What a Hogan assessment actually measures
A Hogan assessment is not one test. Hogan Assessments publishes several instruments, and employers usually send 1 to 3 of them: the HPI for everyday working style, the HDS for behaviour under strain, the MVPI for values, and the HBRI for reasoning. Hogan states there is no ideal score.
Before you read a single score
Hogan's own FAQ puts it plainly: "There is no such thing as an ideal score or personality profile." Every report is written to show strengths and potential risk factors together, for everybody.
What is a Hogan assessment?
Hogan assessment The family name for the instruments published by Hogan Assessments, a firm founded in 1987 by Robert and Joyce Hogan. Three of them are personality inventories. One is a reasoning test. Employers license them separately.
A link arrives from your employer or its distributor. Each personality inventory takes 15 to 20 minutes on average, and you may be asked to complete more than one in a single sitting.
The four Hogan instruments, side by side
| HPI | HDS | MVPI | HBRI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What Hogan says it measures | The bright side: how we relate to others when we are at our best | The dark side: qualities that emerge in times of increased strain | Core goals, values, drivers and interests | Reasoning style: evaluating data, deciding, solving problems |
| Scales | 7 primary scales, 42 subscales | 11 scales, 33 subscales | 10 scales, 5 subscales each | 2 dimensions: qualitative and quantitative |
| Time Hogan publishes | 15 to 20 minutes | 15 to 20 minutes | 15 to 20 minutes | Hogan's pages give 25 to 30 minutes and about 35 minutes |
| Right answers? | No. A self-description | No. A self-description | No. A self-description | Yes. A reasoning test is scored for correctness |
| What it is usually read for | Everyday working style and fit to the work itself | How someone may behave under pressure | Whether the environment matches what drives you | How someone approaches business problems |
Working out which one you have been sent
- Asked how you relate to people at your best: that points to the HPI
- Asked about behaviour under strain and pressure: that points to the HDS
- Asked what you value and want from an employer: that points to the MVPI
- Asked questions that have a correct answer: that is the HBRI, the reasoning test
- You can be sent more than one, so check the total time before you start
- Ask the recruiter which inventories are included
- Ask whether you will be shown your own results afterwards
What the Hogan Personality Inventory measures
The HPI is the everyday one, and the reason most people search for the Hogan personality inventory by name. Hogan describes the bright side of personality as how we relate to others when we are at our best. Seven primary scales carry it: Adjustment, Ambition, Sociability, Interpersonal Sensitivity, Prudence, Inquisitive and Learning Approach. Beneath them sit 42 subscales.
It was built in the 1980s on the five-factor model of personality and on socioanalytic theory, which holds that getting along with others and getting ahead in the social hierarchy are the dominant themes of social life. Hogan expanded the five factors to seven dimensions to predict job performance, and states the inventory has been validated for use in more than 1,000 research studies.
The HDS scales, and what a high score is flagging
Excitable
In ordinary use it names a temperament. Here it is one of 11 scale labels, and Hogan's public product page names the scales without defining them.
What behaviour does this scale describe at work?
Skeptical
Everyday scepticism is a thinking habit people value. The scale sits in a set Hogan says describes qualities emerging under increased strain.
Is a high score here a risk in this specific role?
Bold
Read as praise in most job adverts. Here it belongs to the same set of strain-related qualities, so the report is not paying you a compliment.
What would managing this well look like day to day?
Mischievous
Sounds playful and informal. It is a technical label on an instrument, not a character judgement about you.
Which scales matter most for the role I applied for?
Colorful
Sounds purely positive. Like every other HDS scale, it is grouped with the qualities Hogan says can disrupt relationships and damage reputations.
How does my score compare with the norm group?
Diligent
The one name that sounds like an unqualified virtue, which is exactly why a high score on it surprises people when the report comes back.
Where does this help, and where does it get in the way?
Hogan states its tests are "not diagnostic or clinical tools, which means we don't use them to identify or diagnose any sort of clinical disorders."
Why the dark side is not a diagnosis
The name does most of the damage. Hogan's own framing of these qualities is that they can disrupt relationships, damage reputations and derail people's chances of success. That is a description of what happens at work under strain, not a clinical finding, and Hogan says so directly on its personality tests page.
This is also why the HDS is the instrument people mean when they talk about a Hogan leadership test. Several of the 11 scale names, Bold and Diligent among them, read as compliments in a job advert. The report is not using them that way.
How Hogan scores are reported
- Scores come back in percentile format, not as a mark out of 100
- A percentile is your position against a sample of working adults, nothing more
- Hogan norms the HPI and HDS on over 100,000 working adults, the MVPI on over 65,000
- Hogan says individuals need not retake the inventories, though some employers set a retest policy
- Whether you see your own results is decided by your organisation's system administrator
What actually happens after you click the link
- The invitation arrives Usually after a first conversation rather than before it. The email will say which instruments are included, or the recruiter can tell you if it does not.
- You complete 1 to 3 inventories Budget 15 to 20 minutes for each personality inventory and longer for the HBRI. Hogan says you can stop the assessment process at any time, and your progress is saved. Hogan publishes average completion times rather than a time limit.
- Results come back as percentiles Hogan reports scores in percentile format against norms of working adults. A percentile places you relative to that group, which is why there is no pass mark to clear.
- Someone certified reads the report Hogan states its foundational certification workshop qualifies professionals to administer its assessments, covering the HPI, HDS and MVPI. A gate like that tends to push an instrument later in the process.
