Communication Skills Assessment for Hiring
Assess a candidate’s ability to write clearly, speak clearly, listen actively, and adjust their message for different audiences before making a hiring decision.
- Duration: approximately 12 minutes
- Questions: 24
- Format: Multiple choice
- Measures: Written clarity, verbal clarity, active listening, audience adaptation
- Best for: Customer-facing, cross-team, and people-management roles
What is a communication skills assessment?
A communication skills assessment is a pre-employment test that measures how clearly and accurately a candidate exchanges information in a work setting. It evaluates practical behaviors, such as writing concise messages, explaining ideas verbally, listening for the real point behind what someone says, and adjusting tone and detail for the person receiving the message.
Employers use this assessment because communication ability is hard to judge from a resume and easy to overstate in an interview. Miscommunication drives rework, missed deadlines, and frustrated customers or colleagues, so employers want direct evidence of how a candidate handles realistic written and verbal exchanges before extending an offer.
This assessment is typically used early in the hiring process, either as a stand-alone screen or paired with role-specific assessments, so results are available before the interview stage.
What does the assessment measure?
Written Clarity
The ability to write messages that are concise, well organized, and free of ambiguity.
Verbal Clarity
The ability to explain information out loud in a way that is easy to follow and hard to misread.
Active Listening
The ability to identify the key point, concern, or request within a conversation or message.
Audience Adaptation
The ability to adjust tone, detail, and vocabulary for different audiences and situations.
What candidates can expect
Candidates complete 24 multiple-choice questions in approximately 12 minutes. Each question presents a short workplace message, conversation excerpt, or scenario and asks the candidate to identify the clearest rewrite, the most likely intended meaning, or the most appropriate response. Instructions are shown before each question, the assessment can be completed on desktop or mobile, and progress is saved automatically.
Communication Skills Assessment sample questions
Representative examples created for this page, not questions from the live assessment bank.
Example 1 — Written Clarity
An email to a client reads: ‘Following up on what we spoke about, just wanted to check if the thing is still happening on the date, let me know if not, thanks.’ Which rewrite is clearest?
- A. Hi Sarah, following up on our call, can you confirm the project kickoff is still scheduled for March 4th? Let me know if that date has changed.
- B. Hi, checking in about the thing, is it happening, let me know.
- C. Re: our conversation, please advise on the status of the previously discussed matter at your earliest convenience.
- D. Just following up, still good for the date?
Correct answer: A. It names the topic, the date, and the exact confirmation needed, removing the ambiguity in the original message.
Example 2 — Verbal Clarity
A manager explains a new process by saying: ‘So basically once it’s done you kind of just send it over and then, yeah, someone checks it and then it goes.’ Which version communicates the same process most clearly?
- A. Once you finish the report, email it to the reviewer. After they approve it, it gets published.
- B. Basically you finish it and then someone deals with it.
- C. It goes through a process before it’s done, sort of.
- D. Once it’s done, it’s done, and then it moves along.
Correct answer: A. It specifies each step (finish, send, review, publish) so no part of the process is left to guesswork.
Example 3 — Active Listening
A colleague says: ‘I can hit the deadline, but only if I skip the QA pass, and I really don’t love doing that.’ What is the colleague’s main concern?
- A. They cannot meet the deadline at all.
- B. They can meet the deadline, but are worried about the quality trade-off of skipping QA.
- C. They want a deadline extension.
- D. They are unsure whether QA is required.
Correct answer: B. The colleague states they can hit the deadline but signals discomfort with the quality risk of skipping QA, so the real concern is the trade-off, not the deadline itself.
Example 4 — Audience Adaptation
A support rep needs to explain a billing error to a non-technical customer. Which explanation is best suited to that audience?
- A. A duplicate transaction ID caused a race condition in the billing queue, resulting in a double charge.
- B. You were charged twice by mistake due to a system error on our end, we’ve refunded the extra charge and it should appear in 3-5 business days.
- C. There was an idempotency failure in the payment gateway.
- D. Billing queue race condition, refund issued, ETA 3-5 days.
Correct answer: B. It explains the same fact (double charge, refund, timeline) in plain language a non-technical customer can act on, without technical jargon.
When to use a communication skills assessment
Use this assessment when clear writing, clear speaking, and accurate listening are important parts of the role.
Before interviews
Use results to identify communication strengths and gaps to probe further, rather than relying on how polished a candidate sounds in the interview itself.
