Personality tests for jobs: formats, scoring and preparation

A pre-employment personality test asks how you typically behave at work. Unlike a cognitive test, it is not measuring whether you can calculate or reason to one correct answer. It builds a pattern of preferences—how you influence, collaborate, plan, adapt, decide and respond to pressure.

Get familiar with most/least forced choice without treating practice as an official provider score. Try OPQ-style practice

What to focus on first

Common traps

• Choosing the most senior-sounding option every time. Leadership is not the only relevant behaviour.
• Answering as your ideal self. Repeated discrepancies can make the profile difficult to interpret.
• Confusing personality with SJT. One asks what you are like; the other asks what response is effective.

How to practise from here

For each practice block, answer from one consistent frame: how you usually behave at work. Afterward, explain why the chosen ‘most’ statement is more typical than the other attractive options.

Why employers use personality and job-fit assessments

Ability tests estimate whether you can perform certain kinds of reasoning. Personality assessments add a different question: how are you likely to approach the work? Employers may use the result to support selection, structure a later interview, inform onboarding or explore development needs. The result should be interpreted alongside other evidence—not as a clinical diagnosis.

The main personality-test formats

Rating scales

You rate statements from strongly disagree to strongly agree. These are easy to understand, but the desirable response can sometimes appear obvious. Well-designed questionnaires use balanced wording and multiple items for the same trait.

Forced choice

You choose which statement is most like you, least like you or closer to you. The statements are often matched so that several options sound equally respectable. This forces a genuine preference rather than allowing you to endorse every positive behaviour.

Adaptive forced choice

The system selects later statements using earlier responses. Aon describes ADEPT-15 as a computer-adaptive, multidimensional forced-choice assessment based on 15 personality aspects. Static practice can familiarise you with pairwise choices, but it cannot reproduce a provider’s proprietary calibration or item-selection model.

SHL OPQ versus Aon ADEPT-15

What workplace personality tests tend to explore

• Influence and assertiveness: whether you persuade, challenge or take charge.
• Sociability and confidence: how readily you build contact and speak with others.
• Collaboration and empathy: how much you consult, support and consider people.
• Analysis and evaluation: whether you prefer evidence, critique and careful judgement.
• Creativity and change: your preference for novelty, concepts and adaptation.
• Structure and detail: how strongly you plan, organise, check and follow procedures.
• Emotion and resilience: your typical response to pressure, setbacks and uncertainty.
• Drive: achievement, energy, competition and decisiveness.

How to prepare without faking a profile

1. Read the invitation. Identify whether it names OPQ, ADEPT-15, strengths, values or work style.
2. Use a workplace frame. Answer about typical professional behaviour, not how you act with friends.
3. Choose “usually,” not “occasionally.” Most people can remember an exception to every trait.
4. Accept trade-offs. Forced choice is designed so several statements may describe you.
5. Do not chase a universal ideal. A risk, sales, operations and research role can reward different patterns.

Personality versus situational judgement

These are frequently grouped together but should not be practised as the same test. A personality item asks which behaviour is most typical of you. A situational judgement test describes a workplace problem and asks which response is most or least effective. SJT preparation can teach scenario principles; personality preparation should focus on format familiarity and consistency.

Source notes

Format details come from SHL’s official OPQ fact sheet and Aon’s official ADEPT-15 overview. These products use proprietary scoring and item banks. Forge provides independent preparation and is not affiliated with SHL or Aon.

Frequently asked questions