Are Personality Tests Legal for Hiring?
PsyCove Editorial · 10 min read · Updated 2026-10-28
- No US federal law bans personality tests in hiring, and neither UK nor EU law does. What bites is disability law, anti-discrimination law, and the newer automated-decision rules.
- US disability law turns on one question: is the instrument designed to reveal a mental disorder, or only honesty, preferences, and habits?
- Timing changes the answer. The same test given before a conditional offer faces a stricter rule than one given after it.
- An instrument can be lawful in one use and unlawful in another — Karraker turned on what the MMPI is designed to do, not on the employer's stated purpose.
- Candidates have little leverage at the moment of testing; employers have most of theirs in job-relatedness and documentation.
The question the law actually asks
Employment lawyers do not ask whether a personality test is legal, because legality is not a property a test has; it is a property a use has. The operative questions are narrower. Under US disability law: does this instrument function as a medical examination, and is it being given at a stage where medical examinations are barred? Under anti-discrimination law: does it screen out members of a protected group at a materially different rate, and if so, can the employer show job-relatedness? Under the newer automated-decision rules: was the candidate told, was the tool audited, was a human able to override it? If the instrument is given after a conditional offer, applied to every entrant in the same job category, and scored on traits such as conscientiousness or honesty rather than on symptoms, most of the US analysis falls away and nothing about it would be unlawful. Reverse any one of those three conditions and the conclusion does not hold — which is why the same questionnaire is routine at one company and a lawsuit at another.
This is why articles asking whether personality tests are legal tend to be useless: they answer a question no tribunal asks. The useful version is a list of conditions, and the list differs by jurisdiction, so the rest of this guide is organized that way.
United States: the disability line
The Americans with Disabilities Act governs this area more than any other statute, and it does so through staging rather than through a list of banned instruments. Section 12112(d)(2) bars medical examinations and disability-related inquiries before a conditional offer of employment. Section 12112(d)(3) permits them after a conditional offer, provided they are applied to all entering employees in the same job category and handled under confidentiality rules. The staging is the whole trick: the identical test moves from prohibited to permitted by moving later in the process.
Whether something counts as a medical examination is where the litigation lives, and the EEOC's guidance answers it with seven factors that courts still apply:
- Whether the test is administered by a health care professional.
- Whether it is interpreted by a health care professional.
- Whether it is designed to reveal an impairment of physical or mental health.
- Whether it is invasive.
- Whether it measures performance of a task, or physiological responses to performing one.
- Whether it is normally given in a medical setting.
- Whether it requires medical equipment.
Applied to a questionnaire, the factors collapse into a question about purpose, and the agency's own examples draw the line there: a test designed to identify a mental disorder or impairment is medical, while a test that measures personality traits such as honesty, preferences, and habits is not. That is a line about design rather than branding, which is why one instrument family can sit on either side of it.
Karraker, and why the stated purpose did not save it
The leading case is Karraker v. Rent-A-Center, 411 F.3d 831 (7th Cir. 2005). Employees seeking management promotions were required to take the MMPI alongside other assessments, and a certain score automatically excluded them from consideration. The employer argued that the instrument was being used vocationally, to predict fit, not clinically; that it was scored under a vocational protocol rather than a clinical one; and that no psychologist interpreted the results. The district court accepted that framing and granted summary judgment.
The Seventh Circuit reversed. Its reasoning is the part worth remembering: the MMPI is designed, at least in part, to reveal mental illness, and its use had the effect of hurting the employment prospects of people with a mental disability. Neither the vocational protocol nor the absence of a psychologist was dispositive, because who interprets a test is one factor among seven, not a gate. The practical effect of the instrument did not change with the label attached to its use.
The contrast case matters as much as the holding. In Thompson v. Borg-Warner Protective Services (N.D. Cal. 1996), a personality instrument used to screen security guard applicants was held not to be a medical examination, because it returned information about character and job fit rather than about disorder. Two instruments, two outcomes, one question: what is the tool built to reveal? A later decision extended the same reasoning to mandatory psychological counseling, holding that it too could be a medical examination under the statute.
United States: the two other doors
Disability law is the door most people know about, and it is not the only one. Title VII reaches personality tests through disparate impact: a selection device that screens out a protected group at a materially different rate has to be shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity, the framework set out in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971). Subgroup differences on personality measures are generally smaller than on cognitive ability tests, which is part of why employers moved toward them in the first place — they were adopted in part as a lower-adverse-impact alternative to aptitude screening. Smaller is not zero, and a cut score applied without validation is the usual way that door opens.
The second door is narrower than people assume. The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 restricts lie detector tests in private employment and does not reach written integrity or personality instruments at all. There is no federal statute that bans personality testing in hiring. Anyone who says otherwise is describing a state or local rule, a collective agreement, or a professional standard — any of which can bind, and none of which is a federal ban.
- ADA: regulates medical examinations and disability inquiries, and therefore regulates the timing and the design.
- Title VII: regulates outcomes, and therefore the cut score and whether anyone validated it.
- Employee Polygraph Protection Act: regulates lie detectors, and therefore does not touch a written questionnaire.
