, they may not actually tell you much (except that you like personality tests), but that’s OK!

16. Photo Career Quiz

If you’re not one for verbal questions, this entirely visual test consists of 30 questions that include two images each. You are simply asked to answer which of the photo pairing appeals most to you. While it is not technically a psychologically rigorous test, the folks at Truity describe the results as comparable to those given at the end of the Holland Code Personality Test.

17. Buzzfeed’s “What’s Your Actual Personality” Quiz

It’s all big print atop big images. But it’s very fun and quick if you’re looking for a momentary diversion and want some confirmation that you are indeed Type A (or not). Either way, this personality quiz is for kicks—not for any major life decisions!

18. What Is My Spirit Animal?

OK, so maybe this one is really just for kicks, but on the other hand, all you have to do is take a short 8-question personality quiz and ta-da! Within five minutes you will know what animal spirit you channel and what it means. This might be a fun ice-breaker someday.

Do employers use personality tests?

Depending on your age, profession, and the length of your longest job search, you have likely encountered a company that uses pre-employment personality tests. According to The New York Times, companies often use these tools—which make up an estimated US$2 billion industry—not only to select candidates, but also to navigate interactions with remote teams.

While personality tests are considered reliable and useful by many, they also have critics. One prominent critic is Professor Adam Grant, PhD in organizational psychology, who has called the Myers-Briggs test, “a fad that won’t die” whose accuracy is somewhere between a “horoscope on one end and a heart monitor on the other.”

But, as Emma Goldberg pointed out in The New York Times, some personality tests—such as The Keirsey Temperament Sorter—are developed by psychologists and based on research, making them more rigorous than others.

Reflect, don’t overthink

Regardless of why you take a personality quiz or aptitude test, the fact of the matter is that it can be enjoyable to indulge in a bit of navel-gazing from time to time. Just don’t take these test results too seriously.

In all seriousness, though, if you’re a new graduate, or switching careers, a personality test can help you take a step back and look at these from a fundamental or more philosophical view than just the narrow lens of what your most recent educational credentials or skills are.