What the Strengths Profile measures
Cappfinity launched Strengths Profile in 2009 and now calls it Skills Discovery. It rates each skill on three things: performance, how well you do it; energy, how much you enjoy it; and use, how often you do it. The full version covers up to 80 skills and takes about 30 minutes.
Your results sort the skills into four areas: realised strengths, which you use and enjoy; unrealised strengths, which you enjoy but use less; learned skills, which you do well but may not enjoy; and weaknesses, which you find hard and do not enjoy.
It is a self-development tool rather than the test an employer sends, but Cappfinity’s preparation hub points candidates to the free Starter Profile, saying that knowing your strengths will help you answer the questions in your assessment.
How to use it before a Cappfinity assessment
Turn the profile into material you can draw on:
- Take the free Starter Profile. It shows your top 3 realised and unrealised strengths, 2 learned behaviours and 1 weakness.
- For each realised strength, note a real example of using it at work, in study or elsewhere.
- For each unrealised strength, think of a time you enjoyed using it, even briefly.
- Note your weakness and how you work around it.
- Answer honestly. Cappfinity says the profile is difficult to fake and built to reduce the pull towards approved answers.
Tips for the strength questions in a Cappfinity assessment
- Rating questions can ask two things at once: how well you can do something and how much you love doing it. Answer each part separately.
- Go with your honest first reaction. Cappfinity tells candidates not to overthink behavioural questions.
- Read each statement properly. Behavioural questions are untimed unless your instructions say they are time recorded.
Practise strength ratings on CogniPrep
Our Strengths Profile game shows 40 statements, two for each of 20 strength areas, and asks how much each is like you on a 1 to 5 scale. Some statements are worded in reverse, so read each one. Answers within 6 seconds count in full and slower ones count for a little less, down to 70% after 12 seconds; that weighting is ours, not Cappfinity’s. The result is a profile across the 20 areas, not a score. It is practice for statement-rating questions, not a copy of Skills Discovery, which asks about performance, energy and use separately.