A personality report should be shared according to a clear purpose, the recipient’s actual role, and the minimum information needed for that role. The person assessed should ordinarily be told who will receive results and how they may be used, and should have access to an understandable explanation where the setting allows. A coach may need relevant findings to support agreed reflection; an employer needs a separate, job-related reason for using results. No recipient gains authority to diagnose or make a consequential decision simply by possessing the report. These are professional-use principles, not one universal legal access rule: rules, contracts, test security and the assessment’s intended purpose vary.
Why does the recipient’s role change what access is justified?
A report can be useful to several people, but usefulness is not the same as a right to see every detail. Start with three questions: What decision or conversation is this person responsible for? What part of the report does that task require? Can the recipient interpret that information in context? The answer may differ for the person who completed the assessment, a coach helping them reflect, and a manager making a selection decision.
The International Test Commission’s Guidelines on Test Use name test takers, employers and other third parties as possible primary recipients, and distinguish selection or screening from guidance and counselling. The guidelines also describe the knowledge and skills relevant to test use, including understanding measurement, interpreting results, reporting, giving feedback, and handling test data. They are international professional guidance, not binding law or a universal list of who may receive which page of a report. They explicitly leave local standards and laws to be considered in context.
That distinction matters because a personality report is an interpretation of responses, not a transferable permission slip. A coach may need a result connected to a question the client chose, such as how they approach planning or disagreement. The coach does not automatically need every response or a full profile, and a title such as ‘coach’ does not by itself establish competence to interpret a specific instrument. A manager may want information about collaboration, but curiosity about a worker’s style does not establish a legitimate work purpose or justify access to personal detail.
A practical editorial rule follows from the guidance: grant the least access that can serve the stated purpose, while preserving a useful explanation for the person assessed and protecting secure material. This is a synthesis, not a quoted standard. It asks a recipient to show both need and capacity. It also keeps separate three things that are often blurred: permission to receive information, competence to interpret it, and authority to act on it. One does not prove the others.
Sources: International Test Commission Guidelines on Test Use
What should the person assessed be told and receive?
Before a report is shared, the person assessed should be able to understand the arrangement: why the assessment is being done, who will receive results, what decisions or conversations may use them, and what confidentiality limits apply. In a voluntary coaching setting, the person may be the primary reader and choose to discuss selected findings with a coach. In an organizational assessment, the employer or another party may have commissioned the work, so the individual should not assume that the arrangement is private in the same way. The actual notice and applicable rules control.
The ITC guidelines include both feedback to test takers and responsibilities for secure handling of test data and materials. Those aims can coexist. An understandable account of what a result means, including its limits, is different from unrestricted access to every item, answer key or protected test material. Some materials may need controls so that they are not misinterpreted, circulated beyond the intended setting or used to compromise an assessment. A useful explanation should still make the result intelligible rather than treating security as a reason to leave the person entirely in the dark.
Imagine being offered a workplace report after completing a questionnaire. Before agreeing to a broad release, ask who commissioned it, who will see the full version, whether you will receive an explanation, and whether the report will inform hiring, development, team discussion or some other purpose. Ask who keeps the record, whether it can be forwarded, and how to raise a scoring or administration concern. These questions do not guarantee a particular legal entitlement; they reveal whether the process matches the stated purpose and your expectations.
A narrow summary may sometimes meet a legitimate need better than a full report. For example, a person discussing a work-pattern question with a coach might share the relevant finding and its context rather than sending a document containing unrelated details. Conversely, if a recipient says a summary will not do, ask what specific decision requires the additional information. The burden of explanation should rise with the sensitivity of the information and the consequences attached to it. Test security is a real counterweight to unrestricted disclosure, but it does not erase the importance of clear notice and meaningful feedback.
Sources: International Test Commission Guidelines on Test Use
When an employer asks to see it, what should change?
