What are personality assessments?
Personality assessments measure the traits, qualities, and behaviors that define an individual's personality. They help predict future behavior and evaluate performance at work by identifying strengths, weaknesses, behavioral preferences, and potential areas for development. Personality assessments come in various response formats, including Likert scales, forced-choice scales, semantic differential scales, and projective techniques. Since there are no right or wrong answers, these tools are often referred to as ‘questionnaires’ or ‘inventories’ rather than tests.
Explore our personality assessment offerings
Comprehensive personality assessments for a holistic talent view
Assess the full spectrum of personality traits with our assessments
Desirable personality traits
Empathy, resilience, integrity, accountability, and adaptability; attributes that foster a collaborative, trustworthy, and high-performing work environment.
Core personality traits
Openness to experience, conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion, and agreeableness; foundational traits that shape an individual's consistent behavior across contexts.
Work style-related traits
Goal orientation, communication style, decision-making approach, stress response, and teamwork preferences; elements that influence day-to-day performance and role effectiveness.
Dark personality traits
Skepticism, impulsivity, manipulativeness, entitlement, and risk-taking; traits that may surface under pressure and impact interpersonal dynamics and leadership behavior.
Drive better people decisions with personality insights
Predict workplace behavior
Gain actionable insights into how individuals will likely act in real-world work scenarios, from collaboration and leadership to adaptability and accountability.
Enhance hiring efficiency and performance
Match candidates to roles based on behavioral alignment and cultural fit, not just skills or experience.
Identify and nurture future leaders
Discover individuals with high potential for leadership by evaluating traits linked to influence, strategic thinking, and emotional regulation.
Create custom learning programs
Design development journeys tailored to each individual’s personality profile, boosting long-term growth.
Online personality tests for end-to-end talent strategies
Mercer | Mettl Personality Map
It is a contemporary, evidence-based personality assessment tool that seeks in-depth measurement of critical, work-relevant personality traits and behavioral tendencies. It is well-suited for assessing your leaders' personality traits and behavioral competencies.
Type of tool: Normative Psychometric Assessment
Scientific theory: Mercer | Mettl's four-factor model (self, people, goal and lead)
Scaling method used: Likert scale
Reliability (Cronbach Alpha): Median reliability is .90
Validity: Convergent validity: .30-.51
Criterion-related validity: .25-.51
Mercer | Mettl Personality Map Forced Choice
A modified version of the original Mercer | Mettl Personality Map (MPM), this multi-dimensional, partially ipsative assessment measures 28 distinct traits, providing invaluable insights into candidates' personalities and behaviors. MPM-FC also reduces socially desirable responses as it employs a forced choice format, ensuring an authentic review of the personality profiles of individuals.
Type of tool: Normative Psychometric Assessment
Scientific theory: The big five model of personality traits
Scaling method used: Likert scale
Reliability (Intra-class correlation coefficient): .51- .75
Validity: Convergent validity: .33-.77
Mercer | Mettl Dark Personality Inventory
MDPI is designed in partnership with the Society for Human Resource Management (SRHM) to assess the dark personality traits of your workforce and partners. The dark personality trait inventory contains six traits: opportunism, self-obsession, insensitivity, temperamental, impulsiveness, and thrill-seeking.
Type of tool: Normative Psychometric Assessment
Scientific theory: Dark triad theory
Scaling method used: Likert scale
Reliability (Cronbach Alpha): Median reliability is 0.76
Validity: Convergent validity: 0.865
Find suitable candidates and nurture future leaders with personality assessments
Discover how our assessments help your organization across the talent lifecycle
Talent acquisition
Lateral hiring
Assess experienced professionals for behavioral fit, team compatibility, and alignment with your organizational culture.
Campus hiring
Identify promising candidates early by evaluating adaptability, collaboration, and learning agility.
Talent development
Leadership development
Map personality traits to leadership competencies to build programs that enhance influence, decision-making, and emotional intelligence.
Succession planning
Build a strong leadership pipeline by aligning personality insights with readiness and potential for future leadership roles.
