These tests look at the extent to which the candidate is able to carry out various aspects of a job or role. Ability tests look at a variety of skills from verbal and numerical reasoning through to checking or administrative skills and can cover varying levels of difficulty.

Often an employer is interested in a candidate's potential and this can be measured by an ability test.

Answers to the questions on an ability test are compared to ‘norm group’ – or similar group of people that have taken the test.

SHL’s ability tests cover a full range of difficulty levels providing specific assessments for directors and senior managers through to graduates, senior administrative staff and on to customer service, sales and production staff.

Ability tests can be administered online, on-screen via a PC or in pencil and paper format.

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Personality questionnaires consider how people like to work and their behavioural style. Such questionnaires focus on how an individual approaches a job rather than the ability to perform that job. The two most common forms of response to a personality questionnaire are ipsative - where the candidate needs to select which is ‘most’ and ‘least’ like him or her from a list of statements and normative - where the candidate has to rate on a scale the extent to which they agree the statement is like them.

Typically, responses to such questionnaires result in a ‘profile’ being created which provides an overview of the responses in the particular areas examined by the questionnaire. This includes areas such as problem solving, relationships with others, decision-making style etc. Consequently, there are no right or wrong answers or profiles when style is considered although certain styles may be more or less appropriate to certain situations. Personality questionnaires are used in both selection and development.

SHL’s Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ) is one of the world’s leading personality questionnaires and one of the first to be developed specifically for the occupational market. Before this questionnaire, personality questionnaires were taken from the clinical psychology arena and used within occupational settings. With over 20 years of research, OPQ has established itself as an integral, valuable tool in both recruitment and development situations. OPQ can be used across a range of job levels and types through the development of a number of more specific style questionnaires (WSQ, CCSQ) allowing items or statements more applicable to production or manufacturing and customer service personnel to be used

Personality questionnaires can be administered online, on-screen via a PC or PDA or in pencil and paper format. To support the interpretation of the personality profile, narrative reports can be generated for the qualified user to consider prior to providing feedback to the candidate.

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Motivation is vital to organizational success. By understanding what motivates their staff, managers can unlock each individual's full potential and direct energies more constructively. SHL's Motivation Questionnaire (MQ) provides a comprehensive understanding of the situations that increase or decrease motivation.

Corporate values are key to differentiating an organization and to harnessing a shared awareness of how people should behave. SHL has developed a framework for measuring values at work for use in assessing person-organizational values fit and to enable organizations in changing towards new values.

Culture questionnaires measure the prevailing culture of an organization. That is, its dominant system of beliefs and practices that help to guide the development of corporate strategy and to evaluate change programs. Usually these are self-report questionnaires that can be delivered in paper format or online. Such questionnaires can be used to identify different cultural perceptions of the organization across time, geographic location, business units, staff groups or against comparison with a benchmark organization.

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Jobs and roles are often described in terms of competencies. That is, a combination of behaviours that lead to superior performance in a job. The principal components are; knowledge, skill and experience, aptitude, behavioural style and motivation.

Competency Design

SHL provides state of the art competency models, which provide a straightforward and cost-effective solution. These models form the basis of an integrated approach to people management by linking to i.e. recruitment, selection, development and performance management. SHL can also assist organisations that prefer to have a competency model developed specifically for their needs, based on a thorough analysis of relevant roles.

SHL provides a range of products, training and consultancy services in this area, from revision and redesign of an existing corporate competency framework through to the design of new purpose-built competency models.

SHL utilises a multi-method approach by incorporating the Work Profiling System (WPS) designed specifically by SHL for competency design.

Competency Measures

Scorable application forms are used during pre-hire screening to quickly and cost-effectively identify the extent to which a candidate meets the competencies as defined for a specific role. 

Interview guides provide more in-depth questions for use during selection to probe a candidate's strengths and weaknesses.

Our Simulation Exercises all provide measures of specific competencies based on realistic exercises for use in Assessment & Development Centres.

Ongoing development needs can be explored for employees making use of structured 360 degree competency assessments presented online.

SHL has a range of tools that equip the organization with effective measures of competencies for use in a variety of scenarios.

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Performance Management systems support the organization by providing a structure within which performance objectives can be set, monitored and managed to ensure that the organizational goals and strategy are achieved. Without such a system, individuals may be striving to achieve objectives that do not align with those of the organization.

These systems are typically online and can be accessed by both the individual and the line manager, and hold detail about the objectives set, how to achieve them and the criteria by which success will be measured.

SHL provides a leading edge web-based, performance management system - Performance Solutions - that can be shaped, tailored and implemented to operate successfully for your organization. Furthermore, our assessment services mean that we do not just leave you there, we also make sure the system is integrated within your organization, and that you understand how to implement and train people in its most effective use.

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