AssessFirst is a predictive solution for HR, Managers and TA teams.

Whether it’s hiring new talent, developing existing talent, or managing role evolutions and teams within your organisation, AssessFirst provides you with the insight you need to make the best HR decisions, at every step of the talent management life cycle.

AssessFirst gives you the ability to predict the potential of success for any individual in any role. We are also the only assessment platform that allows you to address motivations...

As a result, employees perform 30% better and twice as fast. Taking into account the global potential of your candidates and their ability to integrate into your culture, AssessFirst allows you to keep them engaged in your company twice as long as the average. These criteria allow you to limit cognitive bias and increase diversity. We have developed three assessments to assess the personality, motivations and mental agility of individual's and we use Artificial Intelligence to predict how successful people will be within a specific role, company and culture.

The Criterion Personality Questionnaire is unlike anything else on the market. We don’t subscribe to a one-size-fits-all approach to personality; the CPQ offers unparalleled flexibility by allowing you to pick and choose the elements you want to measure.

The CPQ is made up of 46 scales split across five key areas of personality at work. These elements are:

Interpersonal Style – The candidate’s approach to working with others, taps into their style of communication and preferences for working around others

Thinking Style – The candidate’s approach to tasks, decisions and challenges

Emotional Style – The candidate’s reaction to the emotional demands of the role

Motivations – Understanding what drives the candidate and helps them to feel energised and motivated at work

Culture Fit – Understanding the style of environment that is best suited to the candidate

We provide the following 3 options for you to choose from: 

1. OFF-THE-SHELF OPTION

Psycruit offers two off-the-shelf personality questionnaires, both of which include a range of scales from across the five elements.

The Criterion Core (21 Scales) – Comprehensive insight into the typical preferences and tendencies for behaviours, feelings, values and motivations that are important in the workplace. This questionnaire takes about 20 minutes for the candidate to complete. Using the Core questionnaire will give you access to two specialised reports; Team Strengths Report & Sales Report.

The Criterion Enhanced (30 Scales) – Builds on the Criterion Core, offering a deeper insight across a breadth of elements of personality in an occupational setting. This questionnaire will take about 30 minutes for candidates to complete. Using it will give you access to our Leadership Report.

2. BESPOKE OPTION

Psycruit allows you to build your own personality questionnaire so you can tap directly into the traits you are interested in for the role you are recruiting for or developing. You can pick any combination of the 46 scales in the Library and structure the selection according to your own values/competency framework or use our default headings. Telling the platform ‘what good looks like’ will give you access to the Selection Report.

3.INDUSTRY SPECIFIC

We now have a collection of industry specific questionnaires that are available on Psycruit. These have been developed through role research and the expert knowledge and experience of our business psychologists. All of our off the shelf questionnaires also contain the social desirability scale in addition to those scales listed below.

• Remote Working
• Sales
• Call Centre
• Customer Service
• Graduates
• Recruitment Industry
• Project Manager
• Legal Sector
• IT Professionals
• Engineering
• Workforce
• Human Resources
• Administrative Role
• Marketing
• Education Role
• Hospitality

The Prevue Assessment was developed by Professor David Bartram and Dr Pat Lindley. It is a high quality comprehensive psychometric measure which assesses:

• Abilities - 3 areas + an overall measure
• Motivation and interests – 3 areas
• Personality – 13 areas

The Prevue Assessment has been designed to be quick and easy to use. It is useful for all occupations and can be used comfortably from age 15+.

What does the Prevue Assessment Measure?

It measures Abilities, Interests and Personality in one straightforward measure which takes about an hour to complete if handled in one sitting.

Abilities - Verbal, Numerical and Spatial Abilities – combining these to produce a general abilities scale

 Motivation & Interests - the extent to which the individual is interested in working with people, data and with things

Personality – 12 scales around 4 core themes (from the “big 5” model) – Independence, Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Stability. (The subscales measure cooperativeness, assertiveness, innovation, organisation, group orientation, outgoing ness, poise and excitability.)

