My then manager had all of us in her department take one of the online tests – this was four years ago. She was a great manager, very people-oriented, and she wanted to see what type we were and put the description on file for us.
I had never heard of MBTI and was pretty sceptical about personality tests generally. But when I read the description, I was pretty surprised at how accurate it seemed – it even seemed to explain a few things to me about myself that I had never really understood (ie. for a few of my personality traits, I’d always thought I was just a bit of a anomaly/freak!).
I think I glanced briefly at the other type descriptions, or some of them, but didn’t look too in-depth. Over the next 2 years I think I looked up a bit more about INFJ, and maybe a bit about the other types too but not much.
Then, a bit over a year ago, I had a fairly major falling out with a friend and started thinking more about a) interpersonal relationships and b) my emotional/stress reaction to such situations. I started googling INFJ and reading more about the type – then started reading more about other types – then read Please Understand Me II – etc. And here I am, somewhat obsessed/fascinated by MBTI!
By the way, I’ve taken several of the different online tests and have almost always tested INFJ. A few times I have come out ENFJ (when I was feeling more extroverted than usual!), or ISFJ (not totally off the mark) or ESFJ (quite a long way off the mark). I suspect I may have been more INTJ or something like when younger, but I don’t seem to lean that way at all these days.
I know you can’t take the online test results (or indeed any of this!) as gospel, but the clincher for me is that I have read up quite a bit on all types by now, and INFJ fits me far and away the best.