Graduate jobs · 5 min read
What is a situational judgement test and how do I pass it?
How situational judgement tests work in UK graduate recruitment: the formats, how answers are scored against the employer's values, and a method for choosing.
The short answer
A situational judgement test shows you short workplace scenarios and asks what you would do, either by choosing the best and worst of four or five responses or by ranking them all. There are no trick answers; the scoring key comes from how the employer's own good performers answered, so the test measures whether your instincts match the behaviour the firm wants. You pass it by understanding what the role rewards, reading each scenario as that person and avoiding the responses that dodge, escalate too early or ignore other people.
Key takeaways
- Scoring keys are built from experienced employees' answers, so the right answer is what a good person in that job would do, not what sounds most impressive.
- The best responses usually act, involve the people affected and stay within your role; the worst ignore the problem or go over someone's head immediately.
- Read the employer's published values and competencies first. They're the key to the test.
- Untimed or generously timed, so the pressure is judgement, not speed.
On this pageThe two formats
The two formats
Most tests use one of two formats. In the first you read a scenario and four or five possible responses and pick the most effective and the least effective. In the second you rank every response from best to worst, or rate each on a scale. Some employers, including the Civil Service, add a short video of the situation. Scoring gives full marks for matching the key and partial marks for being close, so a ranking slightly out of order still earns most of the points.
How the key is built
Occupational psychologists write scenarios drawn from the real job, then ask a panel of experienced, well-regarded staff how they'd rank the responses. Where the panel agrees, that becomes the key. So the test isn't asking for your ethics in the abstract; it's asking whether you'd act the way the firm's good people act. That's why reading the employer's competency framework or values page before the test is the single most useful preparation.
A method for each scenario
- Identify the real problem: a deadline at risk, a colleague struggling, a customer misled, a mistake you've spotted.
- Ask who is affected and who owns the decision. Responses that involve them score well; responses that cut them out don't.
- Prefer responses that act now and within your role over ones that wait, delegate upwards immediately or do nothing.
- Rule out anything dishonest, anything that blames, and anything that ignores a rule or a risk to someone's safety.
- Between two reasonable options, choose the one that solves the problem and keeps the relationship.
Patterns in the best and worst answers
| Scores well | Scores badly |
|---|---|
| Speak to the person involved directly and early | Email your manager about them without speaking to them |
| Ask what's behind a colleague's behaviour before judging | Assume laziness or incompetence |
| Tell someone about your own mistake and propose a fix | Fix it quietly and hope nobody notices |
| Check the rule or ask when unsure | Guess, or bend the rule for convenience |
| Help, then raise the workload issue properly | Refuse because it's not your job |
Illustrative example: the same scenario, two firms
A scenario describes a colleague who keeps arriving late and leaving you to cover the phones. A candidate ranks "report it to your manager" highest for a bank's test and fails; the key favoured speaking to the colleague first. For a Civil Service test she ranks "ask the colleague privately whether something is wrong" first and passes. Both employers wanted the same thing: deal with people directly and kindly before escalating. The second time she'd read the values page.
What happens to the gaps
Applying shows you what employers want that you can't show yet: a must-have your CV doesn't mention, or a question you couldn't answer well. Hand the job from OffLadder CV to Laddie, our AI coach, and it turns each one into three steps:
- Learn the skill: a short lesson on what the post asks for, starting from the basics.
- Try the work: a 15-minute task taken from the job itself, so you have a real example to talk about.
- Practise the interview: a five-question mock interview for that role, weighted to the parts you're least sure of.
The conversation stays in your OffLadder account. Once you've done the work, add it to your CV in your own words, and the next post you tailor for can point to it.
Questions people ask
- Can you fail a situational judgement test?
- Yes. Employers set a cut-off, and candidates below it don't progress. Because scores reflect fit with the employer's expected behaviour rather than ability, a strong candidate can fail one firm's test and pass another's. It's worth taking seriously even though it feels like common sense.
- Should I answer what I would do or what I should do?
- Answer as the best version of someone in the role. The test assumes you're new, so the ideal responses aren't heroic; they're sensible, considerate and within your authority. If what you'd really do is leave the problem, that's the answer to avoid.
- How is a situational judgement test different from a personality test?
- A personality test asks about you in general, with no right answers. A situational judgement test asks what you'd do in a specific situation and has a scoring key. You can prepare for an SJT by learning the employer's values; you can only answer a personality test honestly.
- Which employers use situational judgement tests?
- The Civil Service uses them for most graduate and many experienced roles, as do the NHS, the police, large retailers, the Big Four, many banks and most of the employers running schemes with thousands of applicants. They're also used for medicine and teaching applications.
Exercises are practice, not evidence of career fit or a qualification. How to read our guides and report a correction.
Sources
- Situational judgement tests · targetjobs
- Civil Service online tests · Civil Service Jobs, GOV.UK
- Psychometric tests · Prospects
How this page is written
Sources support the factual background, not a guarantee that an exercise predicts career fit. Fictional practice material is labelled. Dates record content updates; no independent expert review is implied. More about OffLadder.