Situational judgement test: how to weigh workplace responses
A situational judgement test describes realistic situations at work and offers several possible responses to each one. You usually rate how effective each response is, or pick the most and least effective one. Employers often use it to see how you would deal with colleagues, customers and pressure. It usually measures judgement rather than knowledge you can memorise.
Updated
Often more than one response looks sensible. The skill is telling the responses that help from the ones that only sound helpful. Try the scenario below before reading on.
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The practice set is free. It has 12 questions and no timer.
You have managed the window displays at a department store for years. A colleague plans to put up the new season display tonight on heavy glass shelves, ready for tomorrow's opening. You know those shelves cracked under similar loads last year.
How effective is each response?
Check your answer
Ratings from least helpful to most helpful
- Makes things worse
- Of little help
- Helps somewhat
- Highly effective
We compare your rating with ours for each option: a match counts in full, one step away counts in part, and two or more steps away counts for nothing.
Email the colleague the details of last year's cracked shelves and suggest lighter ones.
Our ratingHelps somewhat
Writing down last year's cracks gives evidence, but without a conversation it cannot settle the plan before tonight.
Tell the colleague the display idea is silly and refuse to discuss it.
Our ratingMakes things worse
Brushing off the idea as silly offers no evidence and ends the talk before tonight's display.
Show the colleague what happened to the shelves last year and ask how they see the risk.
Our ratingHighly effective
Showing the colleague last year's cracks and hearing their view lets the two of you agree a safer display today.
Help put up the display as planned and keep your doubts to yourself.
Our ratingOf little help
Going along quietly avoids a clash but leaves tonight's display on shelves you expect to crack.
What is a situational judgement test?
A situational judgement test is a hiring test built from made-up scenarios drawn from real situations in the job. Some tests ask you to put the responses in order from best to worst.
Most scenarios are written as text. Some tests show them as video, or as a chat where a colleague messages you and you choose a reply.
These tests are often used alongside aptitude tests and personality questionnaires.
What does a situational judgement test measure?
It measures how you would behave in the situations a role brings, judged against the behaviours the employer looks for. The practice set here gives you a score for four behaviours: making decisions, working with others, communicating clearly and delivering results.
Typical situations include:
- a proposal of yours meets opposition
- a team member is struggling under stress
- a customer is hard to understand on the phone
- a client cancels an important meeting at short notice
- a new computer system arrives in the middle of a busy shift
What do situational judgement test examples look like?
They look like the window-display scenario above, where you judge several responses to one situation at work. A typical scenario tells you your role, the setting and the people involved. Then it describes a problem or a decision that has come up.
The role might be a manager, a graduate, someone in sales, a warehouse worker or someone serving customers.
What situational judgement test tips help most?
- Before you read the responses, ask who is affected and what goes wrong if nobody acts.
- When a test asks you to rate every response, judge each one against the situation on its own.
- Favour responses that deal with the problem now over ones that wait for it to sort itself out.
- Make the choices that are yours to make. When a rule is unclear, ask before you act.
- Treat keeping your doubts to yourself as a weak response. Treat hiding a fault, misleading someone or blaming a colleague as the worst kind.
- Pick what you would really do on a good day at work.