Korn Ferry Tests - Talent Q Assessment

Introduction

In this guide, we will answer the question "what is a talent q assessment?"

but we will also go beyond the definition of what is a talent q assessment by practicing sample talent q questions and diving in deeper at the format and style of talent q assessment tests.

By the end of this post, you’ll know how important talent q assessments are for your career hunting journey as well as get to practice questions and workout answers to help you ace all your psychometric testing.

• Korn Ferry is an assessment administrator as well as Talent Q which are both owned by the recruitment firm Hays Group.
• Talent Q tests consist of a combination of personality, competency, ability, and motivation tests that are conducted during the recruitment process to assess candidates' potential as an employee.
• The new approach to candidate assessment is led by the co-founder of SHL Roger Holdsworth.

Talent Q tests

• Talent Q psychometric assessments are streamlined in that one test can predict numerous potential aspects from a candidate being assessed therefore saving time and money for the recruiter.
• The format of traditional aptitude tests is different from that of talent Q, which is more challenging and adaptive to regular psychometric tests in the market.  

What is a Talent Q assessment

• Blended assessments - a combination of assessment content, such as ability, personality, and motivations, which identify candidates that are most suitable for a role and organisation, while reducing the amount of time you need to spend completing assessments.
• computer adaptive testing - In adaptive tests, every question may have a different level of difficulty. The level of difficulty you will encounter will be determined by the answer you gave to the previous question. If you answer correctly, the next question will automatically increase in the level of difficulty however ff you answer incorrectly, the test will decrease in difficulty.
• This means that no two people will likely take the exact same test. Talent Q tests are built so that it would be very difficult to answer all questions in time. So don't beat yourself up if you aren't able to answer every question in a short amount of time per question.
• Talent Q questions are supposed to be much more challenging than other aptitude tests, this is primarily due to the fact that the tests contain more irrelevant data and more optional choices to choose from therefore reducing the process of elimination.
• Time  Pressure - the company acknowledges that with significant time anyone can find the answer therefore talent Q questions are time-limited.
• In the elements numerical reasoning test there is only 90 seconds to answer a question and it reduces to 75 seconds as you progress

Graduate schemes using Talent Q

Talent Q Assessment Categories

• Dimensions - personality questionnaire - Employers like to understand the nature of candidates before offering a contract. This is to mitigate risk and find the right matching fit and productive candidates that will fit the culture of the organisation.
• Personality assessments have proven to be an effective way to predict work performance. Other graduate employers use similar methods known as strength based questions.
• Strength based questions are a popular method of assessing the qualities and attributes of a candidate. Strengths based interviews are more personal and allow recruiters to gain a genuine insight into the personalities of candidates and to see whether they'd be a good fit for the company. The candidates are selected on the basis of their natural abilities, therefore, reducing biases.
• As employees tend to focus more on the tasks they enjoy and are good at rather than tasks that can be challenging and hard to endure, therefore being less inclined to persevere in order to develop high levels of competence.
• Personality questionnaires assess the workplace behaviors and attributes and working styles of a candidate.
• Your performance at work or how you act at work is assessed through particular aspects of your personality which determine how successful one can be as an employee.
• People skills such as handling relationships, working in teams, managing tasks and feelings, and motivations are measured

How the assessment is conducted

1. Series of questions about behavior at work
2. Each block has 4 statements
3. Each statement from the block needs to be rated
4. Ratings are as follows: Completely untrue, Untrue,  True, Very True
5. You should avoid giving the same rating to more than one statement.
6. If you do give the same rating to several statements you are then asked to put these in rank order.
7. There is no time limit for each question and if you complete a question you can't come back to it later
8. The personality assessment normally takes approximately 25 minutes to complete.
9. From the personality questionnaire, a range of reports is generated for the employer. These include a trait profile, behavioral type, team profile, sales profile, role match profile, derailment report, and potential report
   A trait profile.

