Potential Indicator: 1 PLUS 6 PLUS 3
The potential indicator measures stable characteristics of a person or characteristics that are difficult to change in order to make a reliable prediction of the person´s potential: cognitive abilities, personality and job motives.
KEY FACTS
- Time required: 60 min.
- Evaluation: overall result on a scale of 1-5, individual results
- Languages: German, English
Service
- Providing and managing links for the potential indicator (GER, ENG)
- Shortening the Live-AC – outsourcing of specific process elements
- Providing a differentiated results report
The potential indicator in detail
Combination of four psychological questionnaires (short form):
Can-do vs. will-do components in the Potential Indicator
Job performance is dependent on can-do and will-do components (Campbell, 1991). Therefore, an HR selection system should measure both can-do components (especially cognitive skills) and will-do components (personality) and use them for the prediction. Based on various studies that have investigated the relationship between certain potential indicators and success / performance in the workplace, it has now been possible to obtain reliable findings on success-relevant can-do and will-do components. Based on this, our Potential Indicator (PI) measures the totality of these various potential indicators in a compact form within a single scientifically proven questionnaire and test procedure. According to our 1+6+3 approach, these are cognitive abilities (1), personality traits (6 = “Big Five” + integrity) and professional basic motives (3 = performance, affiliation, power).
1 | Cognitive (can-do-) skills
Various meta-analyses show that intelligence (general mental ability) is a significant predictor for work performance and learning performance (see right).
The influence of intelligence on work performance is mainly mediated by work-relevant knowledge. At the same time, however, the quality and quantity of work-relevant knowledge is an indicator for learning processes. Thus, work performance benefits from intelligence because the latter increases the effectiveness and efficiency of learning processes.
Our “1 plus 6 plus 3 Potential Indicator” contains two cognitive subtests, each of which contains tasks related to the professional context. In the numerical part, the aim is to evaluate job-related tables under tight time limits. In the verbal part, the task is to analyze text passages in the form of e-mails under time pressure and to derive correct conclusions.
6 | Personality traits (will-do-components)
Personality influences a person’s motivational preferences, i.e. their attention as well as the direction, intensity and persistence of their behavior in different situations of working and organizational life. Therefore, the second part of our Potential Indicator aims to assess individual development in six central (“Big Six”) dimensions of personality (stress perception, dominance, learning agility, social compatibility, self-discipline, integrity). Due to the independence of the personality traits (Big Six) from 1. intelligence (general mental ability) and 2. expertise, personality provides a high degree of incremental validity (gain) in the prognosis of professional performance.
3 | Job Motives
There is a total of three basic motives that affect us in professional activities: The possibility of exchange and contact with colleagues (affiliation motive), the possibility of showing performance (performance motive) and the possibility of exerting influence (influence or power motive). In addition to these approach components of the basic motives, there is also an avoidance component in each case: Fear of rejection, avoidance of failure or avoidance of loss of control.
Generally, the approach components should be rather high and the avoidance components rather low. Above all, however, the assessment of the individual characteristics serves to compare external conditions and requirements of the target position with the motivational preferences of the person.
