Hogan Assessment: Sample Questions & Practice

What Is a Hogan Assessment?

Assessments provided by Hogan come in two varieties: those that test your cognitive or thinking abilities, and those used to evaluate your inner personality. Both are equally useful to employers as they help predict your potential performance based on your strengths, weaknesses, values, problem-solving skills, working style and attitudes. The Hogan family of tests include:

  • Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) – This test examines how you relate to others when you are at your best. It measures your normal or “bright-side” personality traits. 
  • Hogan Development Survey (HDS) – This assessment is used to measure your dark-side personality traits, i.e. how you react to stress in the workplace. 
  • Hogan Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) – This test measures your inner personality, i.e. your core goals, interests, values, and motives for success. 
  • Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory (HBRI) – This test evaluates both your strategic and tactical reasoning skills using verbal and logical reasoning, numerical reasoning, and abstract thinking questions. 
  • Judgment Assessment (Hogan-judgment) – This test combines many of the elements found in other Hogan tests to gain insight into both your cognitive abilities and personality traits. 

Get a closer look into the Hogan assessment test watching the following video:

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Hogan Personality Tests – HPI, HDS, & MVPI

The following Hogan assessment tests are intrinsically related as they each measure a different aspect of one's personality. Currently, there are three personality assessments, which include:

HPI

Number of questions: 220

Time Limit: Takes approximately 30-40 minutes to complete.

What makes this test unique: The Hogan Personality Inventory measures your normal or bright-side personality traits. Essentially, this test tells the employer how you will perform when you are at your best. This is explained in more detail below:

The Hogan Personality Inventory assessment measures your day-to-day personality, also known as the bright side. It assesses how you relate to others.

Employers will use this assessment to determine how well you work with others, whether you lead or follow, and if you are successful as a leader and as a follower. Answering options on the HPI are in a 4-point Likert scale, aka the “forced opinion” scale.

Your normal personality is assessed along with the following seven (7) primary scales:

  • Adjustment: Self-confidence, self-esteem, and working under pressure
  • Ambition: Desire to lead, initiative, and competitiveness
  • Sociability: The need for social interaction and extraversion
  • Interpersonal Sensitivity: Likeability, tact, and relationship maintenance
  • Prudence: Responsibility, self-discipline, and thoroughness
  • Inquisitive: Creativity, curiosity, and imagination
  • Learning Approach: Enjoyment of learning and ambition to keep up with current knowledge

The following is a sample statement taken from our complete Hogan Assessment Practice pack. And it's almost identical to a statement you'd see on a Hogan Assessment for manager positions:

After being by myself for a while, I really feel the need for other people.

A. Strongly Disagree

B. Disagree

C. Agree

D. Strongly Agree

How would you answer this?

Every role demands different qualities and tendencies. So, two people applying for two unrelated roles can answer this statement differently and still get hired.

In our Hogan Assessment PrepPack™, you'll get personalized feedback and study guides showing you how to properly answer according to your specific position or job level.

Note: Knowing how to approach the questions found on this test can only come through practice. It is crucial to familiarize yourself with the inner workings of the test to ensure a positive result on your test day.

HDS

Number of questions: 170

Time Limit: Takes approximately 15-20 minutes to complete.

What makes this test unique: This test measures how you may react to stressful situations in the workplace. This behavior can have a very negative impact on work performance, social interactions, and overall well-being.

The Hogan Development Survey evaluates your personality during times of stress, also known as dark side personality traits. It assesses how you manage relationships and issues in times of crisis. Employers use this assessment to ensure that you are not a risk to their company.

The Hogan Development Survey assesses the dark-side personality with the following eleven scales:

  • Excitable: Enthusiasm for working, as well as whether you are easily frustrated, moody, irritable, or inclined to give up on people/projects.
  • Skeptical: Alertness for signs of deceptive behavior in others and you ability to act when they are detected.
  • Cautious: Risk aversion, fear of failure, and avoidance of criticism.
  • Reserved: toughness, aloofness, standoffishness, and lack of concern for the feelings of others.
  • Leisurely: Stubbornness, uncooperativeness, self-serving
  • Bold: Seemingly fearless, confident, and self-assured, always expecting to succeed, unable to admit mistakes or learn from experience.
  • Mischievous: Seemingly bright, attractive, adventurous, risk-seeking, and limit-testing.
  • Colorful: Seemingly gregarious, fun, entertaining, and enjoying being in the spotlight.
  • Imaginative: Seemingly innovative, creative, possibly eccentric, and sometimes self-absorbed behavior.
  • Diligent: Hardworking, detail-oriented, having high standards of performance for self/others.
  • Dutiful: Coming across as a loyal and dependable employee.

 

Note: The main purpose of the Hogan Development Survey is to measure strengths that can turn into weaknesses under pressure, also known as “job derailers”. It’s a good idea to practice for the HDS to gain a better understanding of each of these dark side traits and what they will tell potential employers about you.

MVPI

Number of questions: 200

Time limit: Takes approximately 15-20 minutes

What makes this test unique: This test assesses your inner personality. This includes your core goals, interests, and values. It can also pick up on any unconscious biases you may have about people, projects, plans, and strategy.

The Hogan Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory assesses the motives behind your personality traits. It assesses your values, core goals, drives, and interests so employers can learn about what motivates you and in what job, position, and environment you will be most successful.

The Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) examines values along the following ten scales:

  • Recognition: desire for attention, approval, and praise.
  • Power: desire for success, accomplishment, status, and control.
  • Hedonism: orientation toward fun, pleasure, and enjoyment.
  • Altruism: desire to help others and contribute to the improvement of society.
  • Affiliation: need for and enjoyment of social interaction.
  • Tradition: need for ritual, rules, and ceremony and respect for history and established customs.
  • Security: need for stability, safety, and risk minimization
  • Commerce: an interest in earning money, making, investments, and finding business opportunities.
  • Aesthetics: self-expression and a concern for the quality and appearance of work products.
  • Science: reflects an interest in rationality, research, technology, and innovation.

The Hogan MVPI also assesses the following five themes that predict how you will fit into the culture of your future workplace:

  • Lifestyles
  • Beliefs
  • Occupational Preferences
  • Aversions
  • Preferred Associates

 

Although we do not currently offer a tailored PrepPack™ for the Hogan MVPI, our Hogan-style Personality Test Preparation pack includes everything you need to familiarize yourself with this test format. From full practice tests, single trait practice, study guides and more – we’ve got you covered!

Hogan Cognitive Ability Test

Below you will find information about the Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory (HBRI):

Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory (HBRI)

Question types: Verbal reasoning and logic, numerical reasoning, abstract thinking

Number of questions: 24

Time limit: This test is not timed, however, the time you take to answer each question will be compared to the times of other applicants.

The HBRI measures two specific skills:

Tactical Reasoning - your problem-solving capability and your ability to deduce practical conclusions upon learning facts. Those who are disciplined, steady, and precise tend to achieve high scores in this area.

Strategic Reasoning - your ability to detect gaps, logical flaws, and errors in graphs, memos, written reports, data tables, diagrams, and numerical projections. Those who score high in this area tend to be curious and interested in feedback.

On the HBRI, you’ll encounter three types of questions:

Verbal Reasoning & Logic: Verbal questions might involve word analogies or logic riddles.

Numerical Reasoning: Numerical reasoning questions will ask you to calculate distance, area, and percentage using data from tables, charts, and graphs.

Abstract Thinking: Abstract logic questions will ask you to manipulate 2-D and 3-D figures.

The score report provided by Hogan to the employer goes into great detail regarding your cognitive style. These scales include both qualitative and quantitative thinking abilities. These thinking styles are broken into four (4) different categories:

I. Expedient Thinker - Tendency to analyze problems in an opportunistic way, to choose answers that are quick and easy, to make intuitive rather than reflective choices, leading to poor-quality solutions.

II. Contextual Thinker - Tendency to identify important problems but ignore the obstacles to their solution and minimize the importance of the detailed steps needed to solve them.

III. Analytic Thinker - Tendency to focus on a problem and the obstacles to its solution, without putting the problem in a larger context and evaluating the need for its immediate solution.

IV. Critical Thinker - Tendency to contextualize problems correctly in terms of the short- and long-term benefits of their solution, then solve them effectively.

 

Preparing for the HBRI will give you the tools necessary to understand and quickly work through each question found on the test. Strengthen your critical reasoning skills using our specialized HBRI-style PrepPack™ to land the job you want.

Combined Hogan Assessment (Judgement)

What makes this test unique: This test combines both cognitive ability and personality questions. The personality test includes elements from other Hogan tests including the measurement of both bright side and dark side personality traits.

The Hogan Judgement Assessment is comprised of verbal and numerical reasoning, non-cognitive attribute scales that assesses how an individual approaches decision-making, and an assessment that measures a person's post-decision reaction and their response to negative feedback.

The Hogan Judgment Model compartmentalizes judgement into three specific categories: learning, deciding, and adapting. Compartmentalizing these three categories, in this specific way, allows candidates to show employers that more than a high IQ is desirable. It showcases the importance of good judgement and sound reasoning.

  • Learning – Assesses how you prefer to learn, whether it be with words, images, or with numbers and symbols. This category measures how quickly you process complex information and the effect it has on your decision-making process.
  • Deciding –Assesses how you make decisions. Our decision-making process is affected by our personalities, amongst many other factors, and can create bias when making decisions.
  • Adapting – Assesses how you react to decisions. When making a good or bad decision, because both are inevitable in life, how will you react? Will you take responsibility and accept the results, or push the blame onto others?

Once you complete this assessment, the Hogan Judgement report provides a detailed look at your information-processing methods, decision-making process, reaction(s) to feedback, and coaching

Hogan Scoring Method

For the most part, Hogan assessments are scored using normative test results and percentile ranking systems. This means that your test results are compared to those of other applicants, then given a percentile placement ranking your scores to those of other applicants. Take this sample score report for the Hogan HDS for example:

Hogan Assessment

As you can see, this percentile ranking system can tell the employer quite a lot about you as an applicant. Keep in mind that this system is usually based upon the role you have applied to. Knowing what the employer is looking for in this regard will help you in preparing for the actual exam.

How to Pass Your Hogan Assessment

JobTestPrep's Hogan personality practice test pack allows you to become familiar with the format of personality tests such as the Hogan HPI and HDS, thus helping you formulate your answers to portray yourself positively throughout the test. We also offer practice materials stylized after the HBRI (Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory) to help. Our customized PrepPacks™ provide exclusive practice materials that offer more detailed and step-by-step Hogan assessment tips and tools.

Related Links

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