Situational Judgment Tests (2024 Guide)

Situational judgment tests are assessments that are used as both pre-employment screeners and as part of employee development programs.

The situational judgment test is an aptitude test that puts candidates into work-related situations to see how they would react, and they are an assessment of soft skills that are hard to measure in a CV or other types of psychometric or aptitude test. These skills include how you behave at work, your people and leadership skills, and your decision-making style.

In the situational judgment test, you will be given a hypothetical yet realistic work scenario, which might be presented as text, in an animation, or as a video clip. Following this scenario will be several different courses of action that you could take to deal with the problem.

In some situational judgment tests, you will be required to choose the best course of action to take. In others, you might be asked to select the best and worst course of action or rate them from most effective to least effective.

There are many different publishers of situational judgment tests, and in most cases, the test itself will have been created for the type of role for which you have applied. As an example, if you are applying for a team leader role in a call center, you might be given scenarios based on people management and dealing with problematic customer inquiries.

Situational judgment tests are not usually timed, which means you can spend a bit more time finding the solution that most suits the way you would deal with the problem.

Situational judgment tests are not assessing any previous knowledge or experience, and they are not about your hard skills or qualifications.

Instead, the situational judgment test is measuring the way you would behave at work, how you make decisions and your preferences.

Your selection of the right course of action will determine how you follow the rules, your ethics and values, and the way you will fit into the culture and work environment.

They will also show the recruitment team your problem-solving and critical thinking skills, as well as how you deal with colleagues and customers. They are often used in assessing candidates for leadership potential in employee development too.

Here are five ideas to consider:

Create a Memory Book or Journal: Compile the artwork into a scrapbook or journal. You can arrange the artwork chronologically or theme-wise, and add captions or short stories your kids come up with. This way, you're preserving the memories in a more organized and compact format.

Digitize the Artwork: Take photographs or scan the artwork and create a digital archive. This will save space while allowing you to create digital albums or slideshows to share with family and friends. You can also use these digitized images to create custom calendars, mugs, or other personalized items.

Turn Art into Functional Items: Transform the artwork into practical items. You can have their drawings turned into custom-made fabric and sew them into quilts, pillowcases, tote bags, or even clothing. Another option is to create coasters, magnets, or puzzles using smaller pieces of art.

Frame Rotating Art Displays: Choose a few favorite pieces and regularly rotate them in frames. This way, you can showcase different artworks over time without having all the pieces on display at once. It adds a personalized touch to your home decor and keeps the memories alive.

Collage Artwork: Create a large collage using bits and pieces from various artworks. Cut out interesting shapes, characters, or patterns and arrange them on a canvas or a wooden board. This collage will serve as a colorful and unique piece of art in itself, while still incorporating elements of your kids' creations.

As with other pre-employment psychometric and aptitude tests, situational judgment tests have been regularly evaluated for reliability in predicting future workplace success.

In the reviews of situational judgment tests, it has been consistently found that they are dependable and useful as tools in assessing the suitability of a candidate for several different roles, particularly customer-facing or leadership.

This reliability is why several major employers, from Deloitte to John Lewis, use situational judgment tests to assess potential recruits and help with employee development and talent management.

When you take a situational judgment test, the recruitment team is looking for the way you deal with potentially problematic scenarios.

The assessment is about your behavior at work, how you take control of a situation when you ask for help (and who you would choose to ask), and how compliant you are in terms of rules and guidelines.

The recruitment team will have a set of ‘ideal’ answers that you must match in your assessment to proceed to the next stage of the recruitment process. Your answers will show that you are what they are looking for in terms of culture fit, leadership style, and teamwork skills.

Situational judgment tests are slightly different from other aptitude tests in that there is no correct answer to a situational judgment test. There might be several courses of action that are listed that could be considered appropriate to solve the problem that is presented.

However, the answer that you give needs to match the answer that the recruitment team is looking for so that you can earn the mark – and that makes it very difficult to judge what might be considered a good score for a situational judgment test.

Ideally, you want to score as much as possible because that means your work behavior matches the desired characteristics for the role for which you have applied.

Every business will have different needs, so to give yourself the best chance be sure that you know what type of person the company is looking for and answer as honestly as possible.

If you know that you are facing a situational judgment test, there are a few things that you can do to prepare so that you can perform at your best.

If the test is part of the application process for a new role, then make sure that you do your research on the job, the company, and the wider industry. You will want to be sure that you know what the company values, what the competencies for the role are, and what type of person generally works in that position. This will help you to demonstrate that you match with their ‘ideal candidate’ when you come to the assessment.

Take practice situational judgment tests to see how you respond to different work challenges and get used to thinking about situations as if you are already employed in the role.

General test preparation will come in handy for the situational judgment test – especially in the way that you mentally and physically prepare yourself. Ensure that you get enough sleep to help your brain work at its best and eat nourishing and healthy meals while staying hydrated. You want to give your mind all the fuel it needs to perform so you get the best score you can.

Situational judgment tests are a popular type of assessment. They are used in pre-employment screening mostly, but they are also used as part of employee development and talent management, especially looking for leadership potential.

This means that almost all the major test publishers have created some form of situational judgment test, including:

• SHL
• Sova
• Pearson
• Cubiks
• Revelian

The situational judgment test tends to be a bespoke creation designed for the role or type of role that you have applied for – and this means that each publisher might have something a little bit different to offer. In general terms, however, situational judgment tests are broadly similar in structure and layout across industries.

When you are facing a situational judgment test, it is natural to feel nervous.

You need to make sure that you give yourself time to read the questions and understand the scenarios and possible courses of action before you rush to answer.

Some situational judgment tests will present the hypothetical work scenarios as a written passage, while others might make use of animation or video clips. Make sure that you understand what has happened, what the problem is, and what your role in the situation is.

The courses of action that are presented as options also need careful consideration; some might seem an obviously wrong choice, but there may be more than one that you think is suitable to deal with the problem. Depending on the test you are taking, you might need to choose the best action, the best and worst action, or you might need to rate all the actions depending on how well you think they would solve the issue.

The best way to answer situational judgment questions is to be honest and really think about how you would behave at work in that scenario. You should also bear in mind the company culture and values – this will help you choose the course of action that demonstrates that you match what the recruitment team is looking for.

If you are unsure what the ‘best’ answer would be, always go with your instincts. The situational judgment test is usually not timed, but don’t spend too long trying to judge the perfect answer.

If your answers do not match what the recruitment team is looking for, then you can fail the situational judgment test. This usually means that your application will not be taken further.

You can prepare yourself with practice tests to get used to the structure, layout, and type of questions that you are likely to be asked. This will help you feel more comfortable and familiar with the test environment, so you can make the best choices.

In some cases, you might be allowed to reapply for the role later and retake the situational judgment test.

Unlike numerical and verbal reasoning assessments, the answers in a situational judgment test tend to be subjective – the preferred course of action chosen by a candidate depends on their leadership style, how they behave at work, and what their values are.

This means that it is incredibly difficult to successfully cheat a situational judgment test.

In your preparation, you will have read about the company values and learned about the culture as well as knowing what competencies and skills are needed for the role. It might not necessarily be a cheat but bearing these things in mind will help you highlight those values and competencies in yourself when you are choosing the best course of action.

Situational judgment tests differ depending on the publisher and the role that is being recruited for, so it is difficult to give a definitive answer of how many questions there are in a situational judgment test.

In general, the test is untimed with only a few questions – usually a maximum of 16-20. As with other pre-employment screening assessments, they are mostly designed to be taken online and, in the candidates, own time, so they can usually be completed in 20-30 minutes.