An employer’s role changes the question because report access may affect an opportunity, not just a conversation. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission describes personality tests as one kind of employment selection procedure. Its 2007 technical assistance document says tests can raise federal anti-discrimination issues if used intentionally to discriminate or if they disproportionately exclude a protected group without the legally required justification. This is U.S.-specific guidance, and the document says it does not itself have the force of law.
The EEOC’s Section 15 guidance gives a more specific example: if an employer uses a personality test to identify ‘management material’ and the test has significant disparate impact based on race or another protected trait, the employer may need professional validation showing a relationship to important elements of manager performance; a less discriminatory alternative may also matter. That example does not show that all personality assessments are invalid, nor does it establish a universal privacy rule. It does show why the employer’s purpose and the evidence for that purpose matter when a result can shape selection.
Compare that with voluntary self-reflection. A person and coach may use a report to generate questions about planning, feedback or collaboration, then check those interpretations against actual experience. In selection, an employer uses information to make a decision about another person. The same descriptive sentence can therefore carry different consequences: ‘prefers time to consider a decision’ might prompt a useful coaching question, yet become an unjustified proxy for leadership if turned into a ranking without evidence for that specific use. A report describes tendencies under an assessment’s conditions; by itself it does not establish job performance or identify the right role.
Before authorizing or requesting access for work, make the purpose concrete: which job-related decision will this report inform, who will interpret it, what evidence supports this assessment for that use, who receives the full results, and what other information will be considered? If those questions have no clear answers, pause before treating broad disclosure as routine. The conclusion is not that employers can never use personality measures. It is that access and use need a defined, defensible purpose, and the report should not become an informal verdict on employability. Laws and professional duties vary by jurisdiction and setting, so the notice, local requirements and instrument terms still matter.
For a personal work question that remains after reading a report, the live Work Pattern Report can offer a private, low-stakes way to notice how decision, feedback and collaboration tendencies combine. It is a self-reflection aid, not a validated hiring score, diagnosis or job recommendation.
Sources: Employment Tests and Selection Procedures; Section 15 Race and Color Discrimination
Questions readers ask
Should I automatically get a copy of my personality report?
Not in every setting. Professional guidance supports understandable feedback, but access can depend on law, the assessment arrangement, test security and the instrument’s terms. Ask what explanation or copy is available and why any material is restricted.
Can my coach see my full report?
Only if that access fits the agreed purpose and the relevant rules. A coach may need selected findings to support reflection, but should be able to explain why the full report is necessary and how they will interpret and protect it.
Can an employer use a personality report to screen applicants?
Some employers use personality measures in selection, but a report alone does not justify a decision. The assessment must be suitable for its intended use, and applicable employment and anti-discrimination rules vary by jurisdiction.
Does access to a report include access to raw answers and test items?
No. An understandable interpretation and protected test materials are different things. Some item content or materials may be restricted to protect test security, while the person assessed can still ask for a clear explanation of results and their limits.
Sources and notes
- International Test Commission Guidelines on Test Use
Identifies test takers and employers as possible recipients, distinguishes selection from guidance, and describes competence and secure data handling expected of test users.
- Employment Tests and Selection Procedures
Names personality tests as employment selection procedures and explains that discriminatory use or disproportionate exclusion can raise U.S. federal anti-discrimination issues.
- Section 15 Race and Color Discrimination
Provides the U.S. example of a personality test for management potential requiring validation when it has significant disparate impact, and notes possible less discriminatory alternatives.
Apply it to your work
Turn a work question into specific patterns to reflect on
From this guide: If you are deciding how your own decision, feedback, and collaboration tendencies combine, a structured low-stakes reflection can help make the question more concrete.
A personality report can prompt useful questions, but it cannot choose a career or tell you whether you will succeed in a role. The live Work Pattern Report brings together self-reported patterns across decisions, planning, feedback, conflict, collaboration and learning so you can compare them with your own work experience. Use it as a private reflection aid, not as a hiring score or job recommendation.