The CPQ Nova vs The CPQ Legacy: What’s Changed?

Overview

The CPQ Nova Library is an upgraded collection of flexible personality traits designed to capture the full breadth of modern workplace behaviours. Building on the strengths of the CPQ Legacy Library, the Nova version introduces refreshed and newly developed scales that reflect today’s most in-demand skills. Developed through extensive reviews, literature research, and rigorous psychometric testing, the Nova Library ensures higher validity, reliability, and relevance, making it a robust tool for assessing the personality traits most critical for success in the evolving world of work.

Not only have we shaken up the scales library, but we’ve also developed brand new questionnaires and reports, as well as revising the model of personality that our scales library sits within.

The CPQ Model of Personality

We’ve scrapped the terminology ‘style’ and we’re heading towards ‘soft-skills’, to promote a more skills and values-based focus on personality at work.

• People soft-skills: An individual’s preferred style, approach, and impact when interacting with others.
• Cognitive soft-skills: An individual’s typical approach when dealing with tasks, challenges, problems, responsibilities, and decisions.
• Emotion soft-skills: An individual’s emotions, temperament, and inner experience.
• Motivation values: An individual’s values and motivations within an occupational context.
• Culture-fit values: An individual’s motivation to perform particular tasks in particular ways, as well as the type of organisational culture they are likely to thrive in.
• Self-presentation: An individual’s response style to the questionnaire.

Scales Library

Our new scales library is made up of a mixture of brand new scales, re-worked and amended scales, and classic scales in their original form.

What’s new?

14 funky fresh new scales ready to cause a stir.

1. Ambition vs Satisfaction​
2. Cheerful vs Solemn​
3. Dependable vs Inconsistent​
4. Empathy vs Distance​
5. Ethical vs Practical​
6. Innovation vs Implementation​
7. Leading vs Supporting
8. People-focused vs Task-focus
9. Perfectionism vs Pragmatism​
10. Personal-fulfilment vs Financially-driven​
11. Proactive vs Flexible​
12. Relaxed vs Restless​
13. Technology-confidence vs Technology-caution​
14. Values-focused vs Business-focused

What’s been re-worked?

18 familiar favourites that have been re-modelled, re-worked, and re-purposed.

1. Change vs Stability​
2. Forthright vs Tactful​
3. Emotional-analysis vs Emotional-acceptance​
4. Rebellious vs Conforming​
5. Persuading vs Compromising​
6. Intellectually-curious vs Down-to-earth​
7. Expressive vs Attentive​
8. Regulation vs Autonomy​
9. Steady vs Pace
10. Contemplative vs Resilience
11. Sensitive vs Robust​
12. Self-efficacy vs Self-critical​
13. Impression-management vs Candour​
14. Conceptual-thinking vs Applied-thinking​
15. Stress-fuelled vs Stress-averse​
16. Planful vs Improvising​
17. Routine vs Novelty​
18. Self-sufficiency vs Emotional-support

What’s back on the scene?

15 oldies but goldies brought back out to play.

1. Adaptable vs Consistent​
2. Approachable vs Reserved​
3. Assertive vs Gentle​
4. Calm vs Worrying​
5. Competition vs Cooperation​
6. Considered vs Decisive​
7. Detail-focused vs Holistic​
8. Friendship vs Severance
9. Gregarious vs Solitary​
10. Humour vs Serious​
11. Optimistic vs Pessimistic​
12. Poised vs Reticent​
13. Rational vs Intuitive​
14. Risky vs Cautious​
15. Variety vs Focus

Questionnaires

With the refresh of our library, we’ve also rebuilt our off-the-shelf questionnaires from scratch with the new library.

Standard

Clevry’s Core Questionnaire is intended to provide comprehensive insight into the typical preferences and tendencies for behaviours, feelings, values, and motivations that are important in the workplace. The new Clevry Core comprises 23 scales, and allows you to develop an understanding of candidates’ personality in relation to the Big Five + model if you wish to.

Development

As part of our new library, Clevry users will be able to use Leadership and Team Strengths questionnaires curated for specific development needs. You can view these questionnaires now to see which scales they include. Their reports are ✨coming soon✨.

Role & Industry

Our industry and role specific questionnaires aren’t necessarily a new addition, but we’ve updated them to capture all the relevant personality traits that we can. Combining our SME knowledge from our experienced assessment and development experts, alongside conducting literature reviews and research into various job roles and industries, we have provided a new and improved range of questionnaires ready for you to use at the drop of a hat.

Find out more about what questionnaires are available here.

What's available now?

We are releasing CPQ Nova in stages and we will update it as new features go live. This table shows what you can use today and what is ✨coming soon✨

Last updated: October 2026

To start using CPQ Nova, please contact your Customer Success Manager.

Reports

Alongside a new shiny model of personality, we’ve got some brand new and updated reports for you too.

 The reports below are ✨coming soon✨. You can see what is available now in the table above. 

Dynamic Feedback

Our PDF reports will be complemented with new online feedback reports. These reports transform the static, downloadable documents into interactive, web-based reports that can be accessed anytime, on any device. The core insights and data-driven profiles you trust remain intact but are now enhanced with features and responsive designs for improved readability. This shift to an online environment provides a more engaging user experience and facilitates easier sharing & distribution within authorised teams.

Leadership

The Clevry Leadership Model has been revised and refreshed, based on the latest academic research to provide a comprehensive and detailed understanding of candidates’ leadership styles. The report covers 4 key areas of leadership, as well as exploring individuals’ alignment with different leadership theories, highlighting their top leadership style. Not only this, but users can see a breakdown of individuals’ scores in relation to the Big Five + within a leadership context.

Team Strengths

Our Team Strengths report has been updated to include 3 brand new team types as well as a revised model of team working. The new report provides users with their most likely team type, along with detailed feedback regarding their associated strengths and derailers. Users are also provided with hints and tips on how to support their development, and questions to encourage reflection on how they can improve the way they work in a team.

Big Five +

Based on popular demand, we have created a brand new Big Five + report. Having mapped the CPQ Nova against the Big Five + model based upon a statistical analysis and qualitative review, users can review test takers’ personality against this model.

Find out more about our reports here.