Reflect™ by GMAC, Powered by Hogan, a self-assessment and development tool that evaluates personal and professional soft skills imperative in today's workplace, was named a Top HR Product of 2013 by Human Resource Executive® magazine. GMAC and Hogan were honored with this distinction on Monday, October 7, 2013, at the 16th Annual HR Technology Conference & Expo's Top HR Products of 2013 Awards Luncheon at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas.

"This is a terrific honor and wonderful acknowledgement from such a leading authority as Human Resource Executive," said Andrew Martelli, GMAC vice president, new product development. "In developing Reflect, GMAC and Hogan set out to create something not only grounded in science but also accessible with or without a facilitator, clearly presented in the language of business and directed at professionals or students looking to strengthen their soft skills to further their educational or professional aspirations."

The Top HR Products of 2013 contest aims to acknowledge the best and most innovative human resources products of the year. The editors of Human Resource Executive reviewed and assessed all submissions and product demonstrations to identify the HR industry's most groundbreaking solutions, evaluating products based on their ease of use, innovation and value added to the HR profession. Previous winners include The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Interactive Edition and Power Resume Search by Monster Worldwide.

Today's young professionals must be prepared with not only the technical knowledge, but also the soft skills and self-awareness that are often indicative of success in management roles. To meet this demand, GMAC and Hogan developed Reflect, the only product of its kind that combines world-class Hogan personality assessments with reporting and self-development advice tailored to the user.

"Reflect by GMAC is unique to the market," said Ryan Ross, vice president of Global Alliances at Hogan. "This solution gives today's entry-level professionals the ability to understand their strengths, identify areas for improvement and work to develop their skills proactively to perform better and start on the right path for success. We are honored to receive such recognition for the innovation it brings to the HR industry."

Reflect is an interactive, customizable competency solution available online. Reflect provides a personalized action plan, career development resources and a benchmarking section so participants can compare their scores against high-performing professionals across 14 different career paths.

"Human Resource Executive has been evaluating HR products and conducting this competition for 25 years," explained David Shadovitz, editor of Human Resource Executive. "Our goal has always been to identify products and services that clearly offer value to the HR community while demonstrating innovation. With Reflect, Hogan and GMAC have shown how assessments can help even the most recent entrants to the workforce gain the strategic insight to guide their own careers and reach their professional goals."

Hogan and the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) partnered to launch Reflect by GMAC, the first self-directed, personality-based development tool designed to bring the power of self-awareness to B-school students.

Reflect evaluates personal and professional qualities deemed imperative in today’s workplace by 800 corporate recruiters. It provides concrete action items to help individuals learn more about themselves, improve their strengths, and address their weaknesses. The Reflect tool is the only interactive platform that goes beyond results to provide a personalized action plan, library, and benchmarking data from 14 job functions.

The assessment measures 10 key competencies:

• Innovation - generates new and unique ideas
• Operational Thinking - works efficiently and effectively
• Decision Making - selects best course of action
• Strategic Vision - combines own ideas with others
• Strategic Self-Awareness - recognizes own strengths and weaknesses
• Resilience - performs well under pressure
• Drive - holds high standards for self and others
• Interpersonal Intuition - adjusts communications to audience
• Valuing Others - builds trust-based relationships
• Collaboration - promotes team accomplishments

More on Reflect by GMAC, powered by Hogan

Harvard Business Review blogger, Jack Zenger, recently wrote “we wait too long to train our leaders.” In his post Zenger points out the discrepancy between when individuals first take on leadership roles and when they first receive leadership training. When looking at data from over 17,000 leaders across the globe, the average age an individual became a leader was 30, yet the average age for entering leadership training was 42. Why does this gap exist?

Some critics have pointed the finger at business schools, claiming they focus on developing “hard” business skills while doing little to develop their graduates’ “soft” leadership skills. These critics assert that new managers use their MBA skills marginally or not at all in their first management assignments. As such, MBA program administrators and faculty can no longer assume that graduates will successfully motivate and lead people in the business world without first developing these skills. In fact, companies prefer to recruit graduates who have been exposed to soft skill leadership development while still in school.

The Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) concluded that business schools could enhance their relevancy by devoting more attention to soft skill competencies and recently developed Reflect, an online development tool aimed at addressing this gap. Also, MBA programs have started implementing leadership development courses into their curriculums. Several of U.S. News’s top ranked MBA programs describe their leadership development courses on their websites to attract prospective students. Business schools appear to be working to close the gap by providing their students with leadership training early in their careers.

Interestingly, a similar trend may be happening in the leadership ranks within universities themselves. A recent Wall Street Journal article quoted Lucy Apthorp Leske, co-director of the education and not-for-profit practice at Witt/Kieffer, as saying, “There has been a real shift to the professionalization of higher education administration.” She explained that universities are putting more weight on factors like business sense and creative problem-solving rather than just research prowess for their leaders.

So while Zenger has a point, universities seem to be addressing this gap in more ways than one, working to equip leaders with the skills they need to be successful in the future.