SHL OPQ, Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ32r)
Work personality insights for better hiring, stronger leadership, and smarter talent decisions
At Esterhuizen Consulting & Coaching (ECCSA), we use the SHL Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ) to help organisations understand how a person is likely to work, not just what they can do. OPQ focuses on behavioural style at work, giving practical insight you can use for selection, onboarding, leadership development and team effectiveness.
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” – Aristotle
Why OPQ works for strategic talent decisions
When you are building future talent, you want decisions that feel clear, credible, and fair.
✅ Role-fit clarity
OPQ helps translate personality patterns into work-relevant behaviours and competencies, so you can match individuals to what the role truly demands.
✅ Higher quality interviews
Use OPQ outputs to sharpen probing questions, improve interview hit rates and reduce “good chat” hiring mistakes.
✅ Stronger talent pipelines
OPQ supports identifying future leaders, redeploying talent, and understanding team strengths after change events like restructures or M&A activity.
✅ Practical, business-ready reporting
Reports are designed for use in organisational contexts by HR professionals and managers, with clear summaries and interpretable insights.
What OPQ measures (32 workplace personality characteristics)
OPQ32 measures 32 characteristics that map to job competency requirements. These are grouped into three work-focused domains:
👥 Relationships with People
- Influence (e.g., persuasive, outspoken, independent-minded)
- Sociability (e.g., outgoing, affiliative, socially confident)
- Empathy (e.g., democratic, caring, modest)
🧠 Thinking Style
- Analysis (e.g., data-rational, evaluative, behavioural)
- Creativity and Change (e.g., conceptual, innovative, adaptable, variety-seeking)
- Structure (e.g., forward thinking, detail-conscious, rule-following)
❤️ Feelings and Emotions
- Emotions (e.g., relaxed, worrying, emotionally controlled, optimistic)
- Dynamism (e.g., vigorous, competitive, decisive, achieving)
Assessment format and candidate experience
- Average completion time: ± 15–25 minutes
- Untimed, single sitting
- 104 forced-choice questions
- Designed for an unproctored environment and a mobile-first candidate experience
Typical use cases
Use OPQ when you want to unlock your full potential across the talent lifecycle:
🔎 Selection (graduates, professionals, managers)
- Identify best-fit applicants for a given role
- Strengthen shortlisting and structured interviews
🚀 Onboarding and development
- Accelerate “time to effectiveness” through personalised development focus areas
- Identify leadership potential, risks, and growth areas
- Support succession planning conversations with evidence-based insight
🤝 Team building and collaboration
- Build winning project teams
- Improve working relationships through shared language and behavioural understanding
The ECCSA difference, integrated talent assessment solutions
Many providers can run a test. ECCSA helps you turn results into a talent system.
⭐ Not bound to one test provider
We can customise talent management solutions by combining OPQ with other relevant assessments (for example ability, motivation, integrity-risk, job level, or competency frameworks) to fit your role requirements and context.
🧩 Competency-aligned design
We can map insights into your core competencies, role profiles, and leadership pipeline needs, especially where you are building future talent and talent retention strategies.
🛡️ Ethical, fair, and job-relevant use
We focus on defensible processes that support fair decision-making, with clear feedback and appropriate interpretation.
Speak to Us About OPQ Assessments as part of your talent management processes
If you want a talent assessment consultant who can design an OPQ-based solution that fits your roles, levels, and business realities, we can help.
Next step: Request an OPQ quote, tell us the job family, level, and purpose (selection, development, team, succession), and we will recommend the right report set and an integrated assessment approach.
👉 Contact Esterhuizen Consulting & Coaching to explore how the OPQ can support your people and business strategy.