First Move Assessment vs the Myers-Briggs® Assessment: Which Actually Fits a Contractor?

The short answer: the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) assessment, often called the Myers-Briggs® assessment, fits an owner who wants the people already on the payroll to understand themselves and each other: how they get their energy, take in information, make decisions and organize their world. First Move Assessment fits an owner who is about to hire, and wants to see which move a candidate reaches for first in the exact trade seat being filled. The two answer different questions. The Myers-Briggs Company, which publishes it, says the assessment "should never be used in recruitment or selection because it does not measure a person's skills or abilities".² A shop can use both: the MBTI assessment with the crew it has, and a hiring assessment for the person it is about to hire.

We checked every fact about the MBTI assessment on this page against the public websites of The Myers-Briggs Company on 8 October 2026, including MBTIonline.com, which the company runs. Prices change, so confirm on their site before you buy. Sources are listed at the bottom.

Who each one is for

The MBTI assessment. The Myers-Briggs Company says the MBTI assessment is most often used by "organizational development professionals, coaches, and consultants, as well as by career counselors and educators", and that organizations use it most to help people build self-awareness and help teams work better together.¹ It says the assessment is used by 88% of Fortune 500 companies.² People take it through a certified MBTI practitioner, through their organization or school, or on MBTIonline.com, the company's self-serve site.³⁴

First Move Assessment. Built for owners and managers who do their own hiring in nine trades: HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, garage door, pest control, commercial mechanical, residential cleaning and commercial cleaning. Every seat in the company has its own written standard, from apprentice and service tech through dispatcher, CSR, comfort advisor, estimator and bookkeeper, up to the chief executive.

What each one measures

The MBTI assessment measures personality preferences on four pairs: Extraversion or Introversion (where you get your energy), Sensing or Intuition (what information you prefer to gather and trust), Thinking or Feeling (how you prefer to make decisions) and Judging or Perceiving (how you deal with the world around you).¹ The four letters combine into one of 16 types.² The company says preferences do not indicate skill or ability,¹ and MBTIonline says the assessment includes "no measurement of skill, ability, or aptitude."⁴ After the questionnaire, the person works through a best-fit process and decides which type fits them.¹

First Move Assessment measures work instinct: the move a candidate reaches for first when the work gets hard. The candidate reads situations from the seat and picks the move they would make first. The report scores them out of 100 against the seat's written standard, with a margin of error printed beside the score, and shows where their instincts pull away from what the seat needs. It does not test skills or trade knowledge, describe personality or check backgrounds.

What that means in practice: a type from the MBTI assessment tells you how a person prefers to take in information and make decisions, whatever the job, which helps a crew work together. First Move Assessment tells you which way a candidate leans on the calls one seat runs on: check first or jump in, fix what keeps causing the problem or the one in front of them, handle it or pass it to the right person.

What The Myers-Briggs Company says about hiring

This is the part that matters most to an owner who is hiring.

• On its MBTI Facts page, the company answers the question of whether the MBTI assessment can be used for selection or hiring with a flat "No." It says the assessment is "not intended for use in selection of job candidates, nor for making internal decisions regarding job placement, selection for teams or task forces, or other similar activities."¹
• The same page cites The Myers & Briggs Foundation's ethical guidance: "It is unethical to require job applicants to take the assessment if the results will be used to screen out applicants."¹
• MBTIonline's home page says the assessment is "not intended for hiring, job placement, or team assignments" and invites hiring buyers to contact the company about other solutions.³ Its team product page says that because the MBTI assessment is not designed to measure aptitude or performance ability, "it would be unethical to use it to make hiring or personnel decisions."⁵ Its framework page lists "Tell companies who they should hire" among the things the assessment cannot do.⁷

The company gives its reasons. The questions are clear-purpose, so a candidate could fake an answer pattern, and there is no lie scale to flag it. The person picks their own best-fit type, so a candidate could pick the type a hiring manager wants. And the company says there have "(appropriately) been no meaningful studies evaluating the MBTI's ability to predict job performance."¹

For selection, the company points to other tools. Its MBTI assessment page names the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) among assessments that have "inbuilt mechanisms to make them ideal for selection".² The CPI page, aimed at identifying and developing leaders, lists selection and recruitment among its uses.¹⁰

First Move Assessment is built for the hiring decision, as one input. You make the decision, and the report never tells you to hire or not hire.

