PQ10TM
Personality Profile
BPS Registered
a broad-range occupational personality assessment based on modern psychometric models.
PQ10 Personality Profile
PQ10TM
Personality Profile
An EFPA Registered Test
In a world where understanding employees' personalities is key to business success, the PQ10 personality profile assessment offers a scientifically-backed solution.
Podium has developed the PQ10 personality profile assessment for use in all areas of HR where detailed information is required about prospective and existing employees' patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving.
PQ10 is a broad-range occupational personality inventory that is based on modern neuroscientific and psychometric models of personality. It is suitable for use in all areas of HR where detailed information is required about employees' and prospective employees' patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving.
The PQ10 reflects modern neuroscientific thinking about personality. It contains ten broad scales that correspond to the ten aspects of personality identified by De Young et al. (2010), and can be aggregated to form the Big Five.
Many important outcomes are influenced by our personalities. At an individual level, our personality affects our style and possibly effectiveness as a leader. It also influences workplace experiences such as job satisfaction, employee engagement, and the quality, quantity, and timeliness of the work we produce.
At an aggregated level, personalities in organisations predict accounting and stock market-based measures of organisational performance. In short, the personality of workers is a powerful human resource asset. It should be managed strategically rather than being left to develop haphazardly. The best way to do this is with effective personality assessment using a high quality workplace personality test.
About PQ10
A Revolutionary Approach to Personality Assessment.
PQ10 is a comprehensive workplace personality assessment rooted in advanced scientific and psychometric models of personality. Designed to meet the complex demands of modern Human Resources, PQ10 provides in-depth insights into employees' and prospective employees' patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
The structure of PQ10 is grounded in contemporary neuroscientific understanding of personality. This assessment encompasses ten broad scales that echo the ten aspects of personality identified by groundbreaking research by De Young et al. (2010). These scales coalesce into the universally recognised Big Five personality traits: Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Emotional Stability.
The PQ10 is a self-report inventory comprising 90 questions. It is designed to be user-friendly, requiring minimal reading, and can be completed in under 20 minutes after receipt of an invitation from the Podium assessment system. The results are immediate – reports can be generated instantly, ensuring timely selection and development processes.
Experience a modern, scientifically-backed approach to personality assessment with PQ10, and unlock the potential of your human resources.
Measures
Personality Meta-Traits
Big Five Traits
Personality Facets
Reports
The Big Five Personality Factors
Potential Strength and Challenges
Workplace Behavioural Preferences
Administration
On-Screen
Remote Email Invitation
Bulk Access
Duration
90 Untimed Questions
Under 20 Minutes
The Evidence Behind PQ10
Key facts about how it was built and how well it works, from its technical manual, independent review and current norm library.
- What It Measures
- Ten personality facets, grouped into the Big Five factors and two higher-order meta-traits (Plasticity and Stability). 90 untimed questions, taking under 20 minutes.
- Theory
- The neuropsychological model of the Big Five (DeYoung, Quilty and Peterson, 2007) and Digman's alpha and beta meta-traits.
- How It Was Built
- Built from large item pools, with the factor structure confirmed using exploratory structural equation modelling and graded-response item response theory models (N = 596).
- Reliability
- Internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) of .77 to .86 across the ten facets (N = 596). Test–retest reliability of .73 to .90 over 14 days (N = 111) and .71 to .83 over 18 months (N = 116).
- Validity
- Strong agreement with established measures: the Big Five Aspect Scales (N = 147), the 16PF (N = 324) and the Hogan Personality Inventory (N = 125). Six criterion studies link scores to outcomes including training results and workplace performance ratings.
- Norms
- Large international and regional norm groups, including International (N = 29,630), Türkiye (N = 33,303), Australia and New Zealand (N = 16,236), Asia (N = 3,522) and the UK (N = 1,237), with editions current to 2026.
- Fairness
- Differences between men and women are small on every facet (Cohen's d between −0.19 and +0.28). Differences between ethnic groups vary by facet and are reported in full in the technical manual.
- Independent Review
- Reviewed and registered as a psychological test by the British Psychological Society (review dated September 2020).
- Maintained By
- Carl Francis CPsychol and Dr Pakeezah Rajab, Podium's psychologists. Designed with Dr Nigel Guenole, external scientific adviser.
- Sources
- PQ10 Technical Manual v2.1; British Psychological Society test review (September 2020); Podium norm library as at 2026.
When to Use PQ10
Development and Coaching
Recruitment and Selection
Conflict Management
Team Development
Language Availability
- English
- Arabic
- Chinese (Simplified)
- Dutch
- French
- German
- Indonesian
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Russian
- Serbian
- Slovakian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Thai
- Turkish
- Vietnamese
PQ10 Overview
An EFPA Registered Test
Available in at least 18 languages.
PQ10 was developed using large, representative samples using multidimensional item response theory methods.
PQ10 has strong internal consistency reliability overall and across subsamples (e.g., gender and ethnicity).
Test-retest reliability analyses over a 14-day period reveal that the retest reliabilities for all scales is in excess of .75. That's high.
Validity studies against well-established models, such as De Young's Aspects and the 16PF, reveal expected patterns of correlations with these alternative models.
Analyses of PQ10 data across thousands of participants of different ethnicities suggests differences across groups are unlikely to lead to adverse impact.
Predictive models using PQ10 scales and manager and colleague ratings of worker job performance reveal significant correlations with job performance.
Examination of questionnaire items across ethnic regroups reveals minimal evidence of psychometric bias (i.e., measurement invariance analyses).
Large normative comparison groups are available for PQ10 from job applicants in the Europe, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and around the world.
