Personality (MAPS)

What does the MAPS (Mapwave’s Appreciative Personality Survey) measure?

In the MAPS, we map professional personality using the Big Five model, one of the most scientifically validated models in psychology.

The five main dimensions are:

Emotional stability – how resilient or sensitive you react to stress or setbacks.
Extraversion – how social, energetic, or reserved you are.
Conscientiousness – how structured, orderly, or flexible you work.
Altruism – how much you consider others versus your own interests.
Openness – how curious and innovation-oriented you are versus conservative.

Why include the MAPS in your test package?

The MAPS provides insight into stable behavioral preferences and the way someone tends to react in various situations. It helps you assess whether someone will fit the job context, team, and organizational culture.

Personality doesn’t tell everything about performance, but is often decisive for long-term behavior such as dealing with stress, collaboration or independent functioning, handling change or feedback, etc. This adds unique predictive value on top of, for example, a reasoning test or situational judgment test.

All questions in the test are specifically formulated for the professional context, making the test feel highly relevant and recognizable to candidates.

About the report

The report displays results across the 5 personality dimensions. Each dimension is further divided into subdimensions, allowing the profile to show much nuance.

For each subdimension, you receive a score, feedback text, and a completed core quadrant by Ofman:

Quality – a natural strength in your personality
Pitfall – the risk that this quality is used too strongly, causing it to overshoot.
Allergy – behavior in others that can strongly irritate you, often the opposite of your quality.
Challenge – the behavior you can develop to keep your quality in balance and avoid your pitfall.

This way, you don’t get a “right-wrong” story, but a nuanced, practical, and development-oriented view of the personality profile. This makes the report extremely suitable for recruiters as preparation for selection interviews. Additionally, this is naturally also suitable for self-reflection, coaching, and development conversations.

The results are displayed relative to a representative norm group, so you can put your scores in perspective. Response tendencies are also provided so you get an indication of the social desirability with which a candidate responded.

Recommended combinations with other tests

No single test perfectly predicts on its own how someone will function in a job. What you can do is smartly combine tests that each measure something different — so that you gather as much relevant information as possible, without unnecessary overlap or test fatigue.

This increases incremental validity: the added value of a test on top of the others.

Recommended combination with a personality questionnaire:

Reasoning test
→ measures cognitive abilities, such as abstract reasoning and learning capacity.
→ indicates what someone can handle in terms of complexity and pace.

Situational judgment test (SJT)
→ simulates concrete work situations and measures practical decision-making.
→ indicates how someone tends to act in typical job situations.

Through these combinations, you get a multi-layered and reliable overall picture: from capabilities to behavioral preferences to contextual behavior.

Application

The MAPS personality questionnaire is broadly applicable within selection and development.

Specifically, you can use it for:

Selection – get an objective and nuanced view of someone’s personality and behavioral preferences. This allows you to assess whether someone aligns with the role and organizational context, and adds reliable data points alongside interviews or CVs.
Self-insight – the connection with Ofman’s core quadrants makes strengths, pitfalls, challenges, and allergies concretely visible. Candidates or employees recognize themselves better and understand how their behavior is experienced by others.
Coaching and development – the insights form a powerful foundation for coaching trajectories and development plans. It clarifies where growth opportunities lie and how someone can more effectively deal with their own pitfalls and challenges.

This way, you turn selection and development from guesswork into a substantiated process that leads to targeted growth.

Big Five Model

Core Quadrants for development-oriented insight

Dutch, French & English

Suitable for all education levels

Self-assessment questionnaire

120 questions

Time: 15 minutes

Price per administration: €55

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SJT Social Skills

The SJT Social Skills measures how someone interacts with others in work situations: collaborating, communicating, and acting customer-oriented. Candidates are presented with 12 situations, each with five possible responses. Each response must be evaluated individually for appropriateness.