The research behind each

The MBTI assessment has four editions of its manual (1962, 1985, 1998 and 2018) reporting reliability and validity evidence.¹ The company says its four preference scales have internal consistency reliabilities of around .90 and test-retest correlations over .80 for periods up to 15 weeks. It also reports that about 50 percent of people get the same four-letter type on retest, which it says is eight times what chance would produce, and that 90 percent get the same result on three or four of the four scales.¹ The company says the MBTI assessment is not intended to predict job performance, so validity data for recruitment are not available.¹

First Move Assessment is built on situational judgment, a hiring method with 30 years of published evidence. Candidates face real situations from the seat and pick the move they would make first. What the published research on the method has found:

• A meta-analysis pooling 118 results found situational judgment tests predicted job performance at .26 (McDaniel, Hartman, Whetzel and Grubb, 2007, Personnel Psychology).
• Tests built around teamwork situations predicted at .38, and leadership situations at .28 (Christian, Edwards and Bradley, 2010, Personnel Psychology).
• The approach lines up with decades of research on tacit knowledge, the practical know-how that separates experienced performers (Sternberg and Wagner, 1985; Lievens and Motowidlo, 2016).

The limits page explains how these findings on the method relate to this assessment.

Trade-specific content

The MBTI assessment was designed to help people understand personality differences in the general population.¹ MBTIonline Careers matches a person's type to occupations with predicted satisfaction scores, which helps someone choosing a career.⁶ The pages cited here do not describe questions written for an HVAC, plumbing, electrical or cleaning seat, and the publisher's guidance above rules out using a type to fill one.

First Move Assessment is trade-specific all the way through. Each situation is written from inside one seat in one trade, in that trade's own words: a night crew cleaner alone in a locked building who finds a floor that is not on the route sheet, or an estimator with a bid due and a scope question the general contractor has not answered. A dispatcher is read against what a dispatch board demands, a bookkeeper against what the books demand.

Pricing

MBTIonline lists three self-serve products in US dollars:⁴⁵⁶

MBTIonline Teams is available as a one-time purchase, with volume discounts of 7.5% at 50 participants and 15% at 250.⁵

Certified practitioners. To give the MBTI assessment yourself, you become a certified practitioner: four days of instructor-led training, or about 40 hours self-guided within 90 days, each listed at $2,995 per person.⁸⁹ In the United States, certain graduate degrees or licenses can qualify you without certification.¹¹ Per-report prices for practitioners were not on the public pages we checked, so ask.

Free 16-type quizzes are not the MBTI assessment. MBTIonline says that of the free online tests that claim to give you a Myers-Briggs type, "none of them actually uses the official MBTI assessment", and the company says free personality assessments typically lack evidence that they are reliable and valid.⁴¹

First Move Assessment charges per assessment. One assessment is $149. Packs run $595 for 5, $995 for 10 and $1,995 for 25. The Practice License is 100 assessments a year for $4,950. Every seat costs the same, assessments never expire, and the first one is covered by a 30-day refund. Full details are on the pricing page.

The honest math: per person, the MBTI assessment costs less. MBTIonline is $59.95, against $149 for a single First Move Assessment or $49.50 a candidate on the Practice License. Running MBTIonline Teams with a 10-person crew costs $999.50, about the price of a 10 pack of First Move Assessments. The two buy different things, though. Spend the MBTI assessment budget on the crew you have, where the publisher says the tool belongs, and spend hiring money on the candidates you have not hired yet.

Setup and support

The MBTI assessment. On MBTIonline, the assessment and type verification take about 45 minutes, with no practitioner needed.⁴ For MBTIonline Teams, the buyer enters each member's name and email, and a facilitator's guide comes with the purchase.⁵ Through a practitioner, the company's ethical guidelines call for an interpretive or online feedback session, so nobody should be handed just four letters.¹

First Move Assessment takes almost no setup. Your account email arrives within a minute of buying, and you set a password from it. Pick the seat, type the candidate's name and email, and the link goes out. The candidate finishes on their phone in about 10 to 20 minutes, with no app and no account, and the report lands in your inbox. Questions go to support@firstmoveassessment.com.

How each one uses AI

The Myers-Briggs Company. The MBTI assessment and MBTIonline pages cited here do not describe AI in how the assessment is scored or reported. In a 2025 press release the company said it is "taking a clear stance: that leaning into human relationships to help contextualize the flood of new information at our fingertips will be a key competitive advantage."¹³ Ask the company if that matters to you.

