HR 101 – How to Choose the Right Type of Assessments for the Job

Why choosing the right assessment matters

Hiring decisions directly affect team performance. The U.S. Department of Labor has estimated that a bad hire can cost up to 30% of the employee’s annual salary. That’s why understanding the types of assessments available is critical.

In the last blog in this HR 101 series, we shared the fundamentals of psychometric assessments and their use throughout the employee lifecycle, helping measure how people think, how they behave or what drives them. Each provide valuable data that can affect business outcomes, but choosing the right combination is critical to ensuring that the most relevant predictors of success are measured accurately and consistently, supporting both fairer hiring decisions and better outcomes for both candidates and the organization.

Before choosing an assessment, it’s important to understand what knowledge, skills, or traits the job requires. This should be based on a job analysis or a well-defined job description. The following three areas help ensure an assessment is appropriate, valid, and aligned with best practices.

1. Assessment content must match the job
   Assessments should measure skills or qualities that are truly required for the role. This can be achieved through interviews, surveys, or job observations to identify the key skills, abilities, or other characteristics (KSAOs) needed to perform them. Employers should be able to show that any assessment used is directly related to job performance.
2. Assessment context should reflect job tasks
   The way a skill is assessed should resemble how it's used on the job. This helps ensure the assessment is relevant and meaningful to candidates. For example, a typing test should involve typing content similar to what the role requires. 
3. Assessments should match the level of the job 
   Assessments should be calibrated to the required level of performance. Overly easy assessments won’t distinguish top candidates, while overly difficult ones risk excluding capable applicants.

Behavioral assessments

Behavioral assessments evaluate how candidates are likely to behave in specific workplace situations. Often based on past behavior or situational judgment, they measure interpersonal style, decision making, and role alignment.

Examples:

• Global Skills Assessment (GSA): Measures 96 workplace skills in 15 minutes.
• Situational Judgement Tests: Scores candidate responses to work-related scenarios.

Personality and motivation assessments

Personality assessments capture stable traits such as conscientiousness, adaptability, or emotional stability. Motivational questionnaires explore what inspires and sustains performance. Used together, they help early-stage screening, place people in roles where they’re most likely to thrive and assess leadership potential.

Examples:

• OPQ32r: Assesses 32 workplace personality dimensions.  
• Motivational Questionnaire: Profiles 18 motivational factors aligned to performance. Match individual employee motivation to team and organizational goals. 

Cognitive ability assessments

Cognitive tests focus on reasoning, problem-solving, and learning potential. They’re especially useful where complex thinking, adaptability, and fast learning are key. 

Examples: 

• Verify Portfolio: Includes deductive, inductive, and numerical reasoning assessments (including interactive formats). 

Skills and simulations

Skills tests and simulations measure an individual’s ability to perform specific job tasks. They bring real-world accuracy, helping confirm readiness for technical or specialized roles or environments such as call centers, IT, language and general business.

Examples:

• Multiple Choice Technical Skills Tests: Evaluate technical skills across machine learning, devops, cloud technologies and software engineering.
• Language Evaluations for multilingual roles.

Job-Focused Assessments

Combine multiple assessment methods tailored to specific job profiles. Holistic evaluation for high-volume hiring or complex role requirements. These assessments use a scientific approach to determine what skills and behaviors are needed for roles in specific industries such as retail and manufacturing, or certain levels such as professional and manager. 

Examples:

• Early-Career roles: identify candidates to fill graduate, apprentice, and intern level roles.
• Contact Center roles: identify candidates who excel in delivering exceptional customer service and issue resolution. 

Making assessments work together

While each assessment type offers different insights, they’re most powerful when used together. A combined approach, personality plus cognitive, for instance gives a richer, more accurate picture of potential.

Effective assessment strategies combine multiple methods to build a more complete and accurate picture of each candidate. Choose assessments that map directly to the job, communicate clearly with candidates, and integrate results into your wider HR decisions for the most defensible and effective outcomes.

Explore SHL’s comprehensive suite of assessments to find the tools that best fit your organization’s needs.