The Personal Orientation Profile (POP) is a powerful, state-of-the-art psychometric instrument which has been used to profile more than a million people since its original development in the late 1970s. It assesses and reports on the behaviours of individuals in highly competitive, demanding roles such as competitive sales.
The POP uses normative profiling which is a more modern psychometric approach. It offers a range of response choices (usually five) that allow respondents to choose between continuous categories that are representative of their experiences. The data generated by these scales are normative and can be compared across individuals.
What is measured?
Created specifically for the selection of top performing sales professionals, the POP measures three major factors that predict performance, namely:
- Enterprising Potential (EP) which measures prospecting potential (business development) and predicts the activity levels and self management potential of a candidate;
- Achievement Potential (AP) which measures motivational mix and predicts the sense of urgency and closing style of the candidate;
- Independence Potential (IP) which measures the need for structure and coaching, and predicts retention and fit to a specific culture.
These three factors combine to create the Predictor Score (PS) which predicts overall sales performance. In addition, the POP assesses the communication and learning styles through the People Orientation (PO) and Investigative (INV) scales. The POP also measures the important attitudinal factors of Self Confidence, Lifestyle Management and Call Reluctance which has four sub-scales: Sensitivity to Rejection, Prospecting Natural Markets, Commitment to Product and Commitment to a Sales Career.
The combination of suitable character traits and attitudes has been shown to be effective predictors of performance in virtually every study of sales performance conducted.
How it works
The POP was developed based on the theory that high demand work environments require powerful personality characteristics for someone to survive and perform effectively. It was felt that these characteristics could be assessed reliably and that all individuals possess these characteristics to varying degrees.
Using psychological literature, the factors associated with high demand work environments were identified as being competitiveness, achievement orientation and independence. Each of these factors were developed as bi-polar scales which showed a very high presence of the factor at one end and an almost total absence of the factor at the other end. Later the POP was constructed to include eight trait scales selected from psychological literature. The eight individual scales measure character traits found in everyone to a greater or lesser degree. They are divided into two groups: Power and Neutralising scores. Power scores are those which are considered as strengths in a competitive sales environment. The two groups of traits are as follows:
Power Scores:
- Enterprising (Ent)
- People Oriented (PO)
- Achievement Orientation (Ach)
- Independent (Ind)
Neutralising Scores:
- Acquiescent (Acq)
- Investigative (Inv)
- Relaxed (Rel)
- Team Orientated (Team)
Each of these traits is measured on a 21-item scale of correlated adjectives and brief phrases. Each item is scaled on a five-point Lickert scale which allows every item and every scale to be scored in a normative manner.
Is it possible to fake results?
It is very difficult to fake the POP because the section that deals with character traits has low ‘face validity’ which means it requires expertise in trait analysis and test construction to understand what factors the profiles are examining. The number of items (21 per trait scale) provides for considerable psychometric depth and as all of the items are strengths in some context, candidates who plan to enhance their profiles artificially find it difficult to do so.
In addition, the POP and derivatives use the Uncertainty scale to assess whether the candidate is answering in a manner which is socially desirable (i.e. giving answers to put themselves in the best possible light). High scores on the Uncertainty scale provide an indicator that the person may be misrepresenting themselves.
The profiles provide very useful information about the individual’s fit to a sales role. It measures self confidence and their attitudes about prospecting, managing rejection and handling call reluctance. All the factors are presented in an easy to interpret fashion with selection questions and coaching suggestions included.
