Advice and guides / For candidates
What a thirty minute hiring assessment actually tests
A short assessment is not a smaller version of an exam. It is built to buy the information a CV cannot give, in the least time it can take from you.
Thirty minutes is not much. That constraint is the whole design. Every minute has to buy something the employer could not have learned by reading your CV, because the CV is already in front of them. Anything the paper could look up, it does not ask.
The parts, and what each one is for
Most short assessments are built from the same five pieces, in some combination.
- A typing or accuracy section. Two minutes, usually on a plain paragraph. It is there for roles where output volume matters, and it is dropped for roles where it means nothing. Nobody is rejected on typing speed alone.
- Role knowledge questions. Six or seven minutes of multiple choice on the tools listed on your CV. The point is not trivia. It is whether the tool names on your CV correspond to something you have used.
- Judgement scenarios. A situation where the brief is incomplete, or the client is wrong, or two instructions conflict. There is no single right answer. What is marked is the reasoning and whether you noticed what was missing.
- Questions about your own CV. Two questions built from what you wrote. The order you did something in, the thing that most often went wrong. This is the part that matters most, and for anyone who did the work it is the easiest part of the paper.
- One practical task. An Excel formula, an email to a difficult client, a short query, a fragment of code. One realistic thing you would do on a Tuesday.
What a marker reads first
Not the score. The first thing anyone reads is whether your answers about your own work are consistent with the CV they are holding. Somebody who spent four years in accounts payable answers a question about payment runs in two sentences with a detail nobody would invent. Somebody who did not, writes something general and correct that could describe any job anywhere.
The second thing is the time data. Forty seconds on a question that needs four minutes is its own answer, and so is nine minutes on a question that should take two. Neither is used on its own to reject anybody, but both show up in the report.
What it is not
It is not a trap. There is no negative marking in a well built assessment, no trick wording, and no question designed so that most people fail it. A screening test that half the candidates fail has not sorted anybody, it has just wasted an afternoon.
It is also not the decision. A short assessment orders a pile so a human can start at the top. The interview, the judgement and the offer all still belong to the employer.
How to sit one well
- Use a computer, not a phone. Typing sections on a phone are meaningless and you will lose marks to the keyboard rather than to the question.
- Do it in one sitting, when you are not about to be interrupted. Server side timers do not pause.
- Answer the CV questions in specifics. Names, order, what broke. General answers read as thin even when they are true.
- Do not paste from another window. Paste events are recorded, and a pasted answer reads worse than a short honest one.
- If you run short of time, write two clear sentences rather than one long unfinished paragraph.
If you want to see the exact shape of ours, the full thirty minute breakdown is published, section by section, with the marks. You can also see the practical task for each of the seventy five roles before you start.