Creating a cognitive skills assessment for prospective employees is not an easy task. Neither it is a test that can be put together using a few generalized questions you find on the internet.
Therefore, a cognitive test needs to be designed carefully so that you can assess the required skills for your organization.
Why Do You Need the Test:
Before you start designing a cognitive test, understand what is cognitive assessment, and finalize what skills you want to assess. These tests differ from psychometric tests as they focus more on job skills.
Hence, while designing online cognitive tests, have clarity about the job role and responsibilities. Common cognitive skills assessed to determine the employability of a candidate are communication skills, interpersonal skills, behavior, technical skills and job-related knowledge, and general awareness on current social issues.
Determine the Structure of the Test:
After you have determined the skills, decide on how much weightage you would like to give them. This will help you decide what and how many questions to incorporate. The type of question will vary from industry to industry and depend on employers. But some aspects will remain common such as skills, knowledge, and personality assessment, which are required to be assessed in any industry. Only the level of difficulty can vary.
While making the structure, short answer questions (such as MCQs) have a benefit as candidates prefer such assessments. When a recruiter sends an assessment or task online that has lengthy questions, candidates tend to lose interest and skip it. This reduces the number of applicants and you’ll be left with a very little number of candidates to choose from.
There are various types of tests that are administered by employers. Some of the broad categories are:
- Situational Judgement: They assess the problem-solving ability of the candidate.
- Non-verbal Reasoning: These tests have questions based on shapes and images and assess the interpretation skills of a candidate.
- Diagrammatic Reasoning: These tests use questions based on diagrams, flow charts, and graphs to check logical reasoning ability.
- Verbal Reasoning: They assess language proficiency and verbal reasoning abilities. In these tests, questions are based on comprehension and spotting the error.
- Numerical Reasoning: This type of question is to assess mathematical abilities and quick thinking.
- Abstract Reasoning: These are IQ tests that include general knowledge questions.
Create Your Test:
To create a test, use your company’s database. In cognitive tests, questions are normally very specific and short and have only one correct answer. If putting together a set of questions isn't satisfactory, follow these four steps:
- Practice writing answers to the test you have created.
- Check the time you need to write answers and determine the time limit of the test accordingly.
- Make two tests just in case of any mishap.
- Determine the difficulty levels of the test keeping the age, experience, and qualifications of the candidates in mind.
iMocha is the best solution for recruiters to create a test. Instead of brainstorming about the questions, you can directly select questions from the available tests and customize it as per your choice. All you have to do is decide what skills are to be assessed and set the level of difficulty accordingly. The online tests are customizable, which means you can take questions from other tests and combine and make your own test. This helps in including questions based on soft skills, communication skills, and tech skills in a single assessment.
Review, Finalize, and Implement:
The process of creating cognitive tests is complete only after it is successfully implemented. The successful implementation of the tests depends on the output. To make the test work, conduct a mock assessment on existing employees and ask for their feedback. Make changes according to the suggestions and, then, finalize. Also, be careful not to ask personal questions in a cognitive test that could be inappropriate; for example, their marital status or their habits.
To assess too many candidates, online skill assessment tools could be a better option and are easy to implement. Regardless of what industry or job role you are searching for, skill assessment platforms have tests that can cater to your requirements.
