Article
One: Psychometric Product Review: Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI)
Company Name: Psychological Consultancy Ltd
Product Name: Personality Inventory (HPI)
Website Address: www.psychological-consultancy.com
Description (provided by company): “The HPI is a normal range personality questionnaire designed for occupational assessment. It is the only personality assessment based on the five-factor model and designed specifically to predict work performance.”
Cost: Online Administration per questionnaire: £5.75, HPI Test Booklet £7.50, HPI Answer Sheet (pack 25) £30. Reports cost from £11.50 for a Feedback Report up to £32.20 for a Management Development Report. The report I received was a Personal Development Report which cost £30.00.
Do you have to be qualified to
interpret the questionnaires: Yes to BPS level B. You are required to attend a one day conversion course if the Level B instrument was not
HPI.
Candidate Experience (“guinea pig” candidate was Gavin): The test took me about twenty minutes to complete and the instructions were clear and easy to understand. I had to provide 'True' or 'False' answers to a series of statements. I found this test very quick and easy to complete. I liked the feedback report (Gavin was sent the Personal Development Report) because it highlights individual Shortcoming’s and Development Points. This was really useful because it helped me understand how I might be perceived by colleagues and areas that I need to work on in the future. One criticism of the test might be that it only covers seven areas and this might not give the recruiter quite as much information as they need.
Overview of Feedback Report: We were sent the “Personal Development” report which can be used by both a candidate and client. However, this isn’t the best report for selection purposes. For this you would normally purchase the “Interpretive Report” – this wasn’t produced for our sample candidate but I have seen an example of it and made comments below. The “Personal Development” report is specifically designed to predict performance in an occupational setting, rather than simply describe personality and looks at 7 personality scales. These scales are “even tempered”, “ambitious”, “gregarious”, “eager to please”, “conforming”, “inquisitive” and “lifelong learning”. For each of these scales there is a “score” (out of 100), a narrative explaining what the score actually means in terms of personality type, an overview of the strengths and shortcomings for this scale and some suggested development points. The strengths and weaknesses would be especially useful if this report were used for selection purposes
(eg, for Gavin a shortcoming in relation to the “eager to please” scale is “can be impatient with others’ shortcomings and this may lead you to avoid interacting with them”).
If you purchase the “Interpretive Report” it gives access to 7 “primary scales” and 6 “occupational scales”. The format of the report is quite similar to the candidate version. It gives a narrative on each scale, implications and discussion points (strengths and weaknesses). Because more scales are looked at this is a more comprehensive report and the additional scales (ambition, sales potential, managerial potential, etc) are more use for recruitment purposes.
Summary
This isn’t the most recruitment focussed of psychometrics I’ve looked at
in this series (although that’s not to say that is not the purpose for which it was developed).
I can certainly see the recruitment application of the product – but it isn’t “handed to you on a plate” as some are. Having assessed some tools in this series which look at 20 plus personality scales I just feel that 13 scales is a bit slim. However, at the price it’s an option worth looking at.
For more information: Louise Morton was my contact at
Psychological
Consultancy Ltd. She can be contacted on 01892 559540 or via email at
louise@psykey.co.uk
Louise Triance is a British
Psychological Society level A&B trained assessor, conducting
psychometrics on behalf of recruiters. For more information
call Louise on 01635 254881 or email louise@ukrecruiter.co.uk
or visit http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/tests.htm
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