FactSet Thomas HPTI Practice

About FactSet's use of Thomas

FactSet is a financial data and analytics company serving investment professionals. Thomas International publishes a case study naming FactSet as a user of its Personality assessment, which is powered by the High Potential Trait Indicator, or HPTI.

The framing in that case study is worth reading carefully, because it changes what an invitation means. FactSet is described as using the instrument for talent development and succession planning rather than for sifting applicants. That is a different purpose from a graduate aptitude test: nobody is being screened out, and the output is a conversation about a role, not a number on a shortlist.

What the HPTI actually is

Seventy-eight statements about how you work, each rated on a scale from 1, disagree completely, to 7, agree completely. It is not timed and most people finish in eight to ten minutes. Thomas states plainly to candidates that there are no right or wrong answers and that you cannot pass or fail it. It is delivered online and works on a computer, tablet or phone.

Each statement maps to exactly one of six traits:

• Conscientiousness. Planning, thoroughness and follow-through.
• Adjustment. Steadiness under pressure and recovery from setbacks.
• Curiosity. Appetite for new information and new methods.
• Risk Approach. Comfort with confrontation and with high-stakes decisions.
• Ambiguity Acceptance. Ability to work before the answer is settled.
• Competitiveness. Motivation from being measured against others.

The thing candidates get wrong about this instrument

The instinct on any personality questionnaire is to work out which end of each scale is the good one and drift towards it. On the HPTI that instinct is specifically wrong, because Thomas frames the output as strengths and potential derailers. Its own material describes both poles of every trait neutrally, and a high score is read as a risk as readily as a strength.

Maximum Conscientiousness is perfectionism and slow decisions as well as thoroughness. Maximum Competitiveness crowds out collaboration. Maximum Risk Approach escalates friction. A candidate who maxes every scale has produced a profile that reads as either implausible or difficult to work with, which is the opposite of what they intended.

How to approach it

Answer as you are at work, not as you are generally

The statements are about working behaviour. The version of you who is meticulous about a spreadsheet and chaotic about a kitchen is answering about the spreadsheet.

Use the ends of the scale

A seven-point scale answered entirely with 4s produces a flat profile with no shape to discuss. Because there is no score to protect, the honest extremes are safe and they make the result more useful to you, not less.

Practise the format, not the answers

What practice is good for here is removing the surprise: seeing 78 statements arrive one at a time, getting a feel for the seven-point anchors, and knowing what a six-trait profile looks like when it comes back. That is all there is to prepare, and it is worth doing before a development conversation rather than during one.

Other Thomas assessments you might be sent

Thomas sells four candidate-facing instruments and the case study for FactSet names only the Personality assessment. If you are sent something else, the most likely alternatives are the Behaviour assessment (PPA), a 24-item forced-choice adjective checklist that also has no right answers, or the Aptitude assessment (GIA), which is the only Thomas instrument with a score and the only one worth drilling.

Practise the exact tests

Our Thomas practice hub has the HPTI alongside the PPA, the TEIQue and all five GIA tasks.