Suburban Propane PI Test Practice
A Predictive Index case study describes the Behavioral Assessment as the starting point for every significant people decision at Suburban Propane. Read closely, every use it documents is internal, which changes who should actually prepare.
What the Case Study Documents, and Who Actually Sits It
Suburban Propane is a US propane and heating-oil distributor that has grown substantially by acquiring smaller regional businesses. The Predictive Index case study about it is emphatic about how central the assessment is, quoting Mike Keating, a Senior Vice President: “We always start with the PI Behavioral Assessment. It is our jumping off point for any significant employee-related decisions.”
Read the detail, though, and something important emerges that most summaries of this story miss. Every administration the case study actually describes is to people already inside the business. Leadership gave the Behavioral Assessment to their own teams, and to employees arriving through acquisitions, including a 60-day vetting process for incoming Agway leaders. Nowhere does it describe an outside applicant completing an assessment as part of a sift.
We are saying that plainly because it changes who this page is useful to. If you are an external candidate, this source is not evidence that a test is waiting for you. If you work for a company Suburban Propane has just acquired, it describes your situation almost exactly.
Two PI products are named: the PI Behavioral Assessment, which you would complete, and the PI Job Assessment, which the employer completes to define what a role needs. The Agway and Inergy integrations date the story to roughly 2010 to 2012, and the page carries no date of its own.
The PI Behavioral Assessment
The Predictive Index describes the format as two questions over one shared list: candidates “are presented with two questions, each pertaining to a single shared list of adjectives.” The first pass asks which words describe how others expect you to behave at work, the second which describe who you really are. PI states the assessment is untimed and takes about six minutes.
The result is reported on four drives, in PI’s own words:
- Dominance– how a person naturally approaches control, independence and decision-making on the job.
- Extraversion– how people communicate, persuade and engage with others.
- Patience– how someone prefers to manage time, pace and change.
- Formality– how strongly a person seeks structure, rules and precision in their work environment.
Because the case study describes profiles being used to place people into the right version of a role rather than simply to accept or reject them, an inaccurate profile here has a specific cost: it can put you in the job you would like least.
The PI Cognitive Assessment
The case study does not mention a cognitive test, so this describes the product rather than Suburban Propane’s process. PI publishes the specification: 50 cognitive reasoning questions in 12 minutes, mixing verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning, which is about 14 seconds a question. PI states scores reflect speed and accuracy, and that a linear-on-the-fly design gives each candidate a unique set of items. That is an anti-cheating measure rather than adaptive difficulty.
Where Suburban Propane Hires
These role families describe the business rather than a published statement about which jobs include an assessment.
- Customer service, both front-office and back-office
- Delivery drivers and service technicians
- District and regional operations management
- Corporate, finance and safety functions
Practice the Tests
Behavioral
Cognitive
The full range is on the Predictive Index practice hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will I take a PI assessment as an outside applicant?
The published evidence does not say so. The case study is emphatic that the Behavioral Assessment is the starting point for significant employee-related decisions, but every administration it actually describes is to existing employees or to people arriving through an acquisition. We are not going to turn that into a promise that applicants are tested. Your invitation is the reliable source.
Can I fail it?
Not in the pass-or-fail sense. It reports where you sit on four behavioral drives, which the employer compares against a target profile for the role. The same profile can be a strong match for one position and a weak one for another.
My company was acquired by Suburban Propane. Why am I being assessed?
The case study describes exactly this: using the Behavioral Assessment to place employees arriving through acquisitions into suitable roles. It reports high satisfaction with the resulting reassignments. That is what the published source says; what it means for your situation is a question for your own HR contact.
Are your tests the real Suburban Propane assessment?
No. These are independent practice exercises matching the published format of each test. They contain no real test items and are not supplied, reviewed or endorsed by Suburban Propane or the Predictive Index.