The test evaluates six core competencies:

Task-oriented collaboration – practical cooperation, making clear agreements, and sharing knowledge
People-oriented collaboration – considering others, constructively handling disagreements
Assertiveness – forming your own opinion and expressing it respectfully
Customer orientation – seeking solutions and appropriately handling challenging customer situations
Reliability – acting consistently and with integrity when dealing with information and people
Flexibility – handling changes and continuing to work efficiently

Social skills are decisive in virtually every job. They determine how well someone can:

collaborate within a team
interact with customers or external parties
communicate in challenging situations
adapt flexibly to changing circumstances

This SJT provides a realistic view of how someone makes choices in social interactions and shows whether those choices contribute to constructive collaboration, customer orientation, and reliability. This makes the test a valuable complement to personality tests and cognitive tests.

The report provides standardized scores (stanine 1–9) per competency, each with:

Feedback text – description of the current level
Development advice – concrete tips to strengthen the skill
Graphical score display – a visual overview of the results

This makes the report useful not only for selection, but also for coaching and development conversations.

The six competencies that are reported separately are:

Task-oriented collaboration
People-oriented collaboration
Assertiveness
Customer orientation
Reliability
Flexibility

No single test perfectly predicts how someone will function in a job. What you can do is smartly combine tests that each measure something different — so you gather as much relevant information as possible, without overlap or test fatigue. This increases the incremental validity: the added value of a test on top of the others.

Recommended combination with the SJT Social Skills:

Personality test (MAPS)
→ provides insight into stable behavioral preferences such as collaboration, empathy, and flexibility.
→ helps explain why someone makes certain choices in social situations.
Reasoning test (abstract, verbal, or numerical)
→ measures cognitive capacity: logical, verbal, and/or numerical thinking.
→ indicates what someone can handle in terms of complexity and learning ability.

Together, these tests provide a complete picture: from social skills to personality and cognitive strengths.

Selection: the test provides objective insight into how candidates behave in social situations. You get a reliable picture of their ability to collaborate, flexibility, reliability, customer-friendliness, and assertiveness. This improves the quality of your hires and reduces the risk of mismatches.
Learning & development: the test can serve as a baseline measurement at the start of training or education. You gain insight into the strengths and development points of participants and can tailor the learning path accordingly. With a later measurement, you can also see what progress has been made.

Measures collaboration, customer orientation, and flexibility in realistic situations

6 separate competencies with feedback and development advice

Dutch, French & English

Suitable for all education levels

Situational Judgment Test (SJT) – text-based

12 situations, each with 5 responses to evaluate

Time: Maximum 30 minutes

Price per administration: €55

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SJT Cognitive Skills

This Situational Judgment Test (SJT) measures cognitive skills through recognizable work situations. Candidates are presented with 12 situations, each with five possible responses. Each response must be evaluated individually for appropriateness.

The test assesses how someone in complex contexts:

Solves problems – in a pragmatic and future-oriented manner
Analyzes information – critically, systematically and without unwarranted interpretations
Makes decisions – thoughtfully and with consideration for impact, even under resistance

This test therefore primarily measures how someone thinks, reasons and acts in realistic complex scenarios.

SJTs are a valuable addition to traditional tests because they measure behavior in context . Unlike a personality test or reasoning test, an SJT shows how someone makes choices when there are multiple possible answers — each with advantages and disadvantages.

This test is particularly suitable for positions where employees:

Regularly need to make decisions based on incomplete information
Must approach problems pragmatically and critically
Must quickly gain overview in complex or contradictory situations

The cognitive SJT gives you a nuanced view of candidates’ thought processes, and predicts how they will behave in similar situations in the workplace.

The report provides three separate standardized scores (stanines 1–9):

Analyzing information – how well the candidate makes connections, distinguishes main from secondary issues, and sticks to the facts
Problem solving – how effectively someone structures problems, identifies causes and evaluates solutions
Decision making – how thoughtfully and consistently someone makes decisions, even under resistance or unpopular choices

For each competency, the report contains:

A feedback text that describes the behavior and thinking level
Development advice tailored for use in coaching or development programs
A graphical representation of the scores on the normal distribution

The scores are independent of personality preferences and provide a realistic view of cognitive functioning in situations that require analysis, solution-oriented thinking and decisiveness.

