Psychometric and skills assessment
Primary sources checkedSHL
One of the oldest names in psychometric testing, selling cognitive, personality, behavioural and simulation assessments to HR teams, with a self-service route for smaller buyers and no published price on either.
The short answer
- Best for
- Volume hiring where the selection method itself has to be defensible
- Not ideal for
- Anyone who needs to compare cost before a conversation: nothing is priced publicly
- Price
- Not publicly priced, on the enterprise route or the self-service one
- Closest alternative
- TestGorillaPublished pricing and a self-serve start, if a shorter validation history is acceptable
At a glance
- Recruitment fitStrong
- Ease of useUnknown
- ImplementationFair
- Price transparencyWeak
- Value for moneyUnknown
- ScalabilityUnknown
Why these assessments
- Recruitment fitStrong
- Assessment is the entire company. The catalogue is built around selection decisions, from cognitive ability and personality through to job simulations, and the buyer is an HR team.
- Ease of useUnknown
- Nobody here has run a campaign through either route. What decides usability in assessment is the candidate experience and the readability of a report, and neither is visible from outside.
- ImplementationFair
- Two very different routes: SHL Online is positioned as quick setup for smaller organisations, while the enterprise motion is demo-led. Either way the work that decides success is yours, choosing the right assessment for the role and being able to defend it.
- Price transparencyWeak
- No price, range or per-assessment cost appears anywhere, including on the self-service page that advertises straightforward pricing. Both routes end in a conversation.
- Value for moneyUnknