How the WPV works
The WPV is a Big Five based questionnaire of 276 items on 25 scales, rated by COTAN and distributed by Ixly. It comes in four versions: adaptive, normative, ipsative and compact. Employers use it for selection as well as development.
The adaptive version is the one you are most likely to meet. It uses the same items as the full questionnaire but asks only the most relevant ones, so it takes about 15 minutes, on average three times faster.
Your answers are compared with a large group of other people and reported as sten scores in five dimensions: Invloed (influence), Sociabiliteit (sociability), Gedrevenheid (drive), Structuur (structure) and Stabiliteit (emotional stability). The longer report adds a competence indicator.
How to answer
There are no right answers, but a few habits make the profile accurate:
- Answer as you are at work, not at home or as you would like to be.
- Go with your first reaction. Thinking long about a statement pulls the answer towards what sounds good.
- Use the ends of the scale where they fit. A profile built from cautious middle answers says little about you.
- Do not try to fit an imagined ideal candidate. Ixly’s own report says a high or low score is not good or bad.
Reading the WPV report
The report gives one sten from 1 to 10 for each dimension and for each scale under it, with a few lines describing what the score means. Under Invloed, for example, the scales are Status, Dominantie, Competitie and Zelfvertoon. A sten of 5 or 6 is around average, not a weak score.
Tips for the real WPV
- Set aside 15 minutes somewhere quiet. There is no clock, but a steady frame of mind gives a steadier profile.
- Learn the five dimension names before you start, so the report reads easily.
- Check the language of your invitation. The employer sets it.
Practise the WPV on CogniPrep
Our version gives you 75 statements drawn from our own pool of 125, written for the 25 WPV scales. You rate each on a five-point scale of our own wording, one at a time, with no clock. The result is a profile across the five dimensions, naming your highest and lowest and how widely you used the scale. There is no sten, because there is no norm group to compare you with.