Learning Agility Assessment

We already know that candidates are likely to lie or embellish on their resumes, CVs, and in interviews, but did you know that they aren’t just bending the truth regarding their work or educational experiences? 

Studies show that candidates are prone to lying about their:

• Previous work experience: 55.4%
• Skills: 43.1%
• College degrees or professional certificates: 41%
• Personal details (age, location, etc.): 39.5%
• High school information: 39%
• And more

Although you can’t prevent people from lying about their experiences and skill sets, you can take hiring diligence to reference check, interview vigilantly, and administer pre-hire assessment tests.

Below we’ll cover how you can benefit from learning agility assessments and how to leverage them in your hiring process. 

What are Learning Agility Assessments?

Learning agility tests are some of the newest skills tests that the hiring world has integrated into its screening process. Learning agility refers to our ability to learn, adapt, and apply formerly learned skills in different settings. 

One major aspect of learning agility is flexibility, quick-thinking capability, and decision making. People with high learning agility capabilities don’t get bogged down by the details and can make quick, decisive actions when solving a problem. 

Another big indicator of learning agility is how well candidates can take a set of learned skills and apply those skills in a different work setting or situation. Learning agility shows how quickly candidates can apply their past experiences and skills to future problems, which is essential for any business or role that will encounter new challenges in response to changes in the market, changes in consumer sentiment, and other internal/external factors. 

What are learning agility abilities?

So what exactly are you testing for with a learning agility assessment test?

Here are some of the most common abilities you will test for and assess in a learning agility assessment test:

• Mental agility
• People agility
• Change agility
• Results agility
• Self awareness
• On-the-spot decision making
• Problem-solving and critical thinking
• Ability to understand problems at a macro level
• Adaptability and flexibility
• Ability to deal with unfamiliar situations or challenges
• Leadership skills

Why hire for learning agility

According to Korn Ferry, a global organizational consulting firm, companies with the highest rates of learning agile executives produced 25 percent more profits than competitors. The study also found that individuals with higher learning agility were twice as likely to get promoted.

Learning agility is a great indicator for leadership potential, problem-solving, and adaptability in challenging and complex work environments. Professionals with high learning agility can make important decisions quickly, have a knack for seeing the big picture, and take calculated risks when they need to. 

Whether you’re looking to develop internal talent for leadership positions or assessing the potential of new hires for entry-level roles, learning agility is a great interpersonal and cognitive assessment that can reflect both soft and hard skills.

Learning agility assessment example

Here are a few examples of commonly structured learning agility assessment questions:

Agree to strongly disagree questions, as presented by Korn Ferry: 

12minprep provides a few McQuaig test question examples for mathematical agility and verbal agility. 

Keep in mind that candidates can’t use a calculator and will have around 25 seconds to complete each question.

• 24 skateboards cost $1,160. What is the price of 4 skateboards? 

• Which is a synonym of indefatigable?
• Proper
• Enervated
• Tireless
• Slovenly

• Dusk is to sunset as childhood is to …
• Adolescence 
• Infancy
• Teenage years
• Adulthood

Getting started with learning agility assessments

Crosschq’s state-of-the-art hiring solution has everything you need to customize and create a curated learning agility test. You can cater your tests for entry positions, leadership positions, internal development, perennial assessment, and more. 

Crosschq can tell you which hiring channels and sources lead to the highest quality talent based on assessment test results over time, new-hire performance, attrition rates, sources that yield the most candidates who receive job offers, and more. 

Take the guesswork out of hiring, and request a Crosschq demo today.