Taking the behavioral runner

The behavioural runner is the most-asked-about of the five runners — partly because the forced-choice format is unfamiliar to many people on first encounter. This page walks through what to expect.

Before you start

Allow 15–20 minutes of uninterrupted time. The runner saves between items, but the assessment is more reliable if you finish in one sitting rather than spreading it across days.

The runner does not work well on a phone. A laptop, tablet, or desktop is fine.

What the runner looks like

The page shows one item at a time. Each item is a set of four short statements. Above the statements, the instruction is consistent across every item: Choose the one that is most like you, and the one that is least like you.

The statements are deliberately short — single phrases or short sentences. Examples (not the actual items, which are private to the assessment library):

• I prefer to think before I speak.
• I push for decisions, even when ambiguous.
• I notice when others are uncomfortable.
• I enjoy organising and structuring tasks.

You click one statement to mark it most like you, and another to mark it least like you. The two remaining statements are unmarked. Once you have made both selections, the Continue button at the bottom becomes active.

Why the format

Three reasons the assessment uses forced-choice rather than agree/disagree:

• It cannot be gamed by always agreeing. A Likert scale (strongly agree … strongly disagree) lets a candidate inflate every positive trait by always picking strongly agree. Forced-choice forces a trade-off.
• It surfaces preferences, not absolutes. Every statement might be true of you sometimes. The question is which is more true — that is the working preference the assessment is reading for.
• The data is comparable across assessees. Because every assessee made the same trade-offs in the same items, the resulting dimensional placement is more comparable than it would be on a Likert.

How long it takes

Around 50 items per assessment. At ~20 seconds per item, the runner takes 15–20 minutes.

You will probably move faster on the first ten items as you learn the format, then settle into a steady pace. The last few items often take a moment longer because every item asks a slightly different working-preference question.

After you submit

• Status flips to COMPLETED immediately.
• The score (the four dimensional placements with confidence) is available within seconds.
• The narrative report is generated in the background and arrives in your bell as a REPORT_READY notification within a minute or two.

You can see the report by clicking the assessment from your /me/assessments list.

How to take it well

• Answer based on what is true at work, not what you wish were true. The assessment reads working preferences, not aspirational self-image.
• Do not overthink. Your first instinct on the most like statement is usually the most accurate. Lingering produces noise.
• Do not try to game it. Forced-choice resists single-axis gaming. If you try, you will produce noise rather than a flattering profile.

Next

Cognitive runner — the timed assessment — is covered next.