Talent Q Motivation Questions

1. Motivations questionnaires focus on your values and what drives you in the workplace. This test measures the factors that help you stay focused and energised during your working day.
2. A series of statements are included in the questionnaire regarding motivation at work.
3. Your task is to rate each statement, indicating how important it is to you personally at work.
4. The statements are grouped into blocks of four. In each block, you are asked to rate each statement on a scale indicating whether the statement is 'Not important to 'Extremely important' to you at work.
5. In each group of statements, you should avoid giving the same rating to more than one statement.
6. If you do give the same rating to several statements you are then asked to put these in rank order.
7. The motivations questionnaire typically takes around 30 minutes to complete.

Cognitive ability tests

Elements and Aspects

• The Cognitive ability tests from talent Q consists of two types - Elements and Aspects
• The elements and aspects tests measure reasoning skills such as interpreting written information and reports.
• Various figures and reports are tested which include data and statistics as well as figures.
• The test measures your understanding of logical symbols and your ability to manipulate abstract objects.

Elements - verbal, numerical, logical

• Verbal reasoning - these tests are designed to determine your ability to interpret and reach conclusions from verbal information. The ability to reason verbally is vital for any work dealing with verbal communication or the understanding of written information. It can also be important for work requiring analytical thinking.
• Numerical reasoning - in this category, you will be tested on your abilities to analyze and draw conclusions from numerical data. Working with data is a major responsibility for various roles requiring numerical reasoning skills.
• Logical reasoning - these questions gauge your ability to analyze abstract information and formulate conclusions and patterns based on it. Complex problem-solving requires logical ability in a wide variety of occupations.
  Checking skills - these are designed to measure your ability to quickly and accurately detect errors in data.

Aspects - Styles and Ability

• Aspects Styles - This assesses your behavioral preferences against key competencies required for the position, to determine your suitability.
• Aspects Ability - This measures your verbal, numerical, and checking skills.

Aspects ability consists of the following tests:

1. Aspects Ability Verbal
2. Aspects Ability Numerical
3. Aspects Ability Checking

Top 10 tips for Talent Q assessments

• Managing test anxiety - During or before the psychometric test you can feel test anxiety and it can affect your performance in a negative way. Anxiety shows you care about the test and so it can be good however, it is important to be relaxed and destressed to make sure you can complete the assessment.

Avoid distractions

• Avoid being disturbed or distracted at home or in the office, rent a co-working space for an hour or day to best be prepared and avoid distractions.
• A quiet place will ensure you are not distracted by noise or interruptions and it's important that is the case for the full duration of the assessment.
• Any distractions may have a direct impact on your score.

Check your equipment

• Check your computer and internet connection before you're ready to start the assessment.
• The assessments work independently of your connection speed and therefore a slow Internet connection will not affect your test.
• However, you may wish to take our Internet speed test before you start to ensure that your connection meets the minimum requirements.
• Also, make sure you have paper, a pen or pencil, and a calculator to hand as you may want to write down notes or make calculations as you're working through the various questions. This is particularly important for the Elements Numerical test.

Final practice

• When you log in to the assessment system, you will have the opportunity to complete a couple of final practice questions before you start the real assessment.
• Make sure you do this, as it will help familiarise you with the look, feel, and functionality of the assessment system.

FAQ’s

How do you prepare for Talent Q tests?

• practice questions under time pressure
• understand the format of the question and the different test types
• work as fast and as accurately as you can

How do I pass the talent assessment test?

• the best chance of passing the assessment is preparation such as practicing and understanding the questions

Are Talent Q tests hard? Is the Korn Ferry assessment hard?

• Talent Q tests are much more challenging than other tests
• questions progressively get harder depending on your performance
• multiple choice answers contain more options and the question include irrelevant data

How long do I need to set aside to complete the assessments?

Time limits only apply to Korn Ferry ability tests:

Elements Verbal: 16 minutes
Elements Numerical: 16 minutes
Elements Logical: 15 minutes
Aspects Ability Verbal: 8 minutes
Aspects Ability Numerical: 10 minutes
Aspects Ability Checking: 6 minutes
Within these tests, each question is individually timed. You should complete each test in one sitting; however, if you have more than one to complete, you can complete each test separately if preferred. You should make sure when completing the test(s) that you will not be disturbed and ensure that any other applications, software and browsers are closed down on the computer you are using.

There are no time limits for completing Dimensions, Drives, and Aspects Styles; however typical completion times are:

Aspects Styles: 8 minutes
Dimensions and Drives: 25 minutes