Core Concept: Skill Assessment

By Gregory Ronczewski, Director of Product Design at Ibbaka. See his skill profile.

Let's start with a few definitions.

Wikipedia describes Skill Assessment as

"A comparison of the actual performance of a skill with the specified standard for the performance of that skill under the circumstances specified by the standard and the evaluation of whether the performance meets or exceeds the requirements."

AG5 offers a similar description

"A skills assessment is a thorough evaluation of an individual's knowledge, skills, and competences. The aim is to determine as accurately as possible whether someone is capable of performing a certain task or job properly."

Lastly, let's hear from Indeed:

"Skills assessment tests are often used by employers to gauge the abilities and skills of both current employees and job applicants. These tests are designed to assess whether individuals have the skills necessary to perform various and essential aspects of a job."

Employers use several different types of skill assessments. Here are a few with a short descriptions.

Hard skills assessment
This test evaluates skills in a particular area, such as statistics, software development, accounting and typing.

Cognitive ability test
Instead of measuring how people would perform in expected, everyday situations, cognitive ability tests assess how candidates would perform in more unexpected scenarios.

Personality test
This test helps assess a interests, preferences and motivation. Employers typically conduct this test when hiring someone for a role that requires a particular demeanour. 

Psychometric test
A psychometric test is an assessment to evaluate a candidate's behavioural style and mental ability. This test helps to understand the candidate's suitability for an open job by matching their aptitude and personality traits with those needed to perform the job. This type of test is often conducted online. This way, the employer can easily collect and analyze the test results to identify the candidate's behavioural characteristics, which are challenging to study in a face-to-face interview.

Question-Answer Test
This test helps to assess if the candidate knows the vital areas required for the job. For example, a newspaper looking for an editor may need candidates to sit an English test with multiple choice questions on grammar, spelling, and sentence constructions.

Problem-solving test
A problem-solving test states a few problems, and candidates must provide solutions. For example, for a software developer role, you may be asked to find bugs in the given code and make it error-free.

Work sample test
In a work sample test, a candidate must submit work similar to the work they will perform if hired. For a content writing position, you may need to write and submit a sample article on a given topic.

Role-playing test
In a role-playing test, the interviewer may present you with a scenario and ask you to respond as you would in such an event. For example, one of the interviewers might act as an angry customer and ask you to show how you would tackle a customer complaint. 

Combination approach
Many organizations combine several assessment tests rather than just one. It provides more comprehensive results that will eliminate the weaknesses of using only one assessment.

Although the Ibbaka Talio Platform can organize and conduct a skill assessment, it is not based on any of above list of test types. Instead, we ask the team members—the skill assessment is performed in the team context—to evaluate peer members on a list of skills selected for any given evaluation. Working together allows the team member to observe and experience first-hand the skills of a colleague and how well a skill can be placed on a scale from 1 (newbie) to 5 (guru). The result of such an assessment is called "A skill coverage report" on the Ibbaka Talio Platform.