Downer Group Thomas Assessment Practice

About Downer's use of Thomas

Downer Group is one of Australia and New Zealand's largest integrated services businesses, with around 33,000 employees across transport, utilities, facilities and mining services. Thomas International publishes a case study on Downer that names all four of its candidate-facing instruments, which makes Downer unusual: most Thomas customers use one or two.

The case study frames the work as recruitment and people decisions together rather than as a single hiring stage. That matters for how you read an invitation. A Thomas assessment at Downer may be part of selecting you for a role, or it may be part of a development conversation once you are in one, and the instruments used for those two purposes are not the same.

The four instruments, and which one has a score

Thomas renamed all four of its assessments but kept the old acronyms in candidate-facing material, so your invitation may use either name. Only one of the four is a test in the sense of having right answers.

• Behaviour assessment, also called the PPA. Twenty-four sets of four adjectives, from which you pick the one most like you and the one least like you. Untimed, under eight minutes, works on any device. No right answers and no pass mark: Thomas says directly that there is no correct behavioural style. This is the instrument Thomas customers use most often by a wide margin.
• Aptitude assessment, also called the GIA. The only scored one. Five short timed tasks measuring processing speed and accuracy: Reasoning, Perceptual Speed, Number Speed and Accuracy, Word Meaning, and Spatial Visualisation. Desktop and mouse only.
• Personality assessment, powered by the HPTI. Seventy-eight statements rated 1 to 7 across six workplace traits. Untimed, and Thomas frames high scores as potential derailers as well as strengths.
• Emotional Intelligence assessment, the TEIQue. A long trait emotional intelligence questionnaire, usually used in leadership and development contexts, and one Thomas says should be interpreted by an accredited practitioner.

The one you need to prepare for is the GIA

Three of the four have no right answers, which means there is nothing to revise and the useful preparation is simply knowing the format so it does not surprise you. The GIA is the exception, and it is unlike most aptitude tests in three ways.

• No fixed question count. Thomas publishes none because there is none. You answer as many items as the clock allows and nobody finishes.
• Wrong answers are penalised. A full mark on Reasoning, a quarter of a mark on Perceptual Speed, half a mark on the other three. Unanswered items cost nothing, so a blind guess is worth zero on average and you should only guess once you have ruled an option out.
• Each of the five tasks rewards a different balance. Reasoning rewards throughput; Perceptual Speed rewards accuracy at a speed almost everyone already reaches. Practising all five as one thing will not tell you which of your tasks is weak.

Downer roles where Thomas assessments appear

The case study describes Thomas being used across recruitment and people decisions rather than in one programme, so it is not specific to a single role family. Downer hires across:

Operational and technical

• Rail and transport services
• Utilities and power services
• Facilities management
• Mining and industrial services

Corporate and early careers

• Graduate and apprenticeship programmes
• Engineering and project management
• Health, safety and environment
• Corporate and shared services

Downer is the only Australian employer with a first-party Thomas case study that we could find, so treat this as evidence about Downer specifically rather than as a sign that Thomas is widespread in Australian hiring. Confirm the stages for your role with the recruiter.

Preparing for each one

For the PPA, answer as you are at work

The output is three graphs: how you present at work, how you behave under pressure, and the gap between the two. Because the third graph is arithmetically the first minus the second, a profile you have engineered to look ideal tends to show up as a large gap rather than as a better score. Answering honestly gives a more useful result and a less awkward interview.

For the GIA, drill the weak task

A real Thomas report prints a percentile per task and its interviewer notes are built around probing pronounced highs and lows. Uneven is what gets discussed, so the single best use of practice time is the task you are worst at.

For the HPTI and TEIQue, use the whole scale

Both are 1-to-7 self-reports. Answering 4 to everything produces a flat profile nobody can interpret, including you. There is no score to protect, so the ends of the scale are safe to use where they genuinely apply.

Practise the exact tests

Our Thomas practice hub covers all four instruments, with the GIA split into its five tasks plus a full battery run. GIA Perceptual Speed is free.