IPA Basic Personality Profile
A practical, work-focused snapshot of how people operate and collaborate
The IPA Basic Personality Profile is a compact and easy-to-use personality profile designed to provide a fast, qualified overview of how a person typically works, makes decisions, and collaborates.
It is a light version of IPA Nordic’s personality framework and is ideal when you need insight without lengthy tests or complex interpretation. Suitable for recruitment, development conversations, onboarding, and coaching.
Key dimensions
Four core work-related dimensions
Structured
How the person plans, organises, and creates overview
Action-oriented
How decisions are made and tasks are driven forward
Collaborative
How the person works with others and builds relationships
Change-ready
How the person approaches new ideas, change, and learning
Together, these dimensions create a clear and balanced picture of a person’s preferred working style.
Built on IPA Nordic’s research
The IPA Basic Personality Profile is developed as a light version of IPA Core Personality, IPA Nordic’s thoroughly validated and award-recognised personality analysis.
Where Core Personality offers in-depth insight across 12 traits, the Basic Personality Profile is designed for situations that require:
A quick overview of working style
A shared, accessible language in the organisation
A simple tool usable by managers without psychometric training
The four dimensions are synthesised from the underlying traits in IPA Core Personality and calibrated using IPA Nordic’s research and data.
Simple in form. Solid in foundation.
Profile type and assessment format
The IPA Basic Personality Profile is:
A work psychology profile, not a clinical test
Focused on behaviour and preferences in working life
Based on an ipsative (forced-choice) format
Respondents continuously prioritise between realistic alternatives, reducing socially desirable responses and inflated profiles.
The result is insight into relative preferences: what the person typically prioritises first when trade-offs are required.
When does the IPA Basic Personality Profile add value?
Recruitment
Supplement to CVs, interviews, and cases
Clarifies working style, priorities, and collaboration patterns
Strengthens interview dialogue and decision-making
Development and appraisal conversations
Shared starting point for dialogue on strengths and development
Connects working style with real tasks and expectations
Highlights potential imbalances
Onboarding and internal mobility
Faster understanding of new employees
Better matching between roles, projects, and preferences
Team and leadership development
Simple language for understanding differences and complementarities
Insight into balance across structure, execution, collaboration, and change
