gr8.tech
A values assessment whose scores spread across the full range.
My role: Designed the instrument: constructs, item formats, scoring and the feedback layer.
The Challenge
gr8.tech wanted to measure how well candidates align with the company's values. The design problem was discriminant validity. Off-the-shelf values inventories produce ceiling effects: on a Likert scale, almost everyone rates almost every prosocial value as important. When nearly all candidates score near the top, the assessment says nothing about the differences between them, which is the whole reason to run it.
The Approach
The fix was combining formats. Forced-choice items for the core values, so candidates had to trade off things they would otherwise all endorse; ranking, to reveal relative priority; and situational-judgment items, to ground abstract values in concrete workplace behavior. The feedback layer translated results back into gr8.tech's own operating language, so hiring managers read alignment with the company's stated values instead of raw trait scores.
Results
- Values assessment that produces discriminating distributions instead of a ceiling
- Three complementary formats: forced-choice (core values), ranking (relative priority), situational judgment (behavior in context)
- Feedback reported in the company's own operating language
- Built for hiring decisions where values fit had to be measured, beyond being asserted
The trade-off was deliberate. Forced-choice items are harder to build and score, and they compare each candidate’s values with each other instead of with a population norm. For a hiring decision about fit, that is the comparison that matters, and it avoids the ceiling effect that makes rating-scale values inventories useless.
Delivered through Gyfted. The wider case for custom measurement is in How to Measure Employee Engagement When Gallup’s Numbers Don’t Fit Your Org.