No single test perfectly predicts on its own how someone will function in a job. What you can do is smartly combine tests that each measure something different — so that you gather as much relevant information as possible, without unnecessary overlap or test fatigue. This increases the incremental validity: the added value of a test on top of the others.

Recommended combination with a cognitive SJT:

Reasoning test (abstract, verbal or numerical)
→ measures pure cognitive capacity: logical, verbal and/or numerical thinking.
→ indicates what someone can handle in terms of complexity and learning ability.
Personality test (MAPS)
→ provides insight into stable behavioral preferences, such as flexibility, orderliness or decisiveness.
→ indicates how someone is inclined to behave.

Through this combination, you get a reliable overall picture: from analytical ability to contextual behavior and behavioral preferences.

Selection: the test measures candidates’ ability to analyze information, solve problems and make informed decisions in realistic work situations. This gives you an objective view of their thinking and reasoning skills, and you quickly know whether someone can handle the complexity and responsibilities of a position.
Learning & development: the test can be used as abaseline measurement at the start of a development program or leadership program where analytical ability, critical thinking or decisiveness are central. You clearly map the strengths and improvement points of the participants and can tailor training or coaching accordingly. Repeated administration also makes it possible to make learning progress visible.

Measures problem solving, decision making, information analysis – in context

Assesses critical thinking, analysis and decision making

Dutch, French & English

Suitable for bachelor and master education level

Situational Judgment Test (SJT)

12 situations each with 5 responses to evaluate

Time: Maximum 45 minutes

Price per administration: €55

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360° Feedback

With our 360° feedback survey, you get a nuanced picture of someone’s performance from different perspectives: supervisor(s), colleagues, direct reports, internal customers, project members, and the person themselves.

You can start immediately with our standard 360°. This allows you to collect feedback on the following leadership competencies: strategy and vision, risk-aware analysis and decision-making, change orientation, results orientation, people orientation, leadership, networking and customer focus, collaboration, personal development capacity, and integrity.

Do you have a clear leadership vision within your organization? Then we create a survey based on our validated competency library. This way, we select precisely those competencies that are relevant to your organization and the purpose of the survey.

A 360° feedback provides insight from multiple perspectives. By combining feedback from different levels and roles in the organization, you get:

More complete picture – insight into strengths and development areas from multiple angles
Better development conversations – concrete and nuanced starting point for coaching or performance discussions
Greater self-awareness – reflection of self-image with external perceptions
Stronger development actions – thanks to concretely formulated improvement points and a ready-to-use action plan template

Because you can fully align the survey with your own competency model and context, this instrument is equally suitable for talent development, leadership development as well as for culture and behavior programs.

The report is clear, comprehensive, and action-oriented, with:

Global overview – spider web with average scores per competency
Benchmark – comparison with the average scores of other participants who simultaneously go through the same process
Scores per competency
Scores per behavioral indicator
Comparison self-image vs. others – insight into similarities and differences
Strengths & development opportunities – including concrete improvement points
Ready-to-use template for reflection action plan – for immediate follow-up in development conversations

Confidentiality is guaranteed: results are only displayed for respondent groups with at least 3 respondents (adjustable to a stricter limit, e.g., 5).

A 360° feedback survey is ideal in combination with:

Internal development actions within your organization
→ Use the results of the 360° as input for your leadership program, internal coaching, training, or development programs.
→ This way, insights are directly translated into concrete development steps and lasting behavioral change.

You use the 360° feedback survey within development and HR processes when you need a broad, multi-voiced, and reliable picture.

Specifically, you can use a 360° as:

Start of a development or leadership program – map strengths and focus areas clearly to work in a targeted manner immediately.
Competency map for training – determine priorities based on real needs.
Performance reviews – conduct a concrete conversation with clear observations and follow-up actions based on more than just vague memories.
Baseline and follow-up measurement – establish the initial situation and measure again later to objectively evaluate the growth and impact of a program.

Get a complete picture of someone’s performance

Dutch, French & English

Suitable for all education levels

Standard or custom survey

Concrete action plan template included

Price per administration: from €225

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Thema: Leadership