More Information


Since the late 1950s our assessment practice has been evaluating managers and professionals using a battery of tests.

  • Personality
  • Intellectual Abilities
  • 360 Feedback
1970s Developed an expert system for the selection of managers and professionals.
1980s Took this to a PC platform and added a development report.
1990s One of the first to take our expert system to the internet.
2001 Launched research efforts to adapt ASSESS for the international market.
2003 Released ASSESSv2 for Competencies.
2004 Released the Assess360 module for use with the ASSESS platform.
2006 Introduced Focus360 and My360 modules.
  1. Companies that prosper in good times and bad times:
    • Understand what their customers want and need
    • Do the right things to consistently meet or exceed customer expectations
    • Focus on the most important things to achieve these expectations
    • Incorporate all of this into a well defined strategy
  2. Prosperous companies use this strategy to guide:
    • How they spend money
    • Which products and services they offer
    • How they organise themselves
    • How they staff their organisation
    • How they define what their people should do
  3. Prosperous companies use competency models to:
    • Translate strategy into human requirements
    • Define the best behaviour to achieve strategic goals
    • Specify the desired skills, abilities and personal attributes for people at all levels in the organisation

    ...so that their people do the right things, the most important things.

  4. Guiding Concepts
    • All organisations want people to be effective in their jobs.
    • People are more effective in some roles than others.
    • From a selection perspective, if we can put the right people in the right role we will maximise our success.
    • From a development perspective, within their roles, we should help people grow and develop.
    • Finally, from a business perspective, we must continually increase the capabilities of the workforce to prepare for the future.

Job success in an area is the result of many factors working together, which include innate characteristics (natural ability, personality) and learned characteristics (knowledge, experience and skills) as is presented in the chart below.

Competency Grid

People who have the needed innate and/or learned characteristics or who have a good potential for developing these characteristics will be able to do the right things (behaviours) to produce the desired results (effective outcomes).

Competency models focus on the critical competencies which define success:

  • built from the business strategy
  • defined by the important job outcomes
  • emphasise what is important
  • focus on optimal performance

Competency models allow us to understand our people needs. What innate and learned capabilities lead to the display of these competencies?

  • Innate Capabilities are inherent in the person and change little over time.
  • Learned Capabilities develop with effort and experience

Good competency models guide all HR processes:

  • Selection — provide a clear target for selection practices and candidate evaluation
  • Development — focus development activities on the skills, knowledge and characteristics that will have an impact on job effectiveness
  • Training — maximise the investment of training dollars
  • Performance Evaluation — clarify work expectations and measurement in a common language
  • Succession Planning — shift focus beyond current performance to potential for future roles
  • Compensation — pay according to performance based on competency

View our white paper on the SSM process (PDF 210KB).

  • Competency Modeling White Paper (PDF 210KB)
  • Assess Professional Technical Manual (PDF 638KB)
  • Brochure (PDF 176KB)
  • 360 Feedback - Best Practice Guidelines (PDF 122KB)

  • Graphic Profile (PDF 38KB)
  • Success Profile (PDF 32KB)
  • Screening Report (PDF 64KB)
  • Standard Selection Report (PDF 289KB)
  • Competency Selection Report (PDF 250KB)
  • Sales Manager Competency Report (PDF 249KB)
  • Standard Development Report (PDF 323KB)
  • Competency Development report (PDF 334KB)
  • 360 Report (PDF 794KB)
  • Focus 360 Report (PDF 348KB)

These slide presentations are in PDF format and can be viewed in your browser simply by clicking the 'PDF' marker. They are best viewed in Full Screen mode. Feel free to download the files and share with your colleagues. To download the files, please right-click on the file. Choose the option "Save Target As ...".

  • Competency Reports (PDF 1160KB)
  • Standard Reports (PDF 1760KB)
  • Focus360 Demo (PDF 197KB)
  • My360 Demo (PDF 326KB)

Assess Products are available to client companies, recruitment agencies, human resource consultants, psychologists and those involved with people at all job levels, whether for screening, selecting, developing, coaching or counselling.

All prices are in Australian dollars and exclude the 10% GST (Goods and Services tax). The GST is added for Australian customers only.

You can access ASSESS Professional in one of two ways:

Bureau Service: We provide you with a username and password and the online test site link, which you give to your candidates. They complete the questionnaire online, after which we are notified. We produce the report and email it to you. The cost of each report is $315 AUD. We invoice you for each report. Note that there are two report styles (standard and competency) for two distinct purposes (selection and development). The 360 Feedback report is essentially a development report. If after generating a first report, you want a different report on the same candidate, the price is $157.50 AUD. A screening report is available for $157.50 AUD and is an ideal cost-effective first-look at a candidate.

Personalised Site1: You manage your own candidates and generate your own reports. This method requires purchasing blocks of units in advance (minimum purchase 10 units). Each report takes two units, except for the second report on the same candidate, which is one unit. Each unit costs $142.50 AUD. So, the first report would cost $285 AUD and the second one on the same candidate would cost $142.50 AUD. While each report is cheaper than the bureau option, the up-front cost is greater. There are no set-up fees. The advantage of this method, is the control, speed of turnaround, and the cost. We will negotiate on price for multiple blocks of units.

Summary
Method Report Price
Bureau Standard Selection Report $315 AUD
Bureau Standard Development Report $315 AUD
Bureau Competency Selection Report $315 AUD
Bureau Competency Development Report $315 AUD
Bureau 360 Feedback Report $315 AUD
Bureau Screening Report $157.50 AUD
Bureau Second Report (same candidate) $157.50 AUD
Personalised Site1 Unit Purchasing Plan (10 units) $142.50 per unit
Personalised Site Supervised Ability Testing N/C
Half Day Workshop $800.00+report costs Call
Individual Coaching $200.00/hr Call

1 The cost of setting up a personalised site is $1425 AUD and includes a one day accreditation workshop and 10 free units (the equivalent of 5 free reports).

NB. Special unit purchasing plans are available for consultants, psychologists, recruiters and coaches who wish to charge ASSESS professional reports to their clients.

Ability Testing is best administered by client companies at their premises, with the results emailed or faxed to Assess Systems for inputting into the final report. Inputting of ability test results by Assess Systems is free. Clients that have their own Personalised Site and administer their own tests can upload their own test results at no charge. Ability test materials can be supplied by Assess Systems at cost, or you may prefer to source your own supplies. Available tests can be viewed here..