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Select a recruitment approach (assessments)

Your recruitment process must identify which candidate is the eligible person best suited to the role. Assessment processes should be accessible and inclusive, and must reflect the holistic set of skills, capabilities, qualities and attributes required to undertake the position (with or without reasonable adjustments).

Assessment processes should consider how an eligible person may be able to contribute to your agency’s equity, diversity, respect and inclusion obligations. Consider inclusion and diversity requirements, including any cultural matters that could affect a candidate's performance, and adjust your selection process to ensure your panel can assess all potential candidates equally for the role.

As best practice, also assess the way the person carried out any previous employment and/or occupational duties, and their potential in making future contributions to your agency (including development potential). See our Recruitment and selection summary guide and speak to your agency’s HR team for help.

Assessments

Most recruitment processes for government roles include 2 assessments:

  1. A written application in response to a role description.
  2. A structured interview.

These are not mandatory. You may choose to include one or both or neither of these. You may want to use alternative or additional assessments.

However you choose to assess applicants, make sure you consider how you will:
  • use a variety of assessment types relevant to the role that will help you assess applicants fairly and equitably
  • ensure the assessment process will be accessible, inclusive and culturally safe (as relevant to each circumstance and organisational context)
  • provide for fairness in the selection process so that all applicants have the   opportunity to show their eligibility and suitability for a role. For example, if the panel needs to seek any other information from any or all of the applicants that would give them the opportunity to show how they fit with the role, and demonstrate that they are the person best suited to the position
  • avoid unconscious bias in your assessment
  • clearly document why a person is assessed as being suitable to move onto the next step in the recruitment and selection process.

Written assessment

This is when you ask your candidates to provide a written response to your job advertisement. This might include but is not limited to:

  • a resume
  • a cover letter
  • responses to selection criteria.

Structured interview

This is when you invite your candidates to attend an interview. Ask your candidate questions to assess their interpersonal, communication, team and leadership skills. Make sure your questions explore candidate differences.
Acknowledge the subjective nature of interviews and the potential for unconscious bias. Ensure your recruitment process addresses this. Consider including additional assessments.

Skill sample tests

This is when you ask your candidates to perform job related tasks. For example, editing a document, analysing data, scheduling diaries. How candidates perform these tasks will be a good predictor of how they’ll perform in the role.

You could use this type of assessment before, after or during a structured interview.

Job knowledge tests

This is when you ask your candidates to complete a questionnaire or essay to demonstrate their technical knowledge for the role.

You could use this for technical roles such as technicians, fitters, mechanics and those designing, building and maintaining machines.

You could use this type of assessment before, after or during an interview.

Formal presentations

This is when you ask your candidates to prepare a formal presentation for the panel on a key aspect of the role.

You could use this type of assessment before during or after your structured interview.

Assessment centres

For this type of assessment, your candidates attend an assessment centre. Assess their knowledge, skills, and abilities through a series of work samples and exercises (e.g. group activities, role-plays, presentations, media interviews) that reflect the types of problems they would face in the role.

You could use this type of assessment for highly competitive (e.g. graduate recruitment) or senior roles before or after an interview.

Situational judgement tests and integrity tests

Request your candidates complete a set of short scenarios that ask them to choose the best response, or rank the responses in order of most appropriate to least appropriate.

You could use this type of assessment to evaluate leadership, teamwork, values, and safety skills.

Cognitive ability tests

This is when you ask your candidates to complete a standardised test that assesses critical thinking and verbal, numerical and problem-solving skills. Tests can be targeted to the skills required for a role and automatically scored and benchmarked.

You could use this type of assessment after a written application and before inviting candidates to an interview. It’s useful for highly competitive roles (e.g. graduate recruitment) to reduce the number of candidates to a manageable number for interview.

Non-minority groups typically score higher than minority groups in this test, so ensure your recruitment process acknowledges and addresses this.

Personality tests

This is when your candidates complete a personality test. Learn about their emotional stability, openness to experience, conscientiousness, agreeableness and extraversion. Find out how they do things and how they interact with other people and their environment.

You could use this type of assessment for highly competitive (e.g. graduate recruitment) or senior roles before or after an interview.

Referee checks

Ask your candidates to provide referees for you to contact. Find out how candidates performed in previous roles. Validate the statements they made on their written application and in their interview.

You can complete referee checks at any stage of the recruitment process. However, you must complete a referee check for a candidate before you recommended them as the eligible person who is most suitable to the role.

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