Hi-po identification
Discover individuals with the drive, agility, and growth orientation needed to take on critical, high-impact roles in the future.
Skill gap analysis
Identify workforce strengths and areas for improvement to design targeted upskilling and reskilling programs that drive organizational success.
Our tests are tailored to organizational needs across geographies and industries.
6000+
global clients
25+
industries
200+
job roles
300+
skills tested
150K+
questions
20+
languages
Customizable personality tests backed by scientific theories
All our personality assessments are grounded in research and refined by data.
Big Five Theory
Also called the Five-Factor Model, the theory evaluates individuals across five broad dimensions: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability. These traits offer a reliable framework for understanding work behavior, interpersonal dynamics, and role alignment.
Mercer | Mettl's Four-Factor Model
A model that categorizes 28 personality traits into four broad factors: self, people, goal, and lead. These traits give a holistic view of an individual, helping organizations identify role fit, leadership potential, and alignment with culture.
Dark Triad Theory
The theory explores three distinct personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. These traits, while not always visible, can influence behavior, decision-making, and interpersonal relationships, especially in high-pressure or competitive environments.
Built by experts, compliant with global psychometric standards
Our assessments are developed by in-house teams of industrial-organizational psychologists, psychometricians & data scientists
Well-researched tools
Based on widely accepted ability models
Designed for corporates
High correlation with on-the-job performance
Flags ingenuine responses
Impression management, central tendency, extreme responses
High reliability and validity
Robust psychometric properties
Assessments designed by psychologists with global memberships
Aptitude tests that adhere to leading psychometric and employment standards
Our personality tests are normed across demographics and geographies
All our assessments undergo rigorous norming to ensure fairness, accuracy, and relevance across industries and roles. Our assessments are normed on a large sample of respondents drawn from different geographies - India, USA, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, South Africa and South-East Asia (sample representative of varying age groups, genders, job levels, occupations and industries).
Building relationships
![Building a Successful Sales Team with CP Plus [Client Testimonial]](https://img.youtube.com/vi/crNQjZJ0vfE/hqdefault.jpg)
We had short timelines in which we had to scale up our workforce. From customized solutions, ease of usability, building an in-depth understanding of the client’s problem to seamless integration with our applicant tracking system, Mercer | Mettl’s assessments ticked all the checkboxes in our wishlist and delivered within our timelines. There is no better validation than what we have witnessed - ou
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- Arpan Anand
CHRO, Aditya Infotech Limited (CP PLUS)
![Modern Foods Industry Success Story [Client Testimonial]](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Ozwop59lbh4/hqdefault.jpg)
The validity of Mercer | Mettl's assessments is exceptionally robust. It enabled us to funnel people who were precisely the type we needed. Mercer | Mettl helped us to accurately identify high-potential candidates within our internal team.
- Sonal Kapur Sinha
CHRO, Modern Foods
![Tata Fiber Success Story [Client Testimonial]](https://img.youtube.com/vi/A7I0R8PVWS0/hqdefault.jpg)
"It is like going to the best doctors, the best in their field, who diagnose your problem and present an accurate medical history. Then, you are more likely to take their future recommendations seriously. We believe Mercer | Mettl's psychometric assessments are like those top-notch doctors you can have in this space, promising the highest validity and reliability. We need to extend these L&D upgra
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- Amit Rai
Head-HR, Tata Play Fiber
Customer success stories
Here’s how we helped our customers transform their strategies and build winning teams
About
CP PLUS, India's leading tech security solutions provider with a strong presence in over 60 countries, was established in 2007 in Germany. With its range of advanced security and surveillance solutions, CP PLUS is actively altering the surveillance and security landscape.
Business challenges
- A hiring strategy to reduce overall hiring time.
- A practical solution to lower the attrition rate.
- A solution to ascertain the credibility of the recruits.
Solution
- Leveraged Mercer | Mettl Personality Inventory (MPI) to evaluate desirable personality traits for sales roles.
- Utilized the Mercer | Mettl Sales Profiler to identify and assess critical sales competencies for hiring sales professionals.
