LEF Recruitment Assessment Practice
These tests arrive after you have already been introduced to a client, which is unusually late in a process. That timing tells you a lot about what they are for
The detail that makes this page different
LEF Recruitment is an agency based in 's-Hertogenbosch. Thomas International publishes a case study naming it as a user of the Behaviour assessment, the PPA, and the Aptitude assessment, the GIA, and the case records something most vendor case studies leave out: the assessments are sent after a candidate has been introduced to a client.
Most assessment advice assumes a test is a sift, sitting between hundreds of applicants and a shortlist. This is the opposite position in the funnel. By the time you receive the link you are already the candidate the agency is presenting.
The two instruments
The negative marking rule that decides your GIA score
The GIA deducts marks for wrong answers, and the deduction is scaled to the number of options a task offers. A two-option task punishes a wrong click hardest, because a random guess would be right half the time and the scoring corrects for that.
This runs against instinct. Task 1, Reasoning, is the longest task and has only two options, which makes it simultaneously the one where you feel most able to hurry and the one where hurrying costs most. Perceptual Speed, with five options, is the cheaper place to push your pace. Thomas's own instruction, that speed and accuracy are equally important, is a literal description of this trade-off.
How to use the agency relationship
Ask what the client will see
The agency is the intermediary, so it decides what goes across. Ask whether the client receives the full report, a summary, or a verbal briefing. This is a reasonable question and the answer changes nothing about how you should answer, but it removes a source of anxiety.
Ask for the debrief
A Thomas profile discussed with a consultant is a genuinely useful conversation, and in the Netherlands candidates generally have a right of insight into reports written about them.
Ask about language
Thomas publishes in many languages, and the Word Meaning task in particular is heavily language-dependent under a short clock. Sitting a speeded vocabulary task in your second language is a handicap that has nothing to do with your ability to do the job.
Ask about validity period
Agencies typically reuse a result for a period across several introductions rather than retesting each time. Knowing how long yours lasts tells you how much this single sitting is actually worth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I fail an assessment sent after I have already been introduced?
The PPA has no pass mark at all. The GIA has no published one, and cut scores where they exist are set by the client rather than by Thomas. At this point in a process the more realistic outcome of an unexpected result is a conversation, not a rejection.
Should I answer the PPA as the role or as myself?
As yourself, at work. The client is about to meet you. A profile describing a different person creates a mismatch in a room where you are physically present, which is the least useful place for one.
Is there a calculator on the GIA?
No, and there is nothing for one to do. The Number Speed task compares three small numbers and Thomas frames every step of it as working in your head.
How much practice is worth doing?
One full run of each. Nearly all of the GIA practice effect comes from removing the cost of understanding a task while its clock is running. After that you are training raw processing speed, which does not move much in a week.
Practise both instruments
Our Thomas practice hub has all five GIA tasks individually and as a full battery run with the real negative marking, plus the PPA with all three graphs.