Situational Judgement Tests

Updated: 05 November 2022

Sample situational judgement test - Free

Many companies, especially those recruiting at a grad level, use situational judgement tests in one of the early stages of the recruitment process. This page will explain the questions you will be asked in a situational judgement test, what these questions are aiming to assess and how you can prepare. In effect, SJTs evaluate your reactions, which reflect your disposition, to scenarios you can expect to face at work.

Situational Judgement Test Video Tutorial

Watch part 1 of our situational judgement test video tutorial below for a walkthrough of a situational judgement test question:

How do situational judgement tests work?

You are presented with a situation, described mostly in text, but some tests also have accompanying short videos and audio clips. The situation may take place in an office, a warehouse, or at a cashier's till. Several scenarios will occur within that situation. Each scenario will be presented to you one at a time. You will have to choose an answer from those available as to how you'd respond to that scenario. You are often asked to say which response would be the worst and which the best. After a few scenarios, the situation will change to a different setting. An example situation is given below. Reading through this and trying to answer the question for yourself will give you a better understanding of these SJT questions.

Situational judgement tests present candidates with a range of different situations that they might experience in the job for which they are applying. For each situation, a number of possible actions are suggested. There are usually around 4 or 5 actions but this varies. It is the candidate’s job to choose between these possible options and judge which is the most effective course of action to take and therefore which action they would take if faced with this situation.

Take note!

SJTs are always multiple-choice; no answers other than the options listed are allowed.

The following image shows an example of the format for one situational judgement style question:

The situations and scenarios in these questions will often be related to the role you are applying for.

Did you know?

Situational Judgement Tests ('SJT' is the acronym to refer to them) are used by organizations, such as Deloitte, PwC, Sony, Wal-Mart and many more European firms use SJTs in their recruitment process.

A sample situational judgement test question

You have passed the first few days of training and are now operating a cash register positioned next to a friendly co-worker who has been working here two years now. It's a quiet Tuesday morning as you are scanning a customer's items through the register. The customer produces a coupon, which appears genuine and related to your store, but you have never seen this before and weren't notified of what to do with coupons during your induction. From the following options decide which would be the 'most effective' response:

Employers' reasons for choosing situational judgement tests

Adminstering tests online is an effective way to assess large numbers of people remotely, so SJTs will often be used when companies are recruiting a lot of new employees from a significantly larger group of applicants. You are unlikely to come across this type of test for a more senior role.

Companies will try to create realistic situations similar to those on the job to test how candidates respond to the demands faced at work. This helps the employer to form a picture of whether you'd be a good fit for the role. A job simulation could incorporate SJT style questions. For example, you may be asked to respond to e-mails in a simulated inbox. Halfway-through the exercise a question could appear asking you to handle a situation between two employees, or a supplier refusing to deliver. Sometimes small snippets of video are played to make the test feel more immersive and engaging.

The styles of situational judgement tests

Situational judgement tests are presented in a variety of different ways and aim for candidates to respond to the situations presented differently. Situational judgement tests can:

We surveyed candidates across multiple sectors and asked what format their sjt was in, to better understand what was most common:

It is helpful to know that you are answering an SJT style question and below we cover the different types of questions and how you can approach them.

Type 1 - 2 options - Most and Least Effective

You are presented with four, but sometimes five, responses to choose from usually arranged in rows as shown below. To choose an answer option select the corresponding box for the column and row by clicking on the button it contains or anywhere in the box itself.

You are the supervisor of a team at a customer service call centre of a fashion retail company. Whilst making a coffee you hear one member of the team you are managing tell a customer they are on the line to that they are "over-reacting" and "should see a shrink." You missed the first half of the call but now that the customer has hung up this is your chance to speak to the employee.

Type 2 - 5 options - Rate the responses

Imagine the same situation as described above but you are asked to rate the effectiveness of each response.

Type 3 - 5 options - Rate the responses

The headers in the table above have been replaced with numbers, where the higher the number the more effective you think that response is.

The numbers may be given explanatory labels e.g. 1 = most appropriate, 4 = least appropriate. OR 1 = most effective, 2 = next most effective, etc. Or they may be left simply as numbers for you to allocate the rank order.

Type 4 - 2 options - Most and Least likely course of action

This is similar to 'most effective' and 'least effective.' Of the responses given you have to decide which action you are most likely to take in response to the situation and which action you are least likely to take. The subtle difference here is in asking you not which option you think is best, but which option you believe you are most likely to act.

Your ability to choose the 'most effective' answer will measure your intellect at judging the situation, whereas your 'most likely to do' answer demonstrates the type of person you are. Different types of people are required for different roles. Somebody with lots of confidence is very beneficial in a sales role, but attention to detail would be more useful in someone in a technical role.

And indeed, this is what the designers of this particular answer type are interested in. They are seeking to identify your tendencies, personality traits and past behavior more than they want to know about your ability to evaluate the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ answer from a group of possible answers. Your ability to select the ‘most effective’ answer is probably based more on your intellect rather than on your personality.

Your productivity in a job is going to be based on your intellect and personality. Those designing the tests have this in mind and aim to bring some knowledge of your tendencies and ability to the employer through your results from a situational judgement test.