United Kingdom and the European Union
The UK has no statute that names personality testing, so the constraint arrives from two other directions. Section 60 of the Equality Act 2010 bars an employer from asking about disability or health before offering work, subject to narrow exceptions, so an instrument that probes mental health at application stage meets the same wall as its US counterpart, approached from a different side. Indirect discrimination under section 19 supplies the second constraint: a provision, criterion, or practice that puts a protected group at a particular disadvantage must be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, and 'we have always used this questionnaire' is not an aim.
Professional standards do work that statute does not. The British Psychological Society's test-user framework separates Level A, covering ability and aptitude, from Level B, covering personality, and using a Level B instrument without a qualified administrator departs from published professional guidance rather than breaking a law. That distinction matters in a tribunal, because it becomes evidence about whether the practice was reasonable.
In the EU, data protection carries the weight. Personality results are personal data, and where they reveal health they become special-category data under Article 9 of the GDPR. Article 22 then restricts decisions based solely on automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects, which is a fair description of a rejection generated by a model.
When the test is automated
An algorithmic personality assessment is not a new legal category, and that is the useful thing to take from this section. The same two questions apply — is it a medical examination, does it have adverse impact — and the wrapper adds procedural duties rather than new substance. What has changed is that some jurisdictions now regulate the wrapper explicitly.
New York City's Local Law 144, enforced since July 2023, requires an independent bias audit within the twelve months before an automated employment decision tool is used, publication of a summary of that audit, notice to candidates at least ten business days before use, and an alternative process on request. Penalties start at 500 dollars and rise to 1,500 dollars for repeat violations. The EU AI Act classifies AI used for recruitment and candidate evaluation as high-risk under Annex III; the duty to tell people they are interacting with an AI system has applied since August 2026, while the heavier high-risk obligations were deferred to December 2027 by a 2026 amending regulation. Dates in this area have already moved once, so verify before relying on any of them.
If you are the candidate
The asymmetry is real: an employer can condition a job on a test, and a candidate cannot easily refuse one. What a candidate can do is narrow, and mostly about information and timing.
- Ask what the instrument measures and who interprets it. An employer that cannot answer has told you something useful.
- Note the stage. A mental-health-adjacent instrument requested before a conditional offer is the fact pattern US disability law treats most strictly.
- You are not obliged to disclose a diagnosis. A test that extracts one is not the same thing as a test that asks about habits.
- In the UK and EU, ask for the lawful basis and, for an automated decision, for human review.
- Record what you were told and when. Timing decides most of these cases, and memory is the part that fails.
One limit on all of the above: a personality score is not a diagnosis, and if what you actually need is one, seek a clinician rather than another questionnaire.
If you are the employer
For an organization, the defensible position is a sequence of documented choices rather than a single policy statement.
- Design: use instruments built for normal-range traits, not symptom inventories borrowed from clinical practice.
- Timing: after a conditional offer, applied to every entrant in the same job category.
- Job-relatedness: be able to say which trait the role requires and why, before you have seen any scores.
- Scoring: keep scores out of automatic rejection rules. Karraker's trigger was a cut score that excluded candidates outright.
- Automation: run the audit, give the notice, and keep a human able to override the output.
Legality is not a property of the test. It is a property of what the test is built to reveal, when you give it, and what you do with the answer.
Frequently asked questions
Is it legal for an employer to give me a personality test?
Usually yes. No US federal statute bans it, and neither UK nor EU law does. What can make a specific use unlawful is the instrument functioning as a medical examination under the ADA, a disparate impact that the employer cannot justify as job-related, or a failure to meet automated-decision duties such as audit, notice, and human review.
Can I refuse to take one?
You can refuse, and the employer can usually withdraw the application in response, because refusing a lawful condition of the process is not protected activity. Refusal becomes safer ground when the request itself is unlawful — most clearly, a mental-health instrument demanded before a conditional offer in the US. Get the request in writing first.
Is the MBTI legal to use in hiring?
The instrument measures normal-range preferences rather than symptoms, so on the EEOC's design line it does not function as a medical examination, and the vendor's own guidance discourages employment use. The legal risk sits in the use: type-based rejection rules, and a job-relatedness defense that is hard to build for an instrument with modest predictive validity.
Do personality tests count as medical examinations?
Only if they are designed to reveal a mental disorder or impairment. The EEOC applies seven factors, and courts weight design most heavily: a test built to measure honesty, preferences, and habits is not medical, while a symptom inventory is, even when it is scored vocationally and read by nobody with a clinical license.
What about AI video interviews?
The disability and discrimination analysis is unchanged, because the question is still what the system measures and what happens to people it scores low. What is added is procedural: in New York City an independent bias audit and ten business days' notice, and in the EU a transparency duty plus, on a deferred timetable, the full high-risk obligations.
References
- Karraker v. Rent-A-Center, Inc., 411 F.3d 831 (7th Cir. 2005).
- Kroll v. White Lake Ambulance Authority, 691 F.3d 809 (6th Cir. 2012).
- Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971).
- Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12112(d) — medical examinations and inquiries.
- Equality Act 2010, section 60 — enquiries about disability and health.
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (Artificial Intelligence Act), Annex III — high-risk systems, including employment and worker management.