Introduction to
Assessments
Learn more about how the SKS Team partners with you to provide exceptional service and meaningful insights.
What is Talent Assessment?
A talent assessment is a comprehensive appraisal of one’s leadership and work style whereby various exercises are used to identify aspirations, motivations, strengths, and developmental needs. These attributes are analyzed with respect to the demands of a specific role as well as opportunities for enhancing job performance and professional growth.
Talent Assessment Process
The process involves one or more of several possible components. These components may include:
An interview with an SKS doctoral-level Consultant who has broad-based expertise in working across industries and with leaders of all levels.
Inventories that provide information about one’s personality, interests, and work styles. The inventories yield profiles that are highly job-related and do not probe private or overly personal information.
Exercises that measure reasoning ability. These provide insights regarding one's thinking and problem solving style.
Simulations involving a mock "real work" situation, complete with issues and challenges to address.
Talent assessment provides a data driven and well-rounded perspective of each individual’s approach to engaging with others at work, and the work itself. When carefully reconciled with other relevant, job-related information, it aids in decision making and takes the guess work out of hiring by providing an objective analysis of each candidate or participant’s competency and potential, allowing for consistency in decision making processes and streamlined comparisons when applicable.
When and How to Use Talent Assessment
When to Use
- When hiring for key roles
- As a part of a comprehensive organizational decision-making process (for instance, in the context of organizational re-structuring)
- To identify successors and aid in succession planning
- To increase insight into individual and team strengths and development opportunities and to facilitate individual and team development planning
When NOT to Use
- As the sole data point in making a hiring decision
- To manage performance or for remedial purposes

How To Use
Best Practices for Using Talent Assessment
- SKS assessment results should only be used as one part of the hiring decision. Results should be carefully integrated with all other aspects of the decision making process.
- Talent assessment results should be utilized to proactively leverage strengths, address gaps, onboard, and further develop individuals.
- Discussion of the purpose for and context of the assessment with an SKS Consultant via pre-call prior to assessment administration is encouraged.
- Discussion of results via post-call with an SKS Consultant is always recommended. It is particularly important when the assessment results differ from other observations or data points. Moreover, it allows for ongoing calibration and alignment, further increasing the utility and efficacy of the assessment process.
- Feedback (from SKS) is offered to participants that complete an interview-based assessment, regardless of hiring decision. If the participant is a current employee of the organization, they are encouraged to follow up with their supervisor after having this feedback session to engage in a discussion regarding their strengths, opportunities, and ongoing development efforts.
- If a candidate asks the hiring manager, recruiter, or HR partner for feedback around their SKS assessment or for their assessment results, we ask that the assessment report is not shared directly with the candidate. Instead, the candidate should be referred back to SKS so that they can receive their feedback from an SKS Consultant. SKS Consultants are well equipped to deliver this feedback in such a way that the candidate will be positioned to use the assessment-based insights effectively.
