GP Groot Assessment Practice: The Bridge Personality

What GP Groot uses, and when

GP Groot is a Dutch waste, recycling and fuels group based in Noord-Holland. TestGroup publishes a client case naming GP Groot as a user of The Bridge Personality, with a sales report, in recruitment and selection since the end of 2014. The case quotes Marja Kramer, a recruiter there.

The stage matters and the case is specific about it. Candidates who pass the first interview are invited to complete the test online, and the results are then discussed at the second interview. So this is not a sift. You have already made an impression somebody liked, and the questionnaire is there to give the second conversation something to be about.

That framing should change how you approach it. A profile you invented is a profile you will be asked to talk about in person, from memory, by someone holding the printout.

What The Bridge Personality actually is

It is TestGroup's persoonlijkheidstest, and TestGroup claims it has been the most used personality analysis in Dutch and Belgian organisations for more than fifteen years. The mechanics:

• 240 statements in 40 screens of six, about 40 minutes, with no time limit that any source mentions.
• A nine point agree scale, anchored "zeer sterk mee oneens" to "zeer sterk mee eens", with the fifth point printed as Unclear rather than as a number.
• A forced-choice tie-break. If you give two or more statements on a screen the same answer, those statements come straight back and you are asked which applies to you most and which least.
• You cannot go back. You can change an answer while you are on a screen, but once you press Next that screen is closed.
• No score and no pass mark. The report is a profile across 34 dimensions in four clusters, each on a sten from 1 to 10 against a norm group of 500, plus three response-style scales, a Jung type and a Bridge colour.

The sales report is not a separate test

GP Groot's case mentions a sales report alongside the personality test. That is a reporting variant on the same sitting, not a second questionnaire: the Online Sales Assessment delivers a sales report scoring six sales stages and four seller types, plus a Big Five personality report, from one set of answers. If you are told you are sitting a sales assessment, practise the personality questionnaire.

Preparing for the conversation, not the score

Use the whole nine point scale

Staying between 4 and 6 does two things, both bad. It flattens the profile so the second interview has nothing concrete to discuss, and it triggers more forced-choice screens, because the test re-presents anything you rated identically. A cautious middle is longer as well as less useful.

Answer from work, not from an ideal

The report carries a Sociale wenselijkheid scale measuring how far you leaned to the flattering answer, an Instemmend antwoorden scale measuring whether you agreed with everything, and a flag on every dimension where your rated answers and your forced-choice answers differ by more than three stens. A profile with no low dimensions reads as steered rather than as strong.

Have a STAR example ready for your extremes

A Bridge result is normally walked through dimension by dimension, with the interviewer asking whether you recognise yourself in each score and asking for an example where you say you do not. Look at where your profile is highest and lowest and have one real story for each. That is the preparation that pays at GP Groot specifically, because the second interview is where the report is opened.

GP Groot role families

Operations

• Waste collection and transport
• Recycling and processing
• Technical services and maintenance
• Fuels and infrastructure

Commercial and corporate

• Sales and account management
• Planning and logistics
• Finance, HR and IT
• Safety, quality and environment

Practise the exact test

Our TestGroup practice hub covers all six Bridge assessments, including The Bridge Personality with its nine point grid and its forced-choice tie-break. Our practice content is in English while a GP Groot assessment will very probably be in Dutch, and the hub page explains exactly what transfers and what does not.