Five words: Online, interactive, competency development report.

These words have never been used in the same sentence to describe any type of personality assessment output, ever. To that end, Hogan is proud to announce the launch of GMAC Reflect. Over the last 2 years Hogan (myself included) has worked alongside the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) to create Reflect, a self-directed customized learning experience for MBA students.

GMAC, as you may know, is the power behind the business school GMAT exam for prospective MBA students. However, Reflect was created in an effort to provide self development programs to their core market. Reflect is also very affordable because we know students will be buying it directly. A Reflect ID/login is valid for 3 years, so you can log back in and see the newest learning resources and text.

Reflect measures graduate students across 10 business competencies that aim to enhance professional interactions, job performance and career prospects. GMAC conducted a wide variety of focus groups and corporate surveys to solidify the key competencies that cover over 80% of existing corporate competency models. Ultimately, the differentiator here is that the assessment and the personal development tool are online and can be used without a facilitator or coach.

Each individual competency offers detailed information based on a person’s score as well as related learning resources that are meant to enhance your skills and behaviors. There are also targeted actionable tips to improve your performance. In true Hogan speak, Reflect also provides a list of 12 behaviors to start, stop, and keep doing based on your scores. Students can then add learning resources, recommended actions, and tips from the report to a customizable work plan. Lastly, Reflect offers a career benchmarking section where an individual can compare their own competency scores against high-performing professionals in 14 business careers. This feature is aimed at the competitive MBA student to fully understand how their own behaviors might be measuring up.

You don’t have to be in the professional world long before you will likely encounter some form of a competency model in your organization. While the development of an effective competency model is no small task, the end result is simple, easy to understand, and very effective at establishing a framework for success. When developed correctly and with the support of the organization, a competency model can be an effective foundation for strategic staffing, training and development, and performance management. However, that is where the simplicity ends.

At Hogan, we can effectively measure an individual’s performance level against an organization’s pre-determined competency model. Hogan has developed a systematic, scientific approach, leveraging 30+ years of criterion evidence, to map just about any competency to the personality constructs measured in Hogan’s assessment inventories. As a result, our clients have responded positively, and competency mapping has become a routine service provided by our research team. These robust competency mappings can be used to help organizations strategically select new hires and develop incumbents.

It is important to understand that the intersection of competencies, personality traits, and the behaviors described can be very complex. I always suggest that the organization clearly define the role of the competency model and the desired assessments in the context of the selection, succession, and/or development process. The most effective implementations I’ve seen include elements of both tools, not simply one or the other.

Through Hogan’s research process, we can develop a scoring algorithm which will accurately predict someone’s innate ability based on their responses to our core personality inventories. If you don’t have clear understanding of what underlying personality traits and values are influencing an individual’s ability, development efforts will stall. Without these key links of behavioral development, simply knowing how someone compares to your competency model only tells half the story.