During candidate screening
Add structured evidence of written and verbal clarity for roles where miscommunication has real cost, such as client-facing or cross-team positions.
When comparing finalists
Compare finalists against the same communication criteria instead of relying on interview rapport alone.
Roles where communication skills matter
Customer Service Representative, Account Manager, Administrative Assistant, Team Lead, Project Coordinator, Marketing Coordinator, Sales Representative, and Executive Assistant.
How the Communication Skills Assessment is scored
Each correct response earns one point. Questions are mapped to one of four dimensions, and performance is calculated overall and by dimension. Results are shown as descriptive performance bands rather than percentile rankings.
These bands describe performance on this assessment. They are not population percentiles and do not predict job performance on their own.
Strong
Consistently clear, well-adapted communication across the assessed tasks.
Moderate
Generally clear communication, with some inconsistency in clarity or audience adaptation.
Developing
Communication was harder to follow or poorly matched to the audience in several tasks, an area that may be worth verifying further.
What you receive after a candidate completes the assessment
- An overall result and a result for each dimension
- Strengths and areas to verify further
- A plain interpretation of what the result suggests
- Completion details, including time taken
- Suggested interview questions based on the result
How should employers interpret communication skills results?
A strong result suggests the candidate consistently produced clear, well-adapted messages across the assessed tasks. A moderate result suggests generally clear communication with some inconsistency worth exploring. A lower result does not automatically mean a candidate should not be hired. It is a signal worth discussing in the interview, not a decision by itself.
Assessment results should be considered alongside the requirements of the role, structured interviews, experience, and other relevant hiring evidence.
Interview questions for evaluating communication skills
“Tell me about a time you had to explain something complex to someone with no background in the topic.”
Explores audience adaptation and verbal clarity in practice.
“Describe a message or email you wrote that didn’t land the way you intended. What would you change?”
Explores written clarity and self-awareness about communication gaps.
“Tell me about a time you misunderstood what someone needed from you. How did you find out, and what did you do?”
Explores active listening and recovery from miscommunication.
“How do you adjust the way you explain something depending on who you’re talking to?”
Explores audience adaptation directly.
“Describe a situation where clear communication prevented a bigger problem.”
Explores overall communication impact in a real work context.
Assess communication skills alongside other skills
- For customer-facing hiring: Communication Skills, Customer Service, Emotional Intelligence, and Situational Judgment.
- For leadership hiring: Communication Skills, Leadership, Teamwork & Collaboration, and Emotional Intelligence.
- For administrative hiring: Communication Skills, Attention to Detail, Administrative Skills, and Verbal Reasoning.
How the assessment is developed
This assessment is developed using established principles of job-relevant item design. Its questions are built around four defined communication dimensions and realistic workplace scenarios, such as rewriting unclear messages, interpreting spoken instructions, identifying the intent behind a statement, and adapting an explanation for a different audience.
We do not currently have a formal independent psychometric validation study, an established normative sample, or a published reliability coefficient for this assessment.
Results are intended to provide one source of structured evidence, and should be interpreted alongside interviews, experience, references, and other job-relevant information. We will add reliability, validity, normative, and fairness evidence to our methodology documentation as those studies and datasets become available.
Frequently asked questions
What is a communication skills assessment?
A pre-employment test that measures how clearly a candidate writes, speaks, listens, and adapts messages for different audiences in realistic work scenarios.
How long does the assessment take?
Approximately 12 minutes for 24 multiple-choice questions.
What does a communication skills test measure?
Written clarity, verbal clarity, active listening, and audience adaptation.
Which jobs require strong communication skills?
Customer-facing, cross-team, and people-management roles, including customer service, account management, administrative, and team-lead positions.
How are candidates scored?
Correct responses are calculated overall and by dimension, then summarized as Strong, Moderate, or Developing.
Can I use this assessment before an interview?
Yes. Results are available as soon as a candidate completes the assessment, so you can review them before scheduling an interview.
Should assessment results determine whether someone is hired?
No. Results are one source of structured evidence and should be considered alongside interviews, experience, references, and other relevant information.
Can I combine this with other candidate assessments?
Yes. Communication Skills is commonly paired with assessments such as Customer Service, Leadership, or Emotional Intelligence depending on the role.
Assess communication skills before you hire
Invite candidates to complete the assessment and get clear results you can use to prepare interviews and make better-informed hiring decisions.