Quickly measure workplace behaviors scientifically.
Today’s hiring depends heavily on intuition, lengthy technical assessments, prolonged interviews, or personality tests. None of them reveal how candidates will perform in the long term in the unique context of the hiring organization. With the Universal Skill Profiler, understanding a candidate's workplace behavior becomes easier and faster than ever.
What is the Universal Skill Profiler?
The Universal Skill Profiler is a 13-25 minute, scientifically validated test that helps you understand a candidate’s work behavior, not just their knowledge.
It presents candidates with a series of behavioral statements that ask them to rate statements ranging from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree.” Their responses are compared against a normative sample. Based on this comparison, a candidate’s score for each universal skill is described according to one of five score categories, ranging from very low to very high.
In practice, this means that a candidate who scores much higher on a given universal skill than people in the normative sample will be placed in the “very high” category; a candidate scoring somewhat higher than the normative sample will land in the “high” category, and so on.
The USP measures 21 universal workplace skills across three clusters:
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Focusing on Objectives - How you get things done
1. Business Savvy
2. Customer Focus
3. Agile Decision Making
4. Planning and Prioritizing
5. Driving Results
6. Strategic Perspective
7. Navigating Complexity
8. Embracing Innovation
9. Organizing Resources -
Working with People - How you relate to others
10. Showing Resilience
11. Self Awareness
12. Earning Trust
13. Navigating Ambiguity
14. Self Development
15. Being Bold -
Managing Oneself - How you use your inner resources
16. Working Collaboratively
17. Communicating Effectively
18. Valuing Diversity
19. Social Agility
20. Handling Conflict
21. Developing Others
Universal skills are observable, measurable behaviors and skills required to perform effectively in any role. Also referred to as “behavioral competencies,” universal skills are applicable and transferable across roles, organizations, and industries.
This contrasts with technical expertise (“hard skills”), often only applicable in specific roles or industries. Universal skills include agile decision-making, planning and prioritizing, embracing innovation, working collaboratively, handling conflict, earning trust, showing resilience, and self-development.
Why use the Universal Skill Profiler?
The Universal Skill Profiler provides you with tangible data points on candidate behavior in the workplace. It enables you to efficiently narrow down candidates using actual data points that align well with the organization’s long-term behavioral needs.
Examples:
To help understand the USP a bit better, below are five examples where using the USP can make a clear difference:
Example one: Faster candidate screening
Screening candidates manually is slow, inconsistent, and relies on subjective judgment. Recruiters waste time filtering resumes and conducting preliminary interviews for unqualified candidates.
✅ USP Solution:
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Traditional method:
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Example two: Reduce interview pipeline bloat
Too many candidates advance to interviews without a clear behavioral fit, wasting recruiter and hiring manager time.
✅ USP Solution:
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Traditional method:
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Example three: High-volume hiring
When hiring at scale, recruiters struggle to screen large candidate pools while ensuring quality hires efficiently.
✅ USP Solution:
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Traditional method:
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Example four: Predict the potential candidate's success in a role
Resumes and interviews can’t reliably predict how a candidate will behave six months into the job.
✅ USP Solution:
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Traditional method:
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Example five: Develop more targeted behavioral interviews based on USP results
Behavioral interviews can be unstructured and depend on the recruiter’s ability to ask the right questions.
✅ USP Solution:
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Traditional method:
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Example six: Gradually improve overall organizational behavior
Hiring the wrong behavioral fit leads to poor team collaboration, high turnover, and lower productivity.
✅ USP Solution:
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Traditional method:
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Using the Universal Skill Profiler
Beginning to use the USP test in your assessments is very easy! Simply add the test to an assessment to begin using the USP test in your assessments. Please note that you are unable to edit assessments that external candidates have already taken, so it is best to create a new assessment.
Interactive demo
Viewing results
To view the results of candidates who have taken an assessment with the USP test, navigate to the corresponding assessment. Once in the test overview, clicking on the Universal Skill Profiler test will open up the card, from which you can view a diagram for each of the three skill clusters and where the candidates' skills lie.
