Situational Strengths

How it is scored

A run is 15 scenarios drawn from a bank of 30, with the responses in a different order each time. Each scenario is worth 10 points when your order matches the key. Every place a response sits away from where the key puts it costs, so one adjacent swap scores 8, the middle pair and the outer pair both swapped scores 5, and the key reversed scores 0. Skipped scenarios score nothing.

The scale is our choice; no provider publishes one. It pays for a near miss because the ranking between the two plausible answers is the skill, and a scale that paid only for a perfect order would not tell you which of your four calls was the wrong one. The real test is untimed but records the time on every question, so the drill shows it and caps the run at fifteen minutes.

Where we had to choose

Cappfinity and SHL publish the format: a work scenario, four or five responses, ranked or rated (some versions ask "most like you" or "most and least enjoyable" instead of most effective). Cappfinity describes its assessments as untimed, and candidate accounts agree that speed feeds the result. What nobody publishes is the key or the marking, and HSBC, Barclays and Deutsche Bank publish nothing about their configurations, so the counts on the firm reference are reported figures.

The key here is simplytk's judgement, based on the strengths and values these assessments describe in their own material: ownership, judgement, asking early, honesty, escalating well, working with others, resilience, and doing the right thing when nobody is watching. It is explained item by item at the end of a run, and where two responses are close the rationale says so. The scenarios are written by us and copy no published question.

How to work through one

Rule out the two you would not do first; that is usually easy and gets you two of the four places. Then decide which of the remaining two shows more judgement and ownership: the one that keeps the right person informed and leaves the decision with them tends to win. Escalating early is usually right and escalating over someone's head is usually not. Hiding a mistake is always wrong, whatever the odds of it being noticed. Doing nothing is rarely the top answer and rarely the bottom one either.