Australia's Leading Test Publisher

Occupational Personality TestBuilt on the Big Five

Our flagship personality assessment shows you what a candidate does at work and what they are like to work with. It measures the Big Five, the model of personality decades of research have converged on, and comes in occupational and management versions so the report speaks to the role you are hiring for.

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Sample profileBig Five factors
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Nervous stress

Each factor is reported against Australian working-population norms and broken into the facets that matter for the role.

25+years of Australian research behind every assessment
Directregistered psychologist support on every engagement
Big Fivethe most replicated model of personality in the scientific literature
Rapidturnaround on reports, typically the same day
The model

Big Five Personality Test
No Other Model Comes Close

The Big Five is the model of personality that the scientific community has converged on. Over decades of independent research, the same five broad factors have emerged again and again, across languages, cultures, age groups and industries. It is the framework organisational psychologists use when they need to predict how someone will behave at work, because it is the one that has been shown to do so.

Type-based and colour-based tools sort people into a handful of boxes. Personality does not work that way. People sit at different points along each dimension, and it is the pattern across dimensions, down to the facet level, that tells you how a candidate will follow through, handle pressure, work with others and respond to change. Our personality assessments measure traits on continuous scales, compare them with Australian working-population norms, and report them in plain language against the demands of the role.

Openness

Curiosity, imagination and comfort with new ideas. Matters for learning agility, innovation and adapting to change.

Conscientiousness

Reliability, organisation, persistence and attention to detail. The strongest personality predictor of job performance across roles.

Extraversion

Energy, assertiveness and sociability. Shapes how a person influences, sells, presents and draws energy from others.

Agreeableness

Cooperation, trust and consideration for others. Predicts team fit, service orientation and how conflict is handled.

Nervous stress

How a person experiences pressure, worry and setbacks, and how quickly they recover. Central to stress tolerance and customer-facing work.

What a Big Five assessment gives you

  • Traits measured on continuous scales, not forced into a type
  • Facet-level detail beneath each of the five factors
  • Scores normed against Australian working populations
  • Established predictive validity for workplace performance
  • A response validity check on every completion
  • Stable results on re-test, so you can rely on them

What type and colour tools cannot

  • Sixteen or four categories cannot describe the variation between real candidates: trait scores are continuous, not bimodal5
  • Around half of respondents receive a different type when they re-take the test within weeks6
  • Designed for self-awareness and team development; the leading publisher's own guidelines advise against use in selection7,8
  • No meta-analytic evidence linking type to job performance comparable to the Big Five3,4
  • Typically no check on whether the candidate answered candidly9
Two versions

Occupational Personality Test
for Staff and for Managers

The same Big Five foundation is delivered in two versions so that the report reads against the right benchmark. The occupational version is written for roles without direct reports. The management version adds the leadership behaviours that decide whether someone can run a team, and compares the candidate with other managers rather than with the general working population.

Occupational version

Non-management roles: entry level through to experienced technical and specialist staff

Focuses on the day-to-day behaviours that separate dependable performers from the rest: following instructions, working steadily without supervision, keeping standards up under routine pressure and fitting into an established team.

What it measures

Reliability & follow-throughFollowing instructionsTeam fitStress toleranceAttention to detailCustomer orientationOpenness to feedbackResponse validity check

Best suited to

  • Customer service, administration and operations roles
  • Trades, technical and specialist positions
  • Graduate and early-career hiring
  • High-volume recruitment where consistency matters

Management version

Supervisors, team leaders, managers and senior management

Extends the Big Five profile into the behaviours that leadership depends on: making decisions with incomplete information, holding others to account, influencing without authority and staying steady when the team is not. Results are normed against a management population.

What it measures

DecisivenessDelegation & accountabilityInfluence & persuasionStrategic thinkingResilience under pressureDeveloping othersDrive for resultsResponse validity check

Best suited to

  • First-time supervisors and team leaders
  • Middle and senior management appointments
  • Internal promotion and succession decisions
  • Executive hiring, paired with cognitive ability and emotional intelligence
What you receive

A report written for the hiring decision, not a personality horoscope

Every personality assessment report is prepared by RightPeople's Sydney-based team of registered organisational psychologists and written for the person making the hiring decision. It opens with a plain-English psychologist summary, matches the candidate's profile against the capabilities the role demands, and closes with targeted follow-up questions so your interview probes the areas that need probing.

1

Psychologist summary

The candidate's strengths, risks and overall fit for the role in a page you can read before the interview.

2

Capability match

Each factor and facet mapped against the behaviours the role requires, with clear indicators of fit.

3

Targeted follow-up

Interview questions written for this candidate, aimed at the areas where the profile raises a question.

Personality tells you how. Cognitive ability tells you how well.

Personality assessment is strongest when it sits beside a cognitive ability test. Together they cover the two best-established predictors of job performance. Our standard packages combine both with emotional intelligence, work drivers and motivation and a response validity check at every level.

View Standard Packages
  • Cognitive ability and aptitude tests: logical, numerical, abstract and verbal reasoning
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Work drivers and motivation
  • Situational Judgement (SJT)
  • Build your own package, or run the personality assessment on its own
"Compared to the cost of a bad hire, using RightPeople's tests is insignificant."
AMT Group
FAQ

Personality assessment questions

What is a Big Five personality test?

A Big Five personality test measures the five broad traits that decades of research have shown describe personality across cultures: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and nervous stress. Each trait is scored on a continuous scale and broken into facets, giving a detailed picture of how a person is likely to behave at work rather than assigning them to a fixed type.

Why does RightPeople use the Big Five rather than a type-based tool?

The Big Five is the only model of personality with consistent evidence of predicting job performance, and it produces stable results on re-test. Type-based and colour-based tools were designed for self-awareness and team-building, not selection, and many people change category when they re-take them. For a hiring decision, RightPeople's organisational psychologists rely on the model the evidence supports.

What is the difference between the occupational and management versions?

Both versions measure the Big Five. The occupational version is written for non-management roles and focuses on reliability, following instructions, team fit and stress tolerance, compared with the Australian working population. The management version adds leadership behaviours such as decisiveness, delegation, influence and developing others, and compares the candidate with other managers.

Can a candidate fake a personality assessment?

Candidates can attempt to present themselves favourably, which is why every RightPeople personality assessment includes a response validity check. It flags patterns of socially desirable or inconsistent responding so the psychologist can interpret the profile with that in mind. Combined with targeted follow-up interview questions, this makes the assessment far harder to game than an interview alone.

How long does a personality assessment take and how quickly do we get the report?

Candidates complete the assessment online, at a time that suits them, in a single sitting of well under an hour. Reports are prepared by RightPeople's Sydney-based registered psychologists with rapid turnaround, typically the same day, and a psychologist is available to talk through any candidate's results with your hiring team.

Should personality be assessed on its own or with other tests?

Personality assessment can be run on its own, but it is most powerful alongside a cognitive ability test, because the two together cover the best-established predictors of job performance. RightPeople's standard packages combine personality with cognitive ability, emotional intelligence, work drivers and motivation and a response validity check, or you can build your own package around the personality assessment.

Hire on evidence, not impressions

Tell us about the role and a registered psychologist will recommend the right version and the right companion assessments.

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