About the Motivation test
While an employee’s skill level is important for success, their job preferences and motivation can play an even more important role in their success in the role. Skills can be taught, but motivation and preferences are innate characteristics that don't generally change significantly over time. That's why it's crucial to evaluate not only whether your candidates have the right skills for the job but also if their preferences and overall motivators align with what the role has to offer.
In their Job Characteristics Model, organizational psychologists Oldham and Hackman proposed that a job itself – rather than an employee’s personality – has the greatest influence on motivation. Employees are most motivated when they experience their work as meaningful, see themselves as responsible for its outcomes, and know the results of their work. At the same time, a set of key “moderators” – factors that may increase or decrease an individual employee’s motivation – can impact results.
Building on this research, which has been validated by numerous academic studies over the years, we have created our job preferences test to help you identify candidates who will be most motivated by the job you’re hiring for. This screening test profiles key job characteristics, moderators, extrinsic factors, and job activities that are known to have an impact on motivation. What motivates one candidate may not motivate another, and this test also takes individual candidate preferences into account.
To customize the test to the job role for which you are hiring, we ask you a series of questions related to the key elements that impact job motivation to create a robust profile of the role.
Candidates receive a parallel version of the survey that asks what they seek in a job, including the work activities they most enjoy. We then map the results of each candidate against your specifications to help you understand the degree to which your candidates' preferences align with what you are offering, allowing you to identify candidates that best align with the characteristics of the role.