Clicking on View report below the diagrams will bring up the Universal Skills Profiler Report.
The USP report provides a detailed analysis of the person’s results for each of the 21 skills. The report:
- Describes how the person will likely demonstrate a specific universal skill in the workplace, highlighting their strengths and the tasks or situations they may find more challenging.
- Identifies the types of environments and roles where the person is likely to thrive and perform successfully
- Offers clear, actionable recommendations to support and facilitate the further development of the skill.
Common questions
Can I use both the USP and a personality test in the same assessment?
Yes. The USP measures developable skills that candidates can improve over time, while personality tests focus on more stable traits that are harder to change. Using both can provide a more comprehensive view, encompassing what candidates typically prefer, how they generally behave in their day-to-day lives (personality), and how they may adapt their skills and behavior on the job to deliver the results (universal skills).
Can I use both the USP and Culture Add tests in the same assessment?
Yes. The USP measures a candidate’s proficiency in 21 core business, interpersonal, and self-management competencies influencing workplace success. It evaluates how candidates get things done, collaborate with others, and manage themselves professionally. In contrast, the Culture Add test assesses how well a candidate’s values and characteristics align with and contribute to your organization’s culture.
Can the USP be used beyond hiring, for example, in employee development?
Yes. The USP generates insights about a candidate’s (perceived) current level of behavioral competence and highlights potential areas for growth. After employees have joined the organization, managers and HR teams can use these results to pinpoint specific development opportunities, create individualized training plans, and set targeted developmental goals. This makes the USP a valuable tool for new and existing employees, helping build leadership pipelines, enhance team effectiveness, and foster continuous professional growth.
Can the USP be a standalone test for hiring decisions?
While USP provides valuable behavioral insights, it is best used alongside other tests (e.g., cognitive, technical, role-specific assessments) for a holistic view of a candidate’s capabilities. The USP can help you filter candidates early in the process and help you build structured interviews for the shortlist.
What happens if a candidate scores low on a key skill?
A low score should not automatically disqualify a candidate but indicates a potential development area. Hiring teams should:
- Map the most relevant USP skills to the job requirements to see if the skill is essential.
- Use follow-up interview questions and other hiring tools to validate the result.
- Assess the candidate holistically using a multi-measure approach, including role-specific skills, cognitive ability, personality, and motivation.
How should recruiters interpret a candidate with all "Very High" scores?
Candidates can present various score combinations across the 21 universal skills. While a profile with consistently high scores across all competencies is rare, it could indicate one of the following:
- A candidate with exceptionally well-developed universal skills relative to the normative sample.
- A potential overestimation in self-assessment.
- How to interpret and verify the results:
- Avoid assumptions. Do not immediately dismiss the results or assume the candidate has responded in a socially desirable manner (i.e., "faked" it). While some candidates may overestimate their abilities, others may genuinely have strong behavioral competencies.
- Check the response time. The average completion time for the USP is approximately 13 minutes, with a maximum allowed time of 25 minutes. If the candidate completed the test significantly faster than average, it may be worth considering whether they engaged thoughtfully with the questions.
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Cross-reference with other hiring data. Compare the candidate’s USP results with additional available information, such as:
- Other test scores (e.g., role-specific skills tests, situational judgment tests, cognitive ability)
- Interview insights
- Reference checks
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Engage the candidate in further discussion. If needed, consider asking:
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How did they approach the USP? Did they take their time to reflect on their responses, or were there any external factors influencing their answers (e.g., distractions, time pressure)?
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Behavior-based interview questions related to key USP competencies, such as Working collaboratively, Showing resilience, and Agile decision-making. Asking for concrete examples of how they’ve demonstrated these skills in past roles can provide deeper validation of their results.
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Using a multi-measure assessment approach ensures that no single test result is taken in isolation. If candidates' scores appear unusually high, considering multiple data points will provide a more balanced and accurate view of their potential.
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Does the broader evidence support their high USP scores, or do discrepancies emerge?