Assess Systems Australia

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.
2008 Available in 16 languages and 42 different countries; released Assess Progress (Performance Appraisal).
  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)
  • Hiring Manager Report (PDF 125 KB) NEW!!!
  • 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)