How the Talentenanalyse works
The questionnaire is made of statements describing behaviour, and you keep choosing the one that fits you best. The COTAN register calls it a digital ipsative questionnaire: you choose between options rather than rating each one on its own. It is registered as the TMA Talentenanalyse 312, and you answer 312 questions online, usually in about an hour.
The result places you on 22 drives in six groups: emotional balance, motives, social, influencing, leadership and organisational talents. Each drive has a named talent at both ends, which is where the 44 talents come from. Orde & structuur, for example, runs from Creatief to Accuraat, and Confrontatie from Tolerant to Assertief.
Your answers are compared with a norm group and converted to a stanine, a 1 to 9 scale with 5 as the average. The report also shows a consistency score out of 10 for how consistently you answered.
TMA writes its reports to be talent and development focused, without judging the candidate. Employers use the profile to compare against a role and to prepare interview questions; at Monuta, for example, the Talentenanalyse is used to test new hires against its core competencies, followed by a conversation.
How to answer
There is nothing to get right, so the aim is a profile that is consistent and recognisably you:
- Keep your behaviour in your current or most recent job in mind, as TMA’s partners instruct.
- When neither statement fits well, choose the one slightly more true on an ordinary working day.
- When both fit, choose the one you would do first without thinking.
- Do not steer towards what the role seems to want. There are no wrong answers, and the conversation afterwards is about the profile you give.
- Take your time if you need it. The time you take plays no part in the result.
Example choice
“I like to settle a disagreement straight away, even if it gets uncomfortable” against “I like to finish one task before I start the next.” Neither is better. The first leans towards Confrontatie, the second towards Orde & structuur. Choose the one that is more often true of you at work, and expect a similar trade-off to return later in the questionnaire.
Tips for the real Talentenanalyse
- Set aside an hour in one sitting, somewhere quiet.
- TMA partners treat a consistency score below 6 out of 10 as too low, so answer every choice with care, not at random.
- Prepare for the conversation afterwards. Have real work examples for the drives where you land near either end, because that is where questions go.
- If your employer also sends Capaciteitenanalyse subtests, TMA says those are always used together with this questionnaire.
Practise the Talentenanalyse on CogniPrep
Our practice form is shorter than the real 312 questions: 96 choices between two statements, untimed, about 15 to 20 minutes. TMA does not publish how many statements appear at once, so pairs are our reading. Eight pairs come back later with the sides swapped, which gives our own consistency score out of 10. At the end you see how your choices lean on each of the 22 drives. They are not TMA stanines.