In today's competitive talent landscape, a resume alone is a poor predictor of on-the-job success. While skills can be taught, the core behaviors, motivations, and cognitive styles that drive performance are harder to identify—and more critical than ever in agile, often remote, teams. How can organizations cut through the noise of traditional hiring to find candidates who will truly thrive?
This is where objective, science-backed assessments come in. Among them, the Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ) stands out as a time-tested and rigorously validated tool. The first version of the questionnaire was created by SHL in 1984 for production companies. Today, used by global leaders like Coca-Cola, IKEA, and Volvo, the OPQ isn't just another personality test; it's a psychometric instrument designed to predict workplace performance. But in an age of new HR tech, why does a tool with roots in the 1980s remain so trusted? The answer lies in relentless scientific validation and a proven return on investment.
Since its creation, the OPQ questionnaire has been constantly improved in order to stay one step ahead of developing assessment technology. The current version, OPQ32, is used by companies to improve the efficiency of several HR processes:
Hiring of new staff;
Identifying development needs;
Formation of personnel reserve;
Identifying potential leaders (HiPo);
Formation of effective teams;
Audit of talent;
Carrying out organizational changes.
The OPQ in the Modern Hiring Context
While the core principles of the OPQ are enduring, its application has become even more critical in today's evolving workplace. It provides a robust, data-driven solution to several contemporary talent challenges:
The shift to skills-based hiring: As companies focus more on competencies than just credentials, the OPQ excels at assessing transferable soft skills and inherent behavioral traits - such as problem-solving, influence, and adaptability - that are crucial for success across a wide range of roles.
Mitigating unconscious bias: The OPQ provides an objective, standardized data point that helps hiring teams look beyond \"gut feelings\" or cultural fit, fostering a more fair and equitable selection process by focusing on job-relevant potentials.
Predicting success in hybrid and remote roles: The questionnaire can profile for traits essential for remote work, including self-motivation, structured planning, and proactive communication, helping to identify candidates who will thrive in less supervised environments.
Building agile and resilient teams: In a time of rapid change, understanding the behavioral mix within a team is key. The OPQ helps managers form teams with complementary strengths and identify individuals with the resilience and flexibility to navigate organizational shifts.
What is the proof of OPQ's effectiveness?
Hundreds of thousands of people fill out OPQ annually. Why do companies trust it in matters related to the most valuable resource - their employees?
Over the past 30 years, SHL held a large number of studies in different countries and business sectors, in order to prove the effectiveness of the questionnaire in assessing employees' future success. Compared with other instruments, OPQ has high reliability and validity, which are the main quality criteria for psychometric assessment. We'll talk more about them.
Reliability equals accuracy
Imagine an archer. His arrows repeatedly hit the same point on a target. This archer is reliable. The reliability of a psychometric test indicates constant measurement accuracy. This indicator is very important for candidates' assessment because an unreliable test is meaningless. You need to know how accurate the results are to make realistic and relevant conclusions. In psychometrics, two main types of reliability are distinguished:
Sustainability of results and test-retest reliability - the probability of obtaining a similar result when passing a test repeatedly;
Internal consistency - shows how each individual test element is associated with the overall result.
OPQ meets both of these requirements. Recent studies indicate that its average value on the scale of reliability equals 0.81 (the minimum required value if 0.76). These data were recognized by the external independent evaluation of the British Psychological Society.
Return on Investment and validity
Validity defines to what extent test results are consistent with stated objectives. For HR the most important one is the validity of criteria, which is the correspondence of test results with predetermined employee performance criteria. For companies, this figure is important, because the validity of an assessment tool is directly linked to their return on investment ratio (ROI). The return on investment in the selection of each candidate is determined by multiplying the three following factors:
The difference in the benefits that are brought by high-performing and average employees;
The selection ratio (the percentage of hired candidates to the total number of applicants);
The validity of the tools used in the selection.
For example, ROI with the validity value of 0.3 is two times greater than the one with the validity value of 0.15. If you choose the assessment tool with greater validity, it is more likely to ensure that you recruit the best employees.
Criterion validity of the OPQ questionnaire has been confirmed by dozens of studies with the total of 5000 participants. In these studies, the real values of OPQ scales of a successful employee were compared with evaluation criteria selected by the employee's superior. All estimated values of correlation between the test results and the performance criteria were significant: OPQ has good validity and predicts work success.
Examples of research on OPQ32 criteria validity
The success of the supervisors in retail (258 participants in the study)
The study was conducted by an American retail company. It was necessary to identify the personal constructs that can predict the effectiveness of supervisors in the supply chain. Conductors used a two-part model that consisted of OPQ questionnaire and managers' evaluation of the company's own standard of competencies, which was previously studied in SHL. There were two major factors of success identified based on the analysis of this model: performance of tasks and relationships with people. The results showed that values of OPQ scales, that related to the successful execution of work tasks and establishing communication, clearly correlated with the managers' scores on the two selected factors.
The success of the hairdressers who work in beauty salons (253 study participants).
The study was also conducted by an American company. As in the previous study, the same external criteria for measuring success were used: managers' evaluation of \"task performance\" and \"relationships with people\". The results demonstrated a clear conceptual link between the two criteria and assessed values of their respective OPQ scales. In addition, certain OPQ scales significantly correlated with each criterion directly.
