Personality Development tests online

Business psychologists have kindly helped us produce this full free personality questionnaire. It is based on the classic 'five-factor' model: the most popular system of classifying personality traits and as used by employers in their selection processes. Click the button to the left to start the free questionnaire. Find out what the common Big Five personality questionnaire says about you.

Personality questionnaires and how they work

Personality questionnaires have become a commonly used recruitment tool, and candidates may come across them at both the early stages and the late stages of the recruitment process. Research has shown that personality tests are highly robust predictors of job performance, and are used for both selection and development as a result. Candidates will be likely to encounter personality questionnaires in all industries and all sectors, however candidates are most likely to undertake these tests in graduate schemes and recruitment for larger companies with high recruitment volumes. These tests may be online and unsupervised, they may be online and supervised and they may be pencil and paper tests at an assessment centre.

Personality tests used for recruitment will vary compared to general personality tests used in psychology; they will be workplace relevant and highlight personality traits and competencies which are valued in the workplace. Personality questionnaires are in multiple choice format, and will not have a time limit, allowing candidates to decide on their responses in their own time. An example personality/competency question would be "I like to identify new business opportunities" or "I am likely to made decisions based on facts and figures alone", requiring the candidate to rate on a given scale (often 1-7) how much they agree or disagree with the statement.

Once the candidate’s results are collected, they are compared to a norm group, and subsequently informs the organisation how, for example, analytical, influential and adaptive you may be in the workplace. Similarly the test may assess values, which can be useful in identifying if the candidate fits well with the organisation and its culture. Depending on the test, over a hundred individual traits and competencies may be assessed by the questionnaire. There are no right or wrong answers when it comes to personality tests, however there are good and bad reports, and recruiters will be looking for specific competencies and traits in candidates.