Updated April 2026 · 12 min read · Personality + business reasoning specialist
| Provider | Hogan Assessment Systems |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA |
| Key tests | HPI (personality), HDS (derailers), MVPI (motives), HBRI (business reasoning) |
| Used by | JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, BCG, McKinsey (selected pipelines), GE, Citi, Standard Chartered |
| Defining feature | Most respected personality assessment for senior leadership selection globally |
Hogan is the gold standard for personality assessment in senior corporate selection. Where most personality tests focus on the Big Five traits, Hogan's three core inventories cover three distinct angles: how you behave on a normal day (HPI), how you behave under stress (HDS), and what motivates you (MVPI). For senior management, leadership pipeline, and high-stakes selection, employers increasingly require a Hogan battery.
The cognitive companion HBRI (Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory) is the cognitive ability test typically paired with the personality battery for leadership selection.
Measures normal-range personality behaviour — how you typically act when things are going well. Seven primary scales, each broken into 3-7 subscales: Adjustment (emotional stability), Ambition (goal-directedness), Sociability (extraversion), Interpersonal Sensitivity (people skills), Prudence (conscientiousness), Inquisitive (curiosity), Learning Approach (academic orientation). 206 items, ~15-20 minutes. Used to predict day-to-day workplace behaviour.
Measures behaviours that emerge under stress, fatigue, or pressure — what Hogan calls "derailers." Eleven scales mapped to interpersonal patterns: Excitable (volatile under pressure), Skeptical (cynical), Cautious (overly risk-averse), Reserved (withdrawn), Leisurely (passive-aggressive), Bold (overconfident), Mischievous (manipulative), Colourful (attention-seeking), Imaginative (creatively erratic), Diligent (perfectionist), Dutiful (overly compliant). 168 items, ~15-20 minutes. The "dark side" framing makes HDS uniquely useful for predicting leadership failure risk.
Measures core motives and values — what energises you, what you want from work and life. Ten scales: Recognition, Power, Hedonism, Altruistic, Affiliation, Tradition, Security, Commerce, Aesthetics, Science. 200 items, ~15-20 minutes. Used to predict role fit, cultural alignment, and long-term retention.
Hogan's cognitive ability test. 24 questions in 30 minutes (~75 seconds per question). Mixed format: business case scenarios with embedded numerical, logical, and verbal reasoning. The questions are framed as "manager faces decision" — you analyse the data and pick the best decision.
HBRI scoring is more nuanced than typical cognitive tests because the right answer requires both calculation accuracy and judgement. Two answers might be technically possible from the data; the better one accounts for stated business context.
Unlike SHL or Cut-e, Hogan reports are not delivered to the candidate. The hiring manager or coach receives a multi-page report comparing your scores to global norms (high, average, low) and identifying patterns: leadership strengths, development areas, derailer risks, motivational fit.
For senior selection, a "Hogan debrief" — a structured conversation with the candidate about their results — is often part of the process. Candidates may receive a personal report ("Hogan Lead Report") if they're in a development pipeline.
Hogan is heavy in financial services and consulting at senior levels. JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Bank of America, Standard Chartered, Morgan Stanley. BCG, McKinsey, and Bain use Hogan in selected senior hire pipelines. GE, Caterpillar, Honeywell use Hogan for leadership pipelines. Microsoft and Cisco use Hogan for executive selection.
Subtly, yes. Hogan is more sophisticated than typical personality tests at flagging socially-desirable answering — they include "validity scales" that catch you if you try to look universally good. But each scale has a role-fit profile. A senior trader role values high Ambition, high Adjustment (calm under pressure), and moderate Bold (confidence). A senior auditor role values high Prudence, high Diligent, and lower Mischievous.
The strategy is not to fake — Hogan catches that — but to authentically reflect on your professional self rather than your private self. Most candidates over-report flaws. Calibrate to the professional version of you.
HPI / HDS / MVPI: Don't prepare in the cognitive-test sense. Read about Big Five and the Hogan derailer model so you understand the framework. Answer authentically as your professional self. Avoid extreme answers (always / never) unless you genuinely live them — extreme patterns trigger the validity scales.
HBRI: Practice business case-style cognitive items. Time pressure is moderate (75s per question), so the real challenge is integrating numerical reasoning with stated business context. Practise reading a scenario and picking the answer that's "technically right AND business-appropriate."
TestSolve handles HBRI (the cognitive component). The personality inventories (HPI, HDS, MVPI) measure who you are — there are no "right answers" in the cognitive-test sense, so TestSolve does not solve those. For HBRI, press F8 and the answer arrives on your phone in 4-6 seconds. Current HBRI accuracy: 87%. Try free with 3 captures.
Related: SHL test guide, JP Morgan assessment, Goldman Sachs assessment.
TestSolve delivers AI-powered answers to your phone in seconds. Invisible to all test platforms.
Try a free solve Buy question packagesNumerical reasoning on Hogan tests is almost always table-based: two or three small tables of financial, sales, or operational data, followed by a question that requires a multi-step calculation and a unit conversion.
Q. A retail chain sells three product lines. Units sold last quarter were 660 (Line A), 1,140 (Line B) and 310 (Line C). Average selling price was £1.00, £1.00 and £1.00 respectively. Total revenue to the nearest £ was:
A) £1,780 B) £1,950 C) £2,048 D) £2,110
A. Sum the units: 660 + 1,140 + 310 = 2,110. Answer: D.
The actual Hogan question adds distractors: prices in pence rather than pounds, mixed currencies, unit ambiguity (per pack vs per item). Candidates who rush the unit check pick C or B despite nailing the arithmetic.
Standard Hogan Verify numerical assessments give 18 questions in 18 minutes — about 60 seconds per question. That sounds generous but each question has 3–5 numbers to read, a calculation (often multi-step), and a unit conversion.
If you're past 75 seconds and still unsure, flag and move on — you can't recover four lost minutes from one stubborn question.