The Listener Trait Measures How Much Importance Somebody Places on Listening
The listener trait is one of the People Traits scored on the Aptitude assessments. It measures what a candidate believes listening is worth, rather than how well they actually do it.
What Does the Listener Trait Measure?
The listener trait measures the degree of importance the person puts on listening to another. In other words, it scores whether somebody treats listening as something worth doing properly, which is a question of priority rather than technique.
What the listener trait is not
It is not the level of ability the person has to listen to another. Consequently, a candidate can rate listening highly and still interrupt constantly, or place little importance on it while hearing every word. Priority and skill come apart more often than interviews suggest.
What the Listener Trait Helps You Evaluate Before You Hire
Notice how the interview itself goes. A candidate who values listening asks what you need before describing what they offer, and comes back to something you mentioned earlier without prompting.
Why the Listener Trait Matters in Hiring
This is the shortest reading in the People Traits set, and the only one with no corroborating test named alongside it.
Because it scores priority rather than skill, it belongs next to the behavioral counterpart rather than on its own.
Priority, Not Ability
This score reflects what somebody thinks listening is worth. How well they do it belongs to a separate reading entirely.
The Shortest Reading
Only six questions produce this number, so treat a borderline result as a prompt to look further, not a conclusion.
Underneath Discovery
Solution Selling is a named relation, because finding a customer problem depends on valuing the answer enough to hear it.
How a low Listener score shows up on the job
Nobody announces that listening is a waste of time. Instead, the pattern shows up in what people miss while they are waiting to speak.
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How the Listener Trait Is Scored
Six questions produce a score from 0 to 100 across six named ranges, and the three bands below summarize them.
Low — under 38
A very low to poor level of importance placed on listening to another. Under 25 guessing alone could produce it.
Medium — 38 to 61
A borderline to OK level of importance placed on listening to another person, with nothing further to read into it.
High — 62 to 100
A high level of importance placed on listening to another person, which becomes a very high one from 77 upward.
Six questions and no corroborating test make this a thin reading. Unusually for this set, the assessment names no closely related test, so a borderline number deserves a second source before it carries a decision.
Listener is one of the People Traits on the Aptitude assessments
Each trait in this set scores knowledge and priority rather than personality. However, this one has a behavioral twin under a similar name, so the pair reads better together than either number does alone.
Listening (Behavioral)
The named relation and behavioral twin. That trait scores comfort and willingness, while this one scores the importance somebody assigns.
Solution Selling
Solution Selling is the other named relation, since finding a problem before pitching a fix depends entirely on hearing it.
Questioner
Questioner scores the importance placed on asking. Read the pair together, because questions without attention produce answers that nobody uses.
Communication
Communication covers getting an idea out. This trait covers taking one in, which makes them two halves of one exchange.
Understand Human Nature
Understand Human Nature names listening among its own relations, because reading people accurately starts with valuing what they actually say.
People Traits
The category this trait belongs to. Every People Trait is scored from multiple choice questions with one correct answer, so these readings measure what a candidate knows rather than how they describe themselves.Â
Best Practice: Always read this score beside the behavioral Listening trait. Six questions and no named corroborating test make this a thin reading, so a borderline number deserves a second source before deciding.
How to Interpret Listener Results
Six named ranges cover this trait. Both the IC Aptitude Test and the Sales Aptitude Test include it, and unusually no other test is named as a close relation, which puts the weight on the behavioral counterpart instead.
What to Do Based on Your Listener Score
Guessing alone could reach 20 here, so read this as a very low importance placed on listening, and not merely as a marginal preference for talking.
A poor level of importance placed on listening to another person. Clearly weak wherever the work depends on understanding somebody properly before you respond to them.
A borderline level of importance placed on listening to another person. Workable only where a script carries the questions and somebody else reviews the resulting answers.
An OK level of importance placed on listening to another person. Compare it against your role benchmark, since the amount of listening differs sharply between positions.
A high level of importance placed on listening to another person. Strong for service work, for discovery selling and for anybody who regularly handles customer complaints.
A very high level of importance placed on listening to another. Check the behavioral counterpart, which warns that listening can become an escape from speaking up.
Assessment results support your hiring decisions, they do not replace them. Always read the listener trait score alongside the full profile and your role benchmarks before drawing a conclusion.
The Listener Trait Matters for Every Role You Hire
Because the amount of listening a job demands differs sharply between positions, benchmarks define what each reading means. Therefore, review results against the benchmark for the specific job.
Relevant for all role types
Customer Service Representative
Account Manager
Service Coordinator
Solution Sales Representative
Team Lead
Technical Support Specialist
Intake Coordinator
Client Success Manager
If any of these situations sound familiar, this assessment is for you
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Frequently Asked Questions
It measures the degree of importance the person puts on listening to another. The questions ask about priority rather than technique, so the score reflects how much a candidate thinks listening is worth in the first place.
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