The 16PF questionnaire (16 Personality Factors) is a tool that looks at various areas of an individual, such as a person’s potential or suitability for a certain role or their personal development needs. The idea is to give a more rounded view of a candidate, but it should not be used as the single tool; it should be used alongside traditional recruitment or development interventions such as interviews, coaching, team suitability and evidence checking.
The 16PF was developed by psychologist Raymond Cattell and published in 1949 and has been updated various times over the years, including the current fifth edition in the 1990s. Cattell’s research came from testing over 4,500 personality-describing words in the English language and used statistical analysis to work out which traits were genuinely distinct from one another, rather than different words for the same thing. This is where the 16 factors that underlie the tool come from.
It is not quick to complete and has 185 questions and can take up to 50 minutes; however it is designed to be accessible, written in normal language other than a load of academic jargon, focused on how people really respond to situations in everyday life as opposed to getting to rate their own personality, with the aim to give more truthful and less self-flattering results.
The 16 individual factors look at areas such as warmth, dominance, rule-consciousness, self-reliance and emotional stability and each measures one specific strand of a person’s personality. This gives a very detailed picture., however the 16PF also categorises these up into five broader themes, which is a better starting point for a typical business focussed conversation:
Extraversion — How much someone is energised by other people versus by working independently.
Anxiety — How someone experiences and manages pressure, worry and emotional type issues.
Tough-Mindedness — Whether someone is more practical/objective, or more open minded and imaginative, in how they receive information and ultimately make decisions.
Independence — How much someone naturally pushes their own view, as opposed to accommodating or even and deferring to others.
Self-Control — How disciplined, structured and rule-oriented someone is, versus being flexible and spontaneous.
Looking at the 16 primary factors in more detail, can show us how two people can profile in a similar place on an area such as Independence, but for quite different reasons, and the primary factors allow us to indicate why that happens.
Recruitment and selection – As part of the overall current vetting system you have in place in your Organisation.
Management potential and leadership coaching – where you need more detailed analysis on an individual to help develop them more effectively.
Succession planning – When you’re trying to not just review staff on their current performance but also to loook at their potential long term fit.
[Talk to us about running the 16PF with your team →]