First Move Assessment: AI tools helped draft the seat standards and the situations a candidate reads, and checked them against occupational research. Every standard then had to pass a fixed set of rules and was approved before use. No AI takes part when a candidate sits the assessment, when it is scored, or when the report is written.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use the Myers-Briggs assessment for hiring?

The publisher says no. The Myers-Briggs Company says the MBTI assessment is "not intended for use in selection of job candidates," and cites ethical guidance that requiring applicants to take it in order to screen them out is unethical.¹ For selection, it points to other tools such as the CPI.²

What does the MBTI assessment measure?

Four pairs of personality preferences: Extraversion or Introversion, Sensing or Intuition, Thinking or Feeling, and Judging or Perceiving. Together they make one of 16 types.¹²

How much does the MBTI assessment cost?

MBTIonline is $59.95, and MBTIonline Teams is $99.95 per participant.⁴⁵ First Move Assessment is $149 for one assessment and drops to $49.50 a candidate on the Practice License.

Is a free 16 personalities test the same as the MBTI assessment?

Not the official one. MBTIonline says that of the free online tests and quizzes that claim to tell you your Myers-Briggs type, "none of them actually uses the official MBTI assessment."⁴ The company says the genuine assessment is copyrighted and available only through certified practitioners and MBTIonline.com.¹

Is the MBTI assessment reliable?

The company says yes. It reports internal consistency reliabilities of around .90 on its four scales and test-retest correlations over .80 for periods up to 15 weeks. On retest, just over half of people get the same four-letter type, which it says is eight times what chance would produce, and 90 percent match on at least three of the four letters.¹ Because the MBTI assessment is not meant for selection, the company says validity data for recruitment are not available.¹

What is the difference between the MBTI assessment and First Move Assessment?

The MBTI assessment describes a person's personality preferences, whatever the job, to help them understand themselves and others. First Move Assessment reads the move a candidate reaches for first in situations from one trade seat, scored out of 100 against that seat's written standard.

Which one works for commercial mechanical and cleaning companies?

The MBTI assessment is not written for a particular industry. The company says organizations use it to improve communication and help teams work better together.¹ First Move Assessment has written seat standards for commercial mechanical, residential cleaning and commercial cleaning, including project managers, estimators, night crew cleaners, day porters and commercial supervisors.

Sources

Facts about the MBTI assessment checked on themyersbriggs.com and mbtionline.com on 8 October 2026. MBTIonline.com is an online platform of The Myers-Briggs Company group of companies.¹²

1. The Myers-Briggs Company, MBTI Facts: https://www.themyersbriggs.com/en-us/support/mbti-facts
2. The Myers-Briggs Company, MBTI assessment: https://www.themyersbriggs.com/en-us/explore-solutions/mbti
3. MBTIonline home page: https://www.mbtionline.com/
4. MBTIonline, For you: https://www.mbtionline.com/products/for-you
5. MBTIonline Teams: https://www.mbtionline.com/products/for-your-team
6. MBTIonline Careers: https://www.mbtionline.com/products/for-your-career
7. MBTIonline, Framework: https://www.mbtionline.com/how-it-works/framework
8. The Myers-Briggs Company, Public MBTI Certification: https://www.themyersbriggs.com/en-US/Get-Certified/MBTI/Public-Certification
9. The Myers-Briggs Company, Self-Guided MBTI Certification: https://www.themyersbriggs.com/en-us/get-certified/mbti/self-guided-certification
10. The Myers-Briggs Company, CPI assessment: https://www.themyersbriggs.com/en-us/explore-solutions/cpi
11. The Myers-Briggs Company, Educational Eligibility: https://www.themyersbriggs.com/en-US/Support/Educational-Eligibility
12. MBTIonline, Terms of Use: https://www.mbtionline.com/legal
13. The Myers-Briggs Company, ATD25 press release: https://www.themyersbriggs.com/en-US/Access-Resources/News-Press/the-myers-briggs-company-champions-human-connection-in-the-age-of-ai-at-atd25

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Myers-Briggs and MBTI are trademarks or registered trademarks of Myers & Briggs Foundation, Inc. in the United States and other countries. First Move Assessment is not affiliated with or endorsed by The Myers-Briggs Company or Myers & Briggs Foundation, Inc.

First Move Assessment reads the first instinct a candidate brings to one seat in your trade before you hire: get the three sample reports.