Executive Assessment
We are qualified and experienced across a range of the leading executive assessments, including Hogan, Saville, OPQ, Insights and others. Each has its strengths and its blind spots. Rather than fit your need to an instrument, we meet with you first to understand what you want the assessment layer to give you, whether that is confidence in a hiring decision, a clearer view of succession, or a foundation for leadership and team development. Only then do we recommend an approach.
We hold assessments lightly. A profile is a starting point for a conversation, not a verdict, and it is never sent to someone without a trained practitioner to make sense of it. We don't use assessments to score people against a predetermined picture of what good looks like; a behavioural profile describes someone's natural approach, not their competence. Our interest is in helping a person understand that approach and become more effective with it.
Hiring
Senior appointments require a significant investment of both time and money and adding an executive assessment is an effective way of derisking that investment by adding rigour to a process that otherwise rests heavily on interview impressions.
We begin by understanding how quickly the process needs to move and where within it an assessment will be most valuable. Assessing at longlist answers a different question from assessing at final shortlist. Once timing, role and context have been considered, we recommend which assessment is suitable.
How It Works
The hiring manager and/or selection committee are briefed on the assessment, what it measures and how the output will be used.
Candidates complete an online assessment and take part in a profile debrief with a member of our team.
A report summary is shared with the hiring manager and/or selection committee, together with tailored interview questions.
We provide insight into how the candidates compare with one another, weighed against what the role requires.
We can also debrief the hiring manager or selection committee virtually, walking through the assessments and what emerged in the candidate conversations.
A hiring process asks whether someone can do a role; succession asks whether they can grow into one, and how far off that is.
Where a postholder is in place, we profile both the current postholder and their intended successor. Setting the two side by side reveals where the successor's instincts already mirror what the role demands and where they diverge. We then facilitate a conversation between the two about how to prepare for and approach the role. Any confidence or competence gaps that surface become the material for coaching.
Where no postholder exists, we work with the line manager or divisional director to understand what the role asks of the person day to day. We don't score the successor against a template. We profile their natural preferences and use the two together to open a conversation about how they are likely to approach the role, and where they may need to work differently. That becomes a development pathway explored in one-to-one coaching.
Succession Planning
Leadership and Team Development
An assessment is a good way to begin a coaching relationship. It gives coach and leader shared language early and lets the work move quickly to what matters. We use it as a starting point and then set it aside; the coaching is about the person, not the profile.
At team level, profiling each member and viewing the results together reveals the constellation of personalities in the room: the commonalities that make the team cohesive, the differences that make it capable, and where its collective strengths and development areas lie.
These sessions are enjoyable and disarming, and often the first time colleagues have talked openly about how they each prefer to work, decide and disagree. For a team setting out towards mutual understanding and high performance, it is a strong place to start.