Marines seek new use of Army-created personality test as means of gleaning keener insights

After decades of relying on standardized testing to vet recruits and assign them their duties, the Marine Corps could begin using a personality test to track what qualities make the best Marines, then recruit people who match the profile.

Before ever lacing up a pair of combat boots, nearly every service member over the past half-century has taken the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB, a test used to determine military eligibility and qualification for many career fields.

Now, the Marine Corps is piloting ways to use data collected during a pre-enlistment personality assessment to better identify the traits that lead to troops’ long-term success, according to the service’s senior enlisted leader. 

During a July 8 panel discussion hosted by the Military Officers Association of America, Sgt. Maj. of the Marine Corps Carlos Ruiz challenged the standardized test.

A post-test called the Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment System, or TAPAS, might give recruiters a better picture on Marines’ talent and intelligence, he said. 

“Is the ASVAB the only indicator of success?” Ruiz asked during the event. “We say it’s not.”

The Marine Corps has spent nearly seven years collecting and studying TAPAS information, he said. The assessment includes questions regarding household upbringing, school placement, extracurricular activities and values, among others.

Rather than treating those results as a one-time recruiting tool, the service plans to see how it can follow participants throughout their military careers to identify traits and characteristics that align with those of successful leaders, then use that data to recruit future Marines, Ruiz said. 

The Marine Corps is actively piloting the “USMC TAPAS” and will be continuing to analyze data on every recruit through fiscal year 2028, Yvonne Carlock, a spokeswoman for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, said Wednesday. 

The holistic ASVAB supplement has analyzed over 100,000 active-duty Marines with no previous service experience, she said. Adding that higher scores directly led to “lower attrition, improved performance, and fewer adverse separations during the first enlistment,” in those analyzed. 

Carlock added that the service measures success based off a Marine’s “trainability, job-performance, and propensity for adverse separation.“

The Army developed TAPAS to supplement the ASVAB and help predict success in that service, implementing it as part of the vetting process for new recruits in 2009.

In 2015, an Army official said a version of the test was being evaluated for use in determining whether soldiers would be a good fit for certain special-duty assignments, such as drill sergeant or recruiter, and could one day be used more widely throughout the Army.

In recent years, some critics have suggested that the ASVAB and other standardized tests, such as the SAT, may be biased against minorities or people who grew up in economically disadvantaged communities.

Its focus on math and verbal skills may miss the mark in determining how well someone will do in the military, some have suggested.

Ruiz said that despite his senior position, he “barely passed” the ASVAB, illustrating why the service is looking beyond test scores alone. 

“Is it the institution that made me? Is it because I have certain characteristics? I have no idea,” Ruiz said. “I just know that the ASVAB test is not the only indicator of success and we should explore that a little more.” 

Ruiz did not suggest TAPAS would replace the ASVAB. Instead, he said the Marine Corps plans to be more intentional in how it uses the information collected to better understand a recruit’s potential.

If the effort expands beyond its current pilot phase, the additional information could give the Marine Corps more insights to consider alongside traditional aptitude scores when evaluating prospective recruits.

“I think the ASVAB is outdated even though they come up with more updated versions of tests,” Gunnery Sgt. Alexandrainejoy Casem, a former Marine recruiter, told Stars and Stripes Wednesday.

“I think the best determination for success is a recruit’s motivation and drive,” she added. 

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Brian Kelly, president of the Military Officers Association of America and moderator of the panel, echoed Ruiz’s comments.

“The idea of being able to measure somebody’s grit and their resiliency and their ability to overcome challenges ... is not easily done in the ASVAB,” Kelly said.