Free Big Five personality test

What the Big Five personality test measures

The Big Five, or five-factor model, is the personality framework with the strongest research base. Decades of studies converge on five broad traits that describe how people differ: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability (the reverse of neuroticism) and openness, which this inventory calls intellect or imagination. Unlike type-based questionnaires, the Big Five does not sort you into a category. Each trait is a scale, and most people sit somewhere in the middle of most of them.

Employers use Big Five measures because conscientiousness in particular relates to performance across many jobs, and because trait scores are more stable and better validated than most alternatives. The score you get here describes how you see yourself, which is useful for reflection and for preparing for a workplace questionnaire, and is not a verdict on your abilities.

How this free test works

• 50 statements, about 8 minutes, no deadline. Ten statements per trait, rated on a five-point scale from very inaccurate to very accurate. The clock records elapsed time only.
• The IPIP 50-item Big-Five Factor Markers, a public-domain inventory reproduced with its published items and scoring keys.
• Five scores from 1 to 5, each the mean of ten responses after reversing negatively worded items. There is no total, no type and no percentile.
• A short interpretation of each trait on your result, describing what high and low scores tend to mean.
• An optional shareable result showing all five dimensions on one card, with a permanent link, preview image and an Add to LinkedIn profile button.

Sample Big Five statements

Rate how accurately each statement describes you as you generally are, compared with people of roughly your age.

• “Am the life of the party.” Scored towards extraversion.
• “Get chores done right away.” Scored towards conscientiousness.
• “Get stressed out easily.” Reverse-scored, so agreement lowers emotional stability.
• “Have a vivid imagination.” Scored towards intellect or imagination.

There is no good answer. The inventory only works if you answer as you are, not as you would like to be at work.

How to get a useful Big Five result

1. Answer for how you generally behave, not for your best day or your worst week. The instructions say “compared with people of roughly your age” for a reason.
2. Do not aim for the middle. “Neither accurate nor inaccurate” is a real answer, but using it for everything flattens the profile and tells you nothing.
3. Read the reversed items carefully. “Am not interested in other people’s problems” and “Feel comfortable around people” point in opposite directions on their scales.
4. Compare the pattern, not the numbers. A 3.8 and a 4.1 are close. Which two traits are highest and which is lowest is the useful shape.
5. Retake it in a few months, not a few minutes. Trait scores are meant to be stable; a second run the same day mostly measures your memory of the first.

Reading your result

Your result shows five scores from 1 to 5. The result guide explains each trait and its scoring. Higher means you endorsed more of that trait, not that you outscored a percentage of people, and emotional stability is the calm end of the neuroticism scale. This is a self-report inventory for reflection, not a clinical assessment or a hiring decision.

Items and scoring keys: IPIP 50-item Big-Five Factor Markers, International Personality Item Pool, public domain.

Related free tests

• RIASEC career interest test: the O*NET Interest Profiler, six interest areas and a Holland code.
• Situational judgement test: how you handle workplace scenarios, the behavioural companion to a trait profile.
• Reaction time test: a quick measured task, for contrast with self-report.