Can I re-do the assessment?

The science states that a person's Talents remain relatively stable over time (past early adulthood).  Moderate changes can occur and are most often the result of significant life changes (marriage, living abroad, birth of a child) and/or intense and sustained business coaching.

Plum measures someone’s baseline ability. This is relatively stable. We can help someone develop the skills necessary to perform the required behaviors, we call this developing compensatory strategies.

Because your Talents don't change much over time, there is no requirement for you to retake the Discovery Survey if you do not wish too. You can retake the assessment if you wish to, but only after one year has passed since you initially took it.

The Plum Discovery Survey is a universal assessment of cognitive ability and personality. Your results are not job specific until combined with the employer’s match criteria and therefore the assessment does not need to be retaken for every job application. 

Research has found that personality stabilizes during early adulthood*, meaning that results on the test will change very little if taken after your early 20's. 

Plum’s test has good test-retest reliability. We found similar Plum Trait and Talent scores for individuals who took the test two times across an interval of 2-4 weeks.

The Plum Discovery Survey is designed to capture your natural, ingrained tendencies. Those tendencies tend to be stable over time. Therefore, a Plum Profile is unlikely to change over time. This is because we are assessing core characteristics about a person - their cognitive abilities and personality - which research has shown are relatively stable once in adulthood**. 

For example, those who are extraverted are very unlikely to become introverted. Those who prefer to have more stability in general are unlikely to enjoy uncertainty on a regular basis. That being said, as you continue to grow and develop what will likely change is your compensatory skills. A compensatory strategy is a technique individuals use to help them perform a Talent well, even when it is not something that comes natural to them or drives them. So while you gain more experience, you will not be changing who you are at your core, but you will be developing these strategies to still be able to perform those Talents well when you need to in the workforce.

That said, if you deliberately select completely different answers and don't answer honestly, your results will change and may change drastically. Our research demonstrates that authentic, honest responses will provide you with the most valuable information to support you in your career path. 

* (Terracino, McCrae, & Costa Jr., 2010)
** (Cobb-Clark & Schurer, 2012)

Dear candidates, please note that Plum will not accommodate requests to retake the Plum Discovery Survey if less than one year has passed since the initial assessment was taken. We must be fair to all candidates and ensure that everyone is afforded the same opportunity.

The ability to retake the Plum Discovery Survey is restricted, as our research shows that the results do not change much over time. Plum must be fair to all candidates and ensure that everyone is afforded the same opportunity. 

Plum will accommodate requests to retake the Plum Discovery Survey only if at least one year has passed since the assessment was last taken.

To verify if you are eligible to send a request to retake the Plum Discovery Survey, please follow these steps:

1. Login to your Plum account.

2.  Navigate to Applied, under My Plum.

3. You will then be able to see each job that you submitted your Plum Profile for, and the date of each application. Search for the oldest job on your Profile: this will give you the time since you first completed the Plum Discovery Survey. Only if your Plum Profile states that you have initially completed the assessment more than one year ago can you move on to step 4.

4. If you have completed your Plum Discovery Survey more than one year ago, you can submit a request to retake the assessment (see how here below). All your previous job applications will maintain your previous Plum results, but you will no longer be able to access your old Plum Profile (top three Talents, Work Style and Work Preferences).

Candidates with an ongoing job application for which they have already submitted their Plum results:

Your Applied page will list your most recent job applications. If you recently submitted your Plum Profile for an application that is still ongoing, you have two options. 

Submitting your assessment retake request

To submit a request, fill out the following template and send it to help@plum.io using the same email address as the one associated with you Plum account. Kindly remember that all requests from candidates who initially completed the assessment less than one year ago will be automatically rejected.

"Hi Plum Support team!

My name is ______ and my Plum account email address is ______. I have verified that I completed my Plum Discovery Survey ______ months/years ago. I would like to retake the assessment.

I am aware that my previous job applications will still be linked to my old Plum Discovery Survey results. I will no longer have access to my old Plum Profile (top three talents, work style and work preferences). Please allow me to retake the Plum Discovery Survey."

For candidates that have already submitted their old Plum Profile for a new job application, please add the following section to the previous text:

"I have recently submitted my Plum Profile for :
Job title: _________________________
Company: ________________________

I choose the following option (please choose option 1 or 2 of the following):