What should a hiring screen actually contain?
A hiring assessment blueprint is the written specification of a screen: which modules run, how many scored items each contributes, how long each takes, which competencies each carries, and what weight each takes in the combined score. It is a test specification, not a bundle. A bundle lists what you buy; a blueprint states what the number means.
The concept is well documented — Assessment Systems Corp defines a test blueprint as “the formalized design of an assessment, test, or exam” and names pre-employment as one of its contexts. What is missing is one layer down: no assessment vendor publishes the blueprint of the battery it is selling you. These pages do, by role and by market, with every item count read from the live module rather than estimated.
Six questions to ask of any battery
These work on anyone's assessment battery, ours included. Put them to a vendor before you buy, and put them to a screen you already run.
- 1
How many scored items does each module contribute?
A time limit is not a length. Two 20-minute modules can differ by 14 items, and the shorter one's items each move the composite further. Ask for the count, not the clock.
- 2
What weight does each module carry in the combined score?
If nobody can tell you, the answer is almost certainly equal weighting per module — which is a decision somebody made by not making it.
- 3
Which competencies are covered twice, and which are covered once?
A competency carried by two modules is measured with more items and less error than one carried by a single module. That is a fact about your score, not about the candidate.
- 4
What does the composite do when a candidate does not finish?
A partial sitting that still returns a number is the most common way two candidates get compared on different tests without anyone noticing.
- 5
Where does the cut score come from?
A bar is either set by a documented standard-setting method or it is set by someone's memory of a number. Ask which, and ask for the panel's spread.
- 6
What is not on the blueprint at all?
The competency nobody listed is the one the screen will not catch. Read the gaps before the coverage.