76 Example Questions & Indicative Answers for the SHL OPQ32 Occupational Personality Questionnaire

What is the SHL OPQ32 Occupational Personality Questionnaire?

The SHL OPQ32 (Occupational Personality Questionnaire) is one of the world's most widely used psychometric tools for assessing Occupational Personality. It maps 32 behavioural characteristics that influence performance at work and gives employers a structured picture of how a candidate is likely to behave in a professional setting.

The questionnaire is used by thousands of organisations across more than 60 countries to evaluate both candidates and existing employees. Public sector bodies, large corporates, and government agencies use it as part of their recruitment and development processes.

A key variant — used extensively in public sector hiring — presents candidates with 76 triads of behavioural statements and asks them to rank the statements within each triad. This version specifically measures alignment with a defined set of workplace competencies, rather than all 32 OPQ dimensions.

How the Forced-Choice Format Works

The SHL OPQ32 uses a forced-choice ipsative format. This means you are never asked to rate yourself on a scale — instead, you are always choosing between options. This design reduces the ability to fake answers and makes response patterns more informative.

In the 76-triad version, each question works like this:

1. You are shown three behavioural statements (A, B, and C).
2. You choose which statement represents you most.
3. From the two remaining statements, you choose which represents you more.
4. This produces a full ranking: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place for that triad.

The result across all 76 triads is a detailed behavioural profile that shows which competencies appear most prominently in your self-reported work style.

The 9 Competencies Assessed

In the public-sector variant of this questionnaire, the 76 triads collectively measure nine core workplace competencies. Every statement in the questionnaire is linked to one or more of these competencies.

How Your Score is Calculated

Each behavioural statement is pre-linked to one or more of the nine competencies. As you rank statements across all 76 triads, the system accumulates points for each competency based on how often you prioritise statements connected to it.

The scoring logic works roughly as follows:

• 1st choice: highest points (e.g. 2 points)
• 2nd choice: fewer points (e.g. 1 point)
• 3rd choice: 0 points

After all 76 triads, each competency has accumulated a raw score. These are then normalised and compared against a benchmark profile (such as the "ideal public sector employee" profile). The result is a percentage alignment score for each competency.

Example Score Calculation

Suppose the "Teamwork" competency is linked to 12 statements across the questionnaire. The maximum possible score for those statements is 24 (if you always ranked them 1st: 2 × 12 = 24). If your total for those statements was 15 points:

The final overall score is the average of the nine individual competency alignment percentages. For example, if your nine scores average to 75.3%, that becomes your composite result.

Interpreting Your Results

Once all 76 triads are scored, the system produces a competency profile. Reports often include an overall breakdown per competency, plus separate views of your strongest areas and competencies flagged for development.

Results are typically expressed as a percentage alignment with a target competency profile. A score above 80% in a given competency suggests strong behavioural alignment; scores below 60% may indicate an area where your self-reported work style diverges from the benchmark.

The composite score (the mean across all 9 competencies) is what most organisations use as a comparative metric across candidates. An average alignment of approximately 75% is often considered a solid result.

Tips for Completing the Questionnaire

1. Be Honest — The Tool Detects Faking

Because the questionnaire is ipsative (forced-choice), attempts to always pick the "best-sounding" option often produce inconsistent profiles that trained assessors can identify. Authenticity typically produces a more coherent and favourable profile.

2. Understand the Competencies Before You Start

Familiarising yourself with the nine competencies and what behaviours they describe helps you make deliberate, reflective choices rather than reactive ones.

3. Think in a Work Context

Base your choices on how you actually behave at work — or how you would behave in a professional setting — rather than how you behave in everyday social situations.

4. Don't Overthink Individual Triads

Your overall pattern across all 76 triads matters far more than any single response. Trust your instincts on ambiguous triads and move on.

5. Practice With These Examples First

Working through practice triads — like the 76 above — builds familiarity with the format, reduces test anxiety, and helps you understand which competency each type of statement typically represents.