Assessing your candidates’ attention to detail with TestGorilla

Types of attention to detail at work

Attention to detail is a workplace skill that lets you spot mistakes quickly and easily, understand complex instructions, and improve outputs at a granular level. Examples range from catching spelling errors and preventing compliance mishaps to correctly labeling dietary requirements at an event buffet. 

A detail-loving team keeps errors and quality improvements from falling through the cracks. One 2023 study found that company performance in the IT industry grows when human error (including design and maintenance errors) decreases.

Here are the key types of attention to detail to look out for. 

Why assess attention to detail with a skills test?

You can test attention to detail throughout your hiring process, and each stage will spotlight different aspects of this skill. 

For example, resumes and screening questions (such as “What attracted you to the role?”) might show you how certain applicants use their attention to detail to overlap their experience with your job requirements.

Meanwhile, attention to detail interview questions – including situational and behavioral ones – may reveal how candidates approach detail-heavy tasks.

But “resumes and interviews often lack precision,” says Cameron Kolb, founder of ExitPros. Candidates can memorize answers, showcase shiny past examples, and signal confidence that taps interviewers’ unconscious biases. But this doesn't reliably prove they “have the discipline or systems thinking that suffocates small critical errors that build up over time and erode the value of a business.”

By comparison, says Jayanand Sagar, the signals from skills-based tasks are completely different from those from interviews. Candidates “read instructions [...] and self-correct.” Over several tasks, “patterns emerge” – like whether they overlook certain steps or make faulty assumptions in a process.

Talent assessments provide the clearest signal by letting you send scientifically-validated attention to detail tests to your applicant list at scale. These tests usually measure candidates’ ability to:

• Understand nuanced instructions

• Find patterns, anomalies, and errors

• Maintain accuracy across multiple tasks

Best practices: Testing attention to detail with TestGorilla

TestGorilla’s talent discovery platform lets you measure attention to detail alongside other critical job-related skills. Here's how to assess this key ability using TestGorilla.

Test attention to detail in a multi-measure assessment

For starters, choose the Attention to Detail test that best fits your role. TestGorilla offers two options:

• Attention to Detail – Textual: Tests linguistic and numerical accuracy. Great for admin, communication, and analyst roles. 

• Attention to Detail – Visual: Tests pattern and error detection in designs and images. Great for graphic designers, product managers, architects, and more.

For most roles, the textual Attention to Detail test would be a good fit. This intermediate-level quiz tells you which candidates can process intricate textual details accurately, with minimal error – and within 12 minutes.

Like most TestGorilla tests, this one rotates between a bank of 100+ expert-designed questions. As an illustration, questions may ask candidates to:

• Spot differences or inconsistencies in multiple communications

• Extract specific findings from intricate texts

• Confirm true-or-false statements based on complex information

Multi-measure assessments – testing more than one job-related skill – predict job performance with greater certainty than, say, resumes and interviews alone (that's “higher predictive validity” for the statistics lovers!) Three in five employers link this kind of holistic skills testing with higher job performance.

With TestGorilla, you can add up to five tests to your skills assessment. Depending on your role requirements, choose from 400+ tests to complement your detail orientation test. For example, you might add:

• Cognitive ability tests, such as problem-solving and numerical reasoning tests

• Role-specific tests ranging from customer service to accounting and AI skills

• Personality and culture tests, like the Motivation test

You can also use TestGorilla's AI assistant to get instant test suggestions based on job titles or job descriptions.

Create your custom attention to detail test

TestGorilla has a solid library of science-backed tests. Still, you may want to develop your own test to assess attention to detail in contexts specific to your business and industry. This is especially useful when your projects require specialized attention to detail – say, related to corporate law in specific states.

The process is straightforward. You select an answer type (multiple choice, multiple response, true or false, or short text), add your questions, and confirm the correct answers. As an example, you could ask applicants to extract specific information from a detailed stakeholder email.

Separately, TestGorilla offers custom questions. You can add these for additional screening alongside your skills tests. Here, candidates can answer using multiple-choice questions, an essay, or a file upload (say, a work sample).

Custom questions could reveal candidates’ attention to detail on past jobs. For instance, Cameron Kolb, who helps owners sell their businesses, asks candidates to detail “a financial or operational process they have streamlined” using this skill. 

Understand candidate performance and ranking

TestGorilla scores and ranks your candidates’ assessments in real time. You get a percentile ranking by default – for instance, if Jane Smith is in the 90th percentile, their score is higher than 90% of test takers. You can check raw scores (X% out of 100%), too. Either way, you get a standardized, objective comparison of candidate performance that doesn't fall for confidence signaling.

In your candidate ranking list, you can view both average scores and results for individual tests (including custom ones). 

Let’s say your assessment includes an attention to detail test plus one other test. How you analyze these results impacts how candidates progress through hiring stages. Whatever your rules, make sure you’re consistent. For instance, you might:

• Shortlist candidates with the highest overall assessment scores

• Shortlist X candidates with the highest attention to detail test scores, and Y candidates that topped the other test

• Develop your own custom weight-based score and shortlist the candidates with the highest custom scores. (For example: Custom score = 40% x Overall score + 30% x Test 1 score + 30% x Test 2 score)

TestGorilla lets you assign weights to test scores to make your custom ranking easier. Plus, in custom questions, you can also provide manual scoring criteria for essay-style answers, or let TestGorilla's AI tool auto-score answers.

Make skills-based hiring decisions

Once you've analyzed assessment rankings, try not to revert to decision-making based on colleges or former workplaces mentioned on resumes.

Our Skills-Based Hiring Report found that seven in 10 employers think skills tests predict job success better than resumes. Moreover, employers chose testing cognitive abilities (such as attention to detail) as the #1 benefit of using skills tests. That's because mistakes candidates make during tests – like glossing over inconsistencies or ignoring the fine print – tend to resurface in the workplace.

As for the next steps, consider:

• Structured interviews: Ask pre-determined questions based on the role's core competencies, and rate answers objectively based on interview score cards.

• One-way interviews: Send written or pre-recorded questions, and get candidate answers in video format.

• AI video interviews: Let a conversational AI interview candidates. Then, make decisions using auto-scoring and manual review.

With TestGorilla, you can go from assessment to (virtual) handshake. Add our ready-made Attention to Detail test, design a holistic assessment, and find top-skilled candidates with clear rankings. Then, go deeper into skills and competencies using our science-backed AI video interview tool.

Try TestGorilla for yourself – for free!

Frequently asked questions 

What is an attention to detail test?

An attention to detail test is a quiz that checks candidates’ abilities, including spotting errors, filtering information, and ensuring consistency. It’s useful when you hire for roles that allow little room for error. TestGorilla’s scientifically validated Attention to Detail test can be combined with 400+ expert-crafted tests in custom assessments.

How do I assess someone's attention to detail?

You can assess candidates’ attention to detail using a combination of attention to detail interview questions, cognitive and role-specific skills tests, competency-based tasks, and work samples. Use an attention to detail test – such as TestGorilla’s – for an unbiased, measurable skills check.

What does good attention to detail look like?

Someone with good attention to detail completes a work task with minimal error and enough nuance to make it high quality. For example, a sales executive uses their attention to detail to reference prospect needs and obstacles in their follow-up email and double-check any data provided by team members.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2001/may/23/ftse.stockmarkets 

Contributors

• Cameron Kolb, ExitPros, Founder

• Jayanand Sagar, Hyperbola Network, Co-Founder and COO