- Used Mercer | Mettl's online platform, with advanced features, to streamline the hiring process.
Impact
- A significant reduction of up to 50% was observed in the attrition rate.
- The time needed for hiring was reduced by more than 75%.
- The quality of hires for the sales department significantly improved.
About
Modern Foods, a brand that introduced the concept of bread to India, was launched in 1965 as Modern Bakeries (India) Limited. It later rebranded as Modern Foods and branched into newer portfolios with multiple product offerings in the bread and cake domain. The company has 100,000 stores, manufacturing in 40 factories across India.
Business challenges
- A standardized and focused sales hiring strategy to build a high-performing sales unit
- Identifying high-potentials from its existing sales team.
Solution
- A virtual assessment and development center was implemented for easy scalability, logistical comfort, and ease of access for candidates.
- Optimum job performance and future potential forecast with tasks and activities simulating the actual job environment.
- An assessment battery containing psychometric, cognitive, and situational judgment tests, with an external assessor.
- Immediate insightful reports to make timely decisions for organizational restructuring and workforce optimization.
Impact
- Reduction in new-hire attrition in sales by 33%
- Improvement in screening accuracy by 66%
- Improvement in performance of 75% of candidates hired through Mercer | Mettl’s assessments
About
Averda is an industry leader in waste management services, operating across emerging markets worldwide. The company specializes in cleaning, collecting, and recycling all forms of waste across industries. Averda's teams of over 14,000 professionals have been serving millions daily across countries in The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC), South Africa, North Africa, UK and India, among others.
Business challenges
- A comprehensive virtual recruitment system to assess candidates holistically
- A customizable portfolio of assessments to support stack ranking when hiring
- Well-normed psychometric assessments to ensure fair selection criteria
Solution
- Virtual Assessment Center with real-life professional scenarios to suit the customer’s requirements.
- Mercer | Mettl’s virtual interview platform for holistic candidate evaluation.
- Accommodating norm group requirements in advanced psychometric and cognitive assessments.
Impact
- Mercer | Mettl helped the customer assess, interview and hire candidates across nine countries.
- The simplified solutions helped hire highly agile candidates across three job experience levels: beginners, mid-level and leaders.
- Holistic assessment reports have resulted in a 99% success rate in customer global recruitment.
FAQs
Personality tests expose candidates to questions that tag them into specific 'types' based on their preferences, behavioral patterns, attitudes, etc. One of the most common uses of personality tests is for hiring. These personality test tools provide a comprehensive view of prospective hires that helps understand where the candidates might be best placed in a company, how to address skill gaps in different teams, and what leadership style senior executives might adopt to drive high team performance. Therefore, the main objective of personality tests is to find actionable insights that help make informed talent decisions.
Personality tests are commonly used in workplaces to understand how individuals think, feel, and behave. These assessments provide valuable insights into a person’s work style, interpersonal approach, and suitability for specific roles or responsibilities.
Some widely used types of personality tests include the Big Five Personality Test, which assesses core traits—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability. Another example is the DISC Assessment, which focuses on four behavioral dimensions—dominance, influence, steadiness, and compliance.
Personality testing in the workplace is paramount, whether it's about providing vital insights into hiring decisions or furnishing objective insights into employee training, development, career advancement, etc. Personality tests for employment can help assess the complete spectrum of personality traits, from positive to dark characteristics, making them ideal tools for selection and organizational development. Personality tests are a surefire way to assess critical behavioral competencies for all roles across industries.
Personality tests evaluate personality traits—such as openness to experience, conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion, and agreeableness (commonly known as the Big Five traits). Some assessments also explore deeper layers such as motivation, interpersonal style, leadership potential, and even dark traits like impulsivity or resistance to change.
In workplace contexts, personality tests help understand how someone communicates, handles stress, works in teams, adapts to change, and makes decisions. This insight allows organizations to make more informed hiring, development, and succession planning decisions, ultimately leading to better team dynamics, role fit, and employee engagement.