Key takeaway

The situational judgement test is designed to detect both your intelligence and personality. Knowing what is the best thing to do matters as does what you are inclined to do.

Situational judgement tests measure competency

Some suggest that to prepare for a situational judgement test you need to know which competencies the company is looking for in their new recruits. To summarize, what about you is the test trying to gauge?

Competencies are bundles of skills, abilities and personality traits which contribute to good job performance. The relevant competencies will vary according to the job or job-type being considered. Therefore graduate training schemes, managerial roles, customer service jobs and sales positions may all have slightly different sets of competencies. First, let's look at competencies expected from managerial, graduate and individual levels.

1. Graduate level competencies

Graduate, or college level educated competencies are reflective of the skills and abilities expected for entry-level roles in an organisation. These competencies are unlikely to be anything related to managing other people, just oneself. These are often:

2. Managerial level competencies

This level of competencies will include all of the ones listed above for graduate level competencies but adds a few others. Management competencies can be grouped into the following areas:

3. Personal beneficial competencies

SJTs are used when a company is looking to employ someone for an administrative or customer service position. In these cases, these sorts of competencies are what is needed:

Did you know?

A large part of the SJTs being used is to assess the competencies listed and described here. Each question will assess one or more of these competencies. It may help to keep in mind these competencies when you approach a question so you can see which one it is trying to measure.

The results the employer sees

After completing the test your answers are marked, automatically, as these tests are almost always computer-based. The answers you've submitted are compared with the correct answers defined by the experts who designed the test. Your score is compared with the scores from a previous group of candidates, or a 'norm' group as it is known as. This shows how well you ranked when comapred with the group as a whole.

As mentioned above, the scoring is done by comparing your answers with the ‘best fit’ answers suggested by the job experts during the design of the test. Once the test has been automatically marked, the number of answers that you rate or rank ‘correctly’ in the test can be compared to the results of a group of previous test-takers. This is called a ‘norm’ group.

Employers will see the following 3 things from the results of your test:

How companies use this information is entirely up to them. Some decide to set a basic pass mark and anyone who scores this or higher will progress to the next stage of the application process. Others might look for high scores in a particular competency and disregard others as it is not their priority for the role they are recruiting for. Soem might combine the scores of the SJT with the scores from other tests or with performance in an interview, anything to try to get a more accurate picture of the candidate and therefore make a better-informed decision whether or not to hire.

Legally, the tests employers use have to be free from discrimination. The SJT must not test for specific knowledge or technical skills which are not relevant to the the job they are recruiting for. Nor must it disadvantage a group of people who are less likely to know abstract pieces of specialized information. So, if a question in the test required knowledge which a group of people, say older people, were more likely to have, then this would be considered an unfair advantage over younger people.

What time limit can I expect on an SJT?

How much time are you given to complete your situational judgement test. Nearly every SJT does not have a time limit. This is also often done with personality questionnaires. The instructions will ask for you to answer the questions honestly. The answer you first pick, after having read all of the options, is often the best reflection of your true response. As there is no time limit, feel free to take as much time as you need to answer the questions truthfully.

Despite not having a time limit, the test will not go on forever, and the instructions will state the time that most people take to comfortably answer all the questions in the test. Here are the time limits and number of questions in the SJTs made by a few companies:

More and more SJTs are now tailor-made and developed specifically for the organisation that's recruiting and tailored to their needs. Any standard SJTs will be considered if they are suitable for the company's needs before being used in any recruitment process. Different SJTs will assess different competencies and the company will need to consider whether a standard package is suitable enough to identify in candidates the competencies that are needed for the role and if the questions in the test are relevant to the role the company is recruiting for. Saville Assessment, Kenexa, Criterion Partnership, TalentLens, a&dc and SHL all offer to tailor-make SJTs to a company's specific requirements.

How can I do well in a situational judgement test

There isn't any particular courses you can take to prepare for this, nor is there any specialized knowledge which will provide a great advantage over what has been mentioned on this page. Most companies will provide you with a chance to take a few sample questions, which will not count towards your mark, before you start your test. Other companies, such as ourselves, provide you with the opportunity to practice these tests and see similar questions. Becoming familiar with the test format, the layout on the web page, the time limit goes a long way to keeping your stress levels down when taking the real situational judgement test. You'll have a better idea of what to expect and can use your brainpower to focus on the questions and choices in front of you instead of scrambling for the next button or struggling to find all the information on the page to make the correct choice.

When the time arrives to sit the test, pay attention to the intricacies of the situation, the available choices, whether you are being asked for what you think is the best option, or the decision you are most likely to make. As always, make sure that you read the description of the scenario and all the options before selecting an answer. Rereading might also help you to pick up on important details you missed on the first read through. This could be the difference that makes you change your choice of answer.

When it comes to ranking the options, just remember that you are looking to assess them from 'best' to 'worst' and nothing else.

Last, keep in mind the information about the competencies that are being assessed. Make your best guess as to which of these the question is trying to assess. This might help when it comes to making a choice as you can see which answers display which competencies.