Personality questionnaire

What it measures

How you typically prefer to work: with people, with ideas and with pressure. Employers compare your profile with the demands of the role. There are no right answers, and the questionnaire is built to notice when someone answers as the person they think is wanted rather than as themselves.

How it appears

• Forced choiceThree or four statements in a block; you pick the one most like you and the one least like you. Every statement in a block is desirable, so you cannot be best at all of them.
• Rating scaleA statement and a five-point agree-to-disagree scale.
• Behaviour-basedShort, game-like tasks or scenarios whose choices are scored for style rather than for a right answer.

Timing

104 questions in 35 minutes.

Untimed. Twenty seconds is enough to read a block and answer from your typical behaviour; longer usually means you are calculating an answer rather than giving one.

How to tell it apart

• Situational judgementSituational judgement has a keyed most effective response. Personality has no key; it asks what you are like, not what works.
• Verbal reasoningVerbal reasoning is timed, scored and about a passage. Personality is untimed, profiled and about you.

The method

Answer as yourself at work over the last year, consistently, and let the profile be true.

1. Before you start, picture yourself at work over the last year, not your best day and not the person the advert describes. Answer from that.
2. Read each statement for what it actually says. "I keep a detailed plan for my week" is about planning, not about being organised in general.
3. In a forced-choice block, pick the statement that is most true of you and the one that is least true, even when all of them sound good. That is what the format expects.
4. On a rating scale, use the whole scale. A row of middle answers gives no profile, and no profile is read as evasion.
5. Answer the same way each time a trait comes round. The same trait is asked in several forms, and inconsistency is measured.
6. Do not calculate what the role wants. A profile bent towards the role is unstable across the questionnaire, and a role you had to pretend for is a role you will not enjoy.
7. Keep moving. Twenty seconds an item is enough to answer as yourself; longer is time spent constructing someone else.

Traps to know

• Answering as the ideal candidate

  Choosing the statement the role seems to want in every block. Forced-choice blocks make this impossible to do consistently, and the inconsistency is what the employer sees.

  Setup A block offers: I keep a detailed plan; I enjoy persuading people; I stay calm when plans change; I prefer to work things out alone. The role is in sales.

  The trap Choosing persuading as most like you because the role is sales, when planning is what is actually most like you.

  The escape Pick what is most true of you. A sales role staffed by people pretending to like persuading does not work for anyone.

• The neutral middle

  Rating every statement three out of five feels safe. It produces a profile with no shape, and employers treat no shape as no information, or as a candidate managing the test.

  Setup Twenty statements on a five-point scale, and you have answered neither agree nor disagree to twelve of them.

  The trap Staying in the middle to avoid committing.

  The escape Ask, of each statement, is this more true of me than not? Then move off the middle in that direction.

• Treating it as a test with a pass mark

  There is no score to beat. Trying to get everything right makes answers slower and less consistent, which is the one thing that does register.

  Setup The questionnaire says there are no right or wrong answers, and you read that as something tests always say.

  The trap Working out which answer scores higher on each item.

  The escape Believe it. The profile is compared with the role; the only way to fail is to describe someone who is not you.

• Reading the role into every statement

  A statement about preferring routine reads as a trap for a graduate role, so the candidate answers against it. Most roles need some of every style, and the questionnaire is not asking about the role.

  Setup Statement: I prefer work where I know what each day will involve.

  The trap Disagreeing because the advert said fast-paced.

  The escape Answer the statement. Many people who thrive in fast-paced roles also like knowing what the day holds.

Worked examples