When an applicant tries to put their best foot forward and “cheat,” the Assessment exposes that attempt using the two traits, Personal Honesty and Assessment Honesty as well as the consistency read out and other indicators. The computer is programmed to automatically adjust candidates’ scores downward to make up for the exaggeration.

However, when they go beyond the typical tendency to put their best foot forward, the Personal Honesty and Assessment Honesty traits will show that exaggeration and indicate to you the reliability of the results which in most cases is lower (from 90% to 75% reliability in worst cases). If they fail the word test as well, the results are not reliable.

The behavioral traits measure what people feel comfortable doing or uncomfortable doing and very basic internal drives. Except for the questions covered in the competency chapter, the behavioral traits do not measure ability. However, what a person feels comfortable doing contributes to success on the job. For example, if people feel comfortable about talking and calling people on the phone, they will usually do better as salespeople than people who prefer not to talk and are uncomfortable making phone calls.

We should point out that anyone with ability may be able to do a job for a few months successfully but if that job is not comfortable the person will quit or just do less and less of the most important functions and more and more of what is unimportant to that job.

Each trait measures a very specific part of a person’s make up. One trait may only be a small percentage of the person’s whole make up. However, the traits used on these assessments cover the most important ones in business. The traits may appear at first glance to be similar to each other but they are not, they are quite different from each other. For example, a client of mine once said he felt a manager with a high score on the “calling comfort” trait did well in his manufacturing plant because he was not afraid of calling internal people about job status. Well, this is not exactly what the trait measures but when you put several traits together like assertive, talking, warm and social and calling comfort you will get a feel for how comfortable a manager will feel about calling and talking to people internally, especially about tough issues like poor performance.

The integrity and attitude trait descriptions are similar to each other. For example, critical is very similar to blame. Those two traits focus on the other person as the target of one’s frustration with little responsibility for one’s own state of mind.

The behavioral traits are different from the integrity, attitude and competency traits in that each trait is designed to show a specific comfort or discomfort as it may relate to a specific job. In the description of the traits starting on the next page, I give a range from one number to another. For example: The trait Talking: High range: 61 to 89. The person is completely at ease in talking to others. This person could become compulsive at times and be difficult to shut up or to get to listen. This is good for sales (although good sales people are good listeners) or lecturing type positions but poor for accounting, engineering, administrative and similar positions.

In the Talking trait example, it gives a range of 61 to 89 so the person who gets a 61 won’t find talking as easy as the person who gets an 89 and is unlikely to be as compulsive about talking as the person who gets 89. The descriptions are for the middle range so in the example the midway point between 61 and 89 is 70. Therefore, the
description of the “High range” for “Talking” is aimed at 70. Some judgment will be necessary for a more accurate description between the two numbers. But remember more accuracy will come from looking at several traits showing a theme personality. I should also point out that each trait has been adjusted based on the way the candidate has approached the test. For example, in most cases the exaggerator’s raw test scores will be marked down unless the result was extremely high. These are not arbitrary adjustments but adjustments made from researching just how much exaggeration or brutal honesty affects a particular trait and each trait is different.

The “norms” or averages on the behavioral traits have been adjusted by the marker to 50. Therefore, anything below 50 is below average for those applying for jobs. Anything above 50 is above average for those applying for a job. This average is not true for the attitude traits, competency traits, personal honesty or assessment honesty.

As of August 2007, over 39,088 people had done the attitude side of the assessments, over 15,365 had done the original version of the aptitude assessments (The same assessment was called the Executive Aptitude Profile many years ago) and over 8,965 had done the additional version of the aptitude assessments.

Yes, these assessments show have been used by large and small businesses alike! They can be use across any industry, for any position you have have available.

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