- It shapes the next interview Hogan tells employers its output includes recommended interview questions alongside narratives on strengths and weaknesses. Expect the result to give someone things to ask you about.
Taking a Hogan assessment
Do
- Answer as the person you already are at work, not the person in the job advert
- Find somewhere you will not be interrupted before you start
- Use the pause if you need it, since Hogan saves your progress
- Ask which inventories are being sent, so you can set aside the right amount of time
Do not
- Buying a practice pack for the personality inventories, which have no right or wrong answers
- Answering strategically. Hogan says people who try often get worse job-fit scores
- Reading a high HDS score as a diagnosis of anything
- Treating a percentile as a mark out of 100, or as a score you passed or failed
Where US employment law sits on hiring tests
- The EEOC adopted the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures in 1978, with Labor, Justice and OPM
- A procedure with disparate impact must be job-related and consistent with business necessity
- Under the ADA, reasonable accommodations extend to how a test is administered
- The EEOC advises validating a test for the positions and purposes it is used for
- This is general information about the guidance, not legal advice for your process
What a Hogan assessment cannot tell you
Hogan is explicit about what it is built on. It distinguishes identity, "the story we tell ourselves about ourselves", from reputation, "what everyone else thinks of us". Identity, it argues, is frequently changing and often self-serving, which makes it a poor basis for assessment, while reputation is more stable and more useful for predicting job performance.
So the output is a prediction about how someone tends to work. It is not a record of what they have done. No inventory can tell you whether the migration on page 2 of a resume actually shipped, or who did the work. Those are different questions and they need different evidence.
A predicted tendency is not a verified claim
A scorecard from a live interview: criteria scored out of 5, an overall out of 100, and resume claims marked against the evidence.
This is the other half of the evidence, and it comes from asking. On The Cognitive, a live AI video interview works from a rubric fixed for the role while the questions adapt to each answer, and marks each resume claim verified, refuted or unclear with the evidence behind it.
Build the interview the assessment feeds
Interview question generator · Rubric generator · What is a structured interview? · Predictive Index assessment
Frequently asked questions
What is a Hogan assessment test?
People asking what is Hogan assessment, or what a Hogan test is, are usually holding an invitation to one of several instruments published by Hogan Assessments, founded in 1987 by Robert and Joyce Hogan. Its assessments page names the bright side of personality, the dark side, the inside, and cognitive tests of reasoning style. Each personality inventory averages 15 to 20 minutes.
What is Hogan Personality Inventory testing for?
The HPI measures what Hogan calls the bright side of personality: how we relate to others when we are at our best. It has 7 primary scales, Adjustment, Ambition, Sociability, Interpersonal Sensitivity, Prudence, Inquisitive and Learning Approach, plus 42 subscales. It was developed in the 1980s on the five-factor model and socioanalytic theory.
Can you fail a Hogan assessment?
No. Hogan's own FAQ states there is no such thing as an ideal score or personality profile, and that each assessment reveals both strengths and potential challenges or risk factors. There is no pass mark to clear on the personality inventories. What an employer gets is a description positioned against a norm group, not a result you passed or failed.
How long does the Hogan test take?
That depends which Hogan test assessment you were sent. Hogan publishes 15 to 20 minutes on average for the HPI, HDS and MVPI. For the HBRI its own pages differ: the product page gives 25 to 30 minutes, the FAQ says about 35. Hogan says you can stop at any point and your progress is saved. It is sometimes called a Hogan exam, though there is no pass mark.
How many questions is a Hogan assessment?
Hogan does not publish an item count on its public assessment pages for either the HPI or the HBRI. What it publishes instead is an average completion time. Any specific question count you find elsewhere is not from Hogan, so treat the timings in your invitation as the reliable guide to how long to set aside.
Is the Hogan assessment a personality test or a psychometric test?
Both descriptions fit, but they do not cover the same instrument. Three of the Hogan personality assessments are inventories, sometimes called a Hogan personality questionnaire or a Hogan personality survey, and they have no right answers. The HBRI is a reasoning test, scored for correctness. So a Hogan psychometric assessment may or may not be a Hogan personality assessment test.
What is the Hogan leadership test?
People usually mean the Hogan Development Survey. It covers 11 scales and 33 subscales describing qualities Hogan says emerge in times of increased strain, and that can disrupt relationships, damage reputations and derail chances of success. Those are commonly called derailers. The HDS is not a diagnostic or clinical tool, and Hogan states so directly.
Who is Hogan Assessment Systems?
Hogan Assessments, still often called Hogan Assessments Systems, publishes these instruments. It was founded in 1987 by Robert and Joyce Hogan, who say they were inspired by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the founding of the EEOC. Hogan states it has assessed more than 14 million people and works in 51 languages and dialects. Hogan assessments news sits under Resources on its own site.
Do candidates see their own Hogan results, and what does it cost?
Hogan's FAQ says whether you see your assessment results is up to your system administrator at the organisation, so ask the recruiter. On cost, Hogan does not publish per-candidate pricing or certification pricing on the pages covered here, and it requires certification to administer the assessments. Pricing changes, so check Hogan's own pages for current figures.
Can you prepare for a Hogan assessment?
Not in the way you would prepare for an exam. Hogan states there are no right or wrong answers, so faking is extremely difficult, and that people who try often get worse job-fit scores than they would have done by answering naturally. The useful preparation is practical: know which inventories are coming, and take them somewhere quiet.
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