Cognitive ability assessment for mental agility

Been asked to take one?

If an employer has invited you to complete a Saville assessment, everything you need is in the candidate area: what to expect, where to access practice tests and answers to the questions candidates ask most.

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Who gets productive first

The difference between someone contributing in month two and someone still finding their feet in month six. That gap costs more than most hiring budgets, and it is visible before you offer.

Who copes when the job changes

Experience tells you what a person has handled before. Reasoning tells you what happens when the work changes, which it will, and whether they will be the one figuring it out or waiting to be told.

Sharper next to a behavioral read

Reasoning on its own can create adverse impact. Put it alongside a Wave® behavioral assessment and fairness improves across gender and ethnicity while the prediction gets stronger. Our research team presented that finding at the International Test Commission in 2024.

Try it on a role you are hiring

Book a demo, tell us the role and the level, and we will show you which assessment fits, what the candidate sees, and what comes back to your team. It takes less time than reading a shortlist of resumes.

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Aptitude

Verbal, numerical and diagrammatic reasoning, matched to the level you are hiring at. Used across entry roles and early careers through to professionals and managers.

Candidate screening software

Executive Aptitude

A deeper read for senior and leadership appointments, where the thinking a role demands is the hardest thing to judge in a conversation.

Leadership assessment options

Verbal reasoning

How well someone draws the right conclusion from written information, which is most of what lands in an inbox.

Numerical reasoning

How well someone interprets figures and spots what the numbers are actually saying.

Abstract reasoning

How quickly someone finds the pattern in something unfamiliar, with no advantage for language or schooling.

Sits inside the process you already run

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Frequently asked questions

If it is not here, ask us. You will get a fast response from an expert member of the team.

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What is a cognitive ability assessment?

A cognitive ability assessment measures how well someone reasons: with words, with numbers, and with patterns they have not seen before. It predicts how quickly a person will learn a job and how they will handle complexity once they are in it, which is why it is used alongside a behavioral assessment rather than instead of one.

How do you stop candidates using AI to answer?

Every set of responses is checked for patterns that look unusual, and the platform flags any candidate who should be re-tested. That check is part of the assessment, included as standard, and invisible to the candidate. Where hiring is regulated or the stakes are high, remotely supervised sessions are available as an add-on.

Is an ability test fair to candidates?

Every candidate faces the same structure: the same number of items at the same difficulty levels, drawn from a randomized bank, so two candidates sitting side by side do not see an identical test and nobody can pass one around. Practice materials are available in more than 28 languages before they start, and the reasoning measured is the reasoning the job needs rather than the schooling a person happened to have.

Which assessment should we use for which roles?

Aptitude covers entry roles, early careers, professionals and managers, matched to the level. Executive Aptitude is the deeper read for senior and leadership appointments. If you tell us the role, we will tell you which one fits, and we will say so if the answer is that you do not need one.

Can candidates see cognitive assessment examples before they take it?

Yes. Practice tests and worked examples are free and open in the support area of this website, and we tell candidates about them in the invitation. Preparation reduces nerves rather than scores, and a candidate who knows what to expect gives you a cleaner read.

Tell us what you are hiring for

The role, the level and the volume. We will tell you which assessment fits and what it would change.