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Vervoe's Assessment Standards

Vervoe utilizes a standardized process for creating skills assessments across different industries and role types. Our process ensures Vervoe’s assessments are rigorously developed following the standardized procedures outlined above. All assessments have a focus on skills and are administered online via the Vervoe platform. This ensures every test taker has the same opportunity to take the assessment with the same set of instructions, procedures, and time limits (if applicable) to keep test-taking conditions consistent across roles, organizations, and assessments. 

Vervoe’s proprietary AI grades candidates based on their interaction with the platform on how they take the assessment and what their answers are to each question. Candidate’s background, education, location, gender, race, or any other personal factors are not known by the software and, therefore, not considered when grading responses. The only analyzed elements are how well an individual can answer the questions and, therefore, perform the role. 

Furthermore, Vervoe has quality assurance checks in place whereby, if the AI identifies a possibility of bias that has crept into manual grading, it is surfaced and investigated by the data science team. If there is found to be a breach, scoring will be adjusted. This is another measure Vervoe has implemented to reduce the likelihood of bias in the assessment and recruitment process. 

Our process ensures that every assessment appropriately tests the relevant skills (technical and soft) required to perform the role and can be replicated each time a new assessment is created. 

Assessment Creation


Vervoe assessments take into account the following information when created:

  • Identification of key skills required to perform the job. Relevant job materials, including job and position descriptions, are analyzed to identify the skills and attributes for success in the role. Where applicable, Vervoe consults with key personnel in the organization and further analyzes key performance indicators and skill matrices. This process ensures that each assessment includes the skills candidates require to perform.
  • Consultation with experts. To create bespoke assessments, Vervoe involves subject matter experts from within your organization, or more widely in the marketplace. Through consultation, we develop content specific content aligned with skills and within the context of the role. For technical assessments, Vervoe partners with subject matter experts for content creation and verification.
  • Business outcomes. All bespoke assessments created for our customers is directly tied to relevant and critical business outcomes. This is an iterative process to determine the predictive validity of an assessment used at the start of a recruitment process.
  • Quality Assurance. Before publication, all assessments are reviewed by Vervoe’s in-house assessment and I/O Psychology team. If assessments have been created specifically for your organization, your relevant subject matter experts are heavily involved in the quality assurance and approval process before use.
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Assessment Validity

Validity in the context of assessments relates to how well a test measures what it is supposed to measure within a particular context. From the validity of an assessment, we can make inferences or decisions about the test-takers relationship with the construct the assessment was measuring.

There are multiple categories that make up an assessment’s validity, all of which our behavioral science team focuses on when creating all of Vervoe’s assessments. 

Face validity


Face validity relates to how well the test appears to measure what it is supposed to, on the face of it. Do the items (questions) look like they are measuring the role the assessment is testing? 

For example, an assessment for a call center agent might have questions about managing an angry customer on the phone. This would have high face validity. Comparatively, if call center agents are asked to complete a financial modeling task, candidates would be left wondering what relevance is to the position. This would have low face validity. 

All our assessments are designed for specific job roles, and will only include questions relevant to that position, within the context of your organization, ensuring all assessments have high face validity. 

Content Validity


Content validity describes how adequately an assessment tests all of the components that a role entails. A skills assessment with high content validity should include a 360-degree view of what the role entails.

Following on from our previous example, if call center agents only answer questions relating to dealing with an angry customer, this assessment would have low content validity, because there are many other facets of the role. However, if the assessment focuses on multiple skills required to successfully perform the role like dispute resolution, customer service, sales, and multitasking, this assessment would have high content validity as it covers the range of tasks required of the job. 

Our team works in consultation with the experts in your organization to understand the critical components of the role, and ensure high content validity in every assessment. Typically our team will work closely with people within your organization who have a deep understanding of the job. The process may involve 1:1 meetings with managers or staff in the role, understanding the role’s challenges, high performers’ attributes, and areas for development. 

We ask for access to position descriptions, training material, adverts, and performance metrics to fully understand what the job entails and, therefore, what should be included in the assessment. From this research and investigation, we strive to include a minimum of 3 – 4 key skills required to successfully perform the role to ensure the assessment encompasses the full construct that is being assessed and covers various elements of the job. 

From this, you can be confident that candidates who score highly on the assessment are better suited to the role and likely to perform better.

Criterion Validity


Criterion validity provides a judgment of how adequately a test score can infer a candidate’s standing in relation to the job. A type of criterion validity is predictive validity; that is, does a score on the assessment predict how well they perform on the job? This is data that our team works closely with your internal teams and hiring managers to obtain relevant information and data points once they start in their role. 

It is important to note that predictive or criterion validity is only relevant to the organization’s context. Vervoe assessments have been proven to have predictive validity with our clients. For example, candidates hired using a Vervoe assessment in one organization outperformed sales targets by 4%. Another showed that Vervoe employees received higher customer satisfaction scores in their call center roles.

Minimising and Reducing Bias


Vervoe’s assessments are rigorously developed following the standardized procedures outlined above. All assessments have a focus on skills and are administered online via the Vervoe platform. This ensures every test taker has the same opportunity to take the assessment with the same set of instructions, procedures, and time limits (if applicable) to keep test-taking conditions consistent across roles, organizations, and assessments. 

Vervoe’s proprietary AI grades candidates based on their interaction with the platform on how they take the assessment and what their answers are to each question. Candidate’s background, education, location, gender, race, or any other personal factors are not known by the software and, therefore, not considered when grading responses. The only analyzed elements are how well an individual can answer the questions and, therefore, perform the role.