PI Creating Job Targets 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A PI practitioner is creating a Job Target for a new Sales Director role. What is the recommended first step?
- Have the top sales performer complete the PI Behavioral Assessment
- Gather input from stakeholders who understand the role's performance requirements (Correct answer)
- Copy the Job Target from a similar role at a competitor company
- Set all four behavioral factors to high to attract ambitious candidates
Correct answer: Gather input from stakeholders who understand the role's performance requirements
Best practice is to collect Job Assessment responses from stakeholders—such as hiring managers and current high performers—who understand what behavioral drives lead to success in the role.
Question 2: A Job Target has been created, but two stakeholders' responses are significantly different from the others. What is the recommended action?
- Discard both outlier responses and recalculate the target
- Automatically weight the senior stakeholder's input more heavily
- Discuss the differences to understand whether the role definition is unclear (Correct answer)
- Lock the target and proceed with interviewing candidates
Correct answer: Discuss the differences to understand whether the role definition is unclear
Significant disagreement among stakeholders often signals an unclear or misaligned understanding of the role, making discussion and alignment a critical step before finalizing the target.
Question 3: Which PI feature allows a practitioner to view how a candidate's behavioral pattern overlaps with the Job Target on a single graph?
- Performance Report
- Pattern Overlay (Correct answer)
- Candidate Comparison View
- Behavioral Gap Analysis
Correct answer: Pattern Overlay
The Pattern Overlay places the candidate's behavioral pattern directly on top of the Job Target, making it easy to visualize alignment and gaps.
Question 4: A company is hiring for a role that requires both high autonomy and close adherence to safety protocols. Which two PI factors would most directly address these requirements in the Job Target?
- Dominance (high) and Formality (high) (Correct answer)
- Extraversion (high) and Patience (high)
- Dominance (low) and Extraversion (high)
- Patience (low) and Formality (low)
Correct answer: Dominance (high) and Formality (high)
High Dominance targets independent decision-making and autonomy, while high Formality targets precision and rule-following—both critical for autonomous yet safety-sensitive roles.
Question 5: In PI, what is a 'Reference Profile,' and how does it relate to a Job Target?
- A reference profile is a named behavioral archetype that can serve as a starting point for building or validating a Job Target (Correct answer)
- A reference profile is the behavioral pattern of the highest-performing current employee in a role
- A reference profile is a government-regulated competency standard for professional roles
- A reference profile is created by the candidate to explain their behavioral history
Correct answer: A reference profile is a named behavioral archetype that can serve as a starting point for building or validating a Job Target
PI Reference Profiles are pre-built behavioral archetypes (e.g., Maverick, Collaborator) that practitioners can use as benchmarks when creating or refining a Job Target.
Question 6: Why is it generally inadvisable to create a Job Target based solely on the behavioral profile of the current top performer in a role?
- Because top performers always score too high on Dominance to be useful as a benchmark
- Because one individual's profile may not capture all the behavioral ways someone can succeed in the role (Correct answer)
- Because PI prohibits using employee data for job target creation
- Because top performers typically have invalid PI patterns due to social desirability bias
Correct answer: Because one individual's profile may not capture all the behavioral ways someone can succeed in the role
Relying on a single top performer's profile risks creating a narrow target that excludes other behavioral patterns equally capable of driving success in the role.
Question 7: A Job Target for a quality assurance analyst includes a high Formality score. What candidate behavior should this predict if the match is good?
- The candidate prefers working independently without feedback
- The candidate naturally gravitates toward accuracy, checklists, and established procedures (Correct answer)
- The candidate is likely to challenge existing processes and propose radical changes
- The candidate will prioritize speed over thoroughness in their work
Correct answer: The candidate naturally gravitates toward accuracy, checklists, and established procedures
High Formality drives a behavioral preference for exactness, systematic work, and adherence to standards—core behaviors for quality assurance roles.
PI Creating Job Targets 3
A PI practitioner is creating a Job Target for a new Sales Director role.
What is the recommended first step?