Patrick E. Merlevede

COMET & the problems with self-assessment

A series of at least 10 psychological studies done between 1976 and 1990 shows that many people tend to overestimate their abilities. We tend to think of ourselves as having better leadership skills, more intelligence and a better life than our peers. A good source for this and other problems of human reasoning are well explained in the book "How we know what isn't so, the fallibility of human reason in everyday life" by Thomas Gilovich (1991). Gilowich writes: "We are inclined to adopt self-serving beliefs about ourselves, and comforting beliefs about the world." and he cites Francis Bacon: "Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true".

Thus, even if persons being tested would be willing to give a fair view of their competencies, my expectation is that self-assessment is an unreliable form of measuring one's level of competence. Unfortunately, this has been confirmed several times when I used competncy questionnaires in recruiting and coaching. So why did we then develop the COMET questionnaire?

The main issue is that this is only a demonstration! Yes, this demo version of the COMET questionnaire is a self-assesment questionnaire, which contains statements related to emotional intelligence. This demonstration gives you an idea about the experience of filling out a questionnaire, but differs from the "real thing" in 2 important aspects. First, the "real" use of the COMET questionnaire is 360° feedback. This means that your peers, bosses, collaborators, ... are asked to assess you. These results are then aggregated, ideally giving a more neutral impression than self-assesment. Secondly, persons trained to use the COMET methodology have learned a specific form of behavioral based interviewing. They use interview techniques to check upon the results of the questionnaire. From experience, we know that these interviews give more accurate results than self-assessment.

Another issue is the content of the questionnaire. This is also *only* for demonstration purposes! While we know that these statements accurately define emotional intelligence, we cannot know if these sample statements are relevant for you and if they are related to the way your competencies reflect in your job. To put it a bit more provocative: Maybe you are even better off with a bad score in this questionnaire if you want to keep your current job! That's why the *real* use of the COMET methodology prescribes that one builds their own questionnaires, based upon interviews with the top performers doing that job in a specific company.

To jobEQ, the COMET methodology is more important than the software. If you want to test competencies, whether you want to do this using 360° feedback or using behavior based interviewing, our partners can help you execute this process in a scientifically sound way.

Patrick Merlevede
jobEQ's R&D specialist.