Robert Walters Thomas PPA Practice

Whose hiring this is about

A clarification first, because it is easy to get backwards. Robert Walters is a global specialist recruitment consultancy, so most people meet it as candidates it is placing somewhere else. The Thomas case study is not about that. It describes Robert Walters using the Thomas Behaviour assessment for its own internal hiring, across its four offices in the Netherlands: recruiting consultants and internal staff into Robert Walters itself.

If you are applying to work at Robert Walters in the Netherlands, this page is about your process. If Robert Walters is placing you with a client, the assessment you sit will be whatever that client uses, and it is worth asking the consultant which one.

What the PPA is

The Personal Profile Analysis, which Thomas now also calls the Behaviour assessment. It is 24 items, each showing four adjectives. From each set you choose the one word that is most like you and the one that is least like you. That is 48 selections from 96 words. It is not timed, Thomas advertises it as taking under eight minutes, and it works on any device including a phone.

Thomas is unambiguous with candidates about what it is: there is no correct behavioural style, the assessment measures your natural preferences, and you cannot pass or fail it. There is no score at the end.

The three graphs, and why the third one matters

Instead of a score, the PPA produces three profiles across four DISC factors: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance.

• Graph I, the Work Mask.How you present yourself at work, built from your 24 “most like me” choices.
• Graph II, Behaviour Under Pressure.The instinctive style you fall back on under stress, built from your 24 “least like me” choices.
• Graph III, Self Image. Arithmetically the first minus the second, which is why it can run negative.

That third graph is the reason trying to game the PPA does not work. A profile you have constructed to look like an ideal consultant sits in your work mask, and it rarely survives into the pressure profile, so the engineering shows up as a large gap between the two. A Thomas-trained analyst reads a wide gap as behaviour modification and asks about it, which is a harder interview than the one you were trying to avoid.

The four factors in plain terms

Thomas describes each factor as a response to something, and describes both ends of each neutrally. Neither end is the good end; which one a role wants is the role's business.

• Dominance, a response to power. High is driven, direct and competitive. Low is accommodating and considered.
• Influence, a response to people. High is persuasive, positive and outgoing. Low is reserved and serious.
• Steadiness, a response to pace. High is amiable, dependable and patient. Low is restless and demonstrative.
• Compliance, a response to policy. High is careful, logical and precise. Low is independent and unconstrained.

A naming note, because sources disagree. Thomas renamed two of the four from the original DISC model: Inducement became Influence and Submission became Steadiness. Some academic pages still use the older names for the same factors.

How to approach it

Expect sets where nothing fits, and pick anyway

Thomas warns candidates about this directly: it can be challenging when all four words fit or none do. That is the design, not a flaw. The forced choice is what makes the instrument work, so pick the closest and move on rather than agonising.

Answer as you are at work

The adjectives are about working behaviour. Answering as the person you are on a Saturday produces a profile that will not match the interview.

Do not try to be all four

Every set makes you trade one desirable quality against another: driven against dependable, persuasive against precise. There is no option to be all of them, which is exactly what a candidate trying to look ideal wants to choose.

Where a PPA sits in a process

Across the Thomas customer case studies we read, the pattern is consistent: the aptitude test goes early as a sift, and the PPA goes late, after interviews, to structure the remaining conversation. If you have been sent a PPA rather than a timed test, you are probably past the cut rather than facing another one.

Practise the exact tests

Our Thomas practice hub has the PPA with all three graphs, plus the GIA aptitude battery in case the role you are applying to adds one.