 Social Desirability - The extent to which the individual presents a favourable picture of themselves

Mental Toughness describes the mindset that every person adopts in everything they do. It is closely related to qualities such as character, resilience, grit, etc. It is defined as: “A personality trait which determines, in large part, how people respond to challenge, stress and pressure, irrespective of their circumstances”. Most personality models and measures assess the behavioural aspects of Personality (how we act).

Mental Toughness differs in that it assesses something more fundamental – “how we think”. In other words, why we act and respond emotionally to events. It enables us to understand mindset in a very practical way. Research carried out under the direction of Professor Peter Clough of Huddersfield University identified by 2002 the four key components (constructs) of Mental Toughness. These are called the 4Cs. In 2017, work by Doug Strycharczyk, Dr John Perry and Professor Clough, allowed the concept to be expanded to eight factors to be understood and assessed around the 4Cs. This is shown below:

Mental Toughness Scale What does MTQ assess… the 8 Factors

Why is Mental Toughness important?

Published research and case studies from around the world show that Mental Toughness is a major factor in: • Performance – explaining up to 25% of the variation in performance in individuals

• Agility - Positive Behaviour – more engaged, more positive, more “can do”, dealing well with change

• Wellbeing – more contentment, better stress management, less prone to bullying

• Aspirations - more ambitious, prepared to manage more risk It is a major factor in retention, particularly in higher education, employability and is a key aspect of an organisation’s culture.

It has applications in virtually every sector. In the world of work, it is key for leadership and staff development, particularly within change programmes as well as in talent management programmes. It is also widely used for developing young people in education, in youth work and social mobility programmes.

Can we develop Mental Toughness?

We can. We can either help someone change their mental toughness or we can show someone how to adopt the behaviours that a mentally tough person would adopt. Either way, many of the benefits of developing mental toughness can be achieved. 

MTQ48 is a really valuable tool. It certainly makes you think about your performance and positive behaviour – and what you can do about both. We liked the report structure which equipped the manager/coach and the individual with relevant information and practical development suggestions.  -Liz Chandler Director for Corporate Development, Merseytravel

What is the Integrated Leadership Model (ILM72)?

The Integrated Leadership Model is the result of a major study carried out by AQR International in 2005. Carried out by Dr Nollaig Heffernan under the supervision and guidance of Professor Clough and Doug Strycharczyk, CEO.

The study looked at over 50 leadership models and found that all had their origins in the same components - 6 scales which represented the different aspects of leadership style.

This confirmed that the essence of leadership was consistently based on a number of key notions. The study did not develop a new model of leadership, more accurately it “brought order to the chaos that is leadership theory and practice”. Equally importantly it provided an accessible and very practical framework for understanding and developing leadership practice. Further research carried out by Clough & Strycharczyk within the same programme showed that there were three core competencies which are crucial for leadership effectiveness.

An important by-product of the programme was the development of a reliable psychometric measure - ILM72 – which assesses both the specific scales (style) and the global scales indicating leadership effectiveness. These map to almost all leadership models.

Assessing Leadership Style and Leadership Effectiveness

The ILM72 is a seventy-two item questionnaire which produces output on both leadership style and leadership effectiveness factors. The measure produces development reports for individuals, for coaches/managers as well as generating questions for reflection and understanding.

The measure can also be used to assess difference before and after an event to determine where development has occurred. Bringing effective evaluation into the picture.

A tool for organisational development

Importantly it is possible to aggregate data for a group or even a whole organisation, through an OD report, to get a picture of the prevailing leadership style – an important aspect of culture. This enables users to assess whether the given style is appropriate and exactly where leadership style might be developed. This is fundamentally important.

Participants report an increased level of selfawareness with regard to their own leadership style. The reports enable them to identify their strengths and areas for development, which are invaluable in their day to day role as a leader and in creating a personal development plan. -Sandra Keith, HRD Bristol

Evaluate emotional intelligence in the workplace

EMOTION 2 measures candidates’ and employees’ ability to understand their own emotions and their capacity to establish harmonious working relationships with others. The test provides a reliable score for an individual’s interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies by assessing 15 specific factors related to emotional intelligence.

KEY FEATURES

• Measures social desirability
• Provides norm-based EQ scores
• Personalised analysis with easily applicable developmental advice

Analysis of 5 main dimensions:

• Self-awareness
• Self-assertion
• Personal development
• Leadership
• Adaptability

Analysis of 15 factors of emotional intelligence:

REPORT PRESENTATION

• Social desirability indicator
• Standardised EQ score
• Graph for at-a-glance analysis
• Analysis of the candidate’s profile
• Developmental Comments
• Candidate matching with the 5 EI dimensions

The PROFESSIONAL PROFILE 2© adopts the trait approach. This is our latest personality assessment, designed and validated with the most recent method in psychometrics, the Thurstonian IRT. It measures 14 set of dimensions in opposition (e.g. introversion vs. extraversion), thereby resulting in an analysis of 28 aspects of personality and motivations. 

In addition to the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality, several established theories were used for the conceptual and practical development of the PROFESSIONAL PROFILE 2©.

Other theoretical frameworks include C.G. Jung (1971) Theory of Psychological Types; William Schutz (1958) Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation; Lee and Ashton(2004) HEXACO Model of Personality and J. Holland (1958) Occupational Themes (RIASEC)

Key Features

• Uses the Thurstonian IRT model to avoid social desirability
•  Easy to understand reports, without psychological jargon
• Internationally recognised, and registered with the British Psychological Society (BPS)

14 sets of character traits are analysed: 

• Straightforwardness vs. Persuasiveness
• Firmness vs. Flexibility
• Emotional sensitivity vs. Emotional distance
• Introversion vs. Extraversion
• Structure vs. Improvisation
• Intuition vs. Focus on facts
• Personal balance vs. Involvement at work
• Desire for guidance vs. Desire to lead
• Need for reflection vs. Need for action
• Humility vs. Ambition
• Team work vs. Autonomy
• Individualism vs. Altruism
• Free-thinking vs. Rule-following
•  Familiarity-seeking vs. Novelty-seeking

Reveal a candidate’s behaviour and job compatibility

Work Profile is a personality assessment designed especially for entry-level jobs, requiring a lower level of qualifications. It is the only recruitment-based assessment to reliably measure an individual’s work personality through their workplace, social and emotional traits, as well as the values and aspirations that drive them forward. Suitable for candidates and employees with lower level qualifications.

KEY FEATURES

• Uses ipsative structure of the Thurstonian IRT model to avoid social desirability
• Profile matching with 6 work-focused personality types and 138 groups of professions
• Detailed, easy to read report with personalised comments

Analysis of 15 factors split into 3 groups:

• Workplace traits: organisation, compliance, dynamism, sociability, sense of responsibility
• Social and emotional traits: persuasiveness, self-control, tenacity, assertiveness, adaptability
• Aspirations and values: sense of service, ambition, autonomy, intellectual curiosity, desire to supervise

Profile matching with 6 work-focused personality types: Leader, Persistent, Conscientious, Sociable, Explorer, Innovative

Predict counterproductive work behaviour

ETIX evaluates the likelihood of individuals engaging in counterproductive work behaviour. It covers six behaviours relevant to today’s work environment, including discrimination, harassment, and lying. By distinguishing between a person’s attitudes towards themselves and other people, ETIX reveals not only if a person might participate in counterproductive work behaviour, but also if they might enable it in others.

KEY FEATURES

• Monitors social desirability
• Measures attitudes towards counterproductive work behaviour in both self and others
• Adheres to the ISO 26000 norm

Analysis of 6 dimensions of work ethics, each of which relates to a counterproductive work behaviour:

• Respect for Facts and Honesty
• Respect for Rules and Procedures
• Respect for Goods and Property
• Respect for Commitment
• Respect for Equality
• Respect for Other People

Each dimension is divided into 2 facets:

• Attitudes towards self
• Attitudes towards others

REPORT PRESENTATION

• Global work ethics indicator
• Social desirability score
• Mirror graph
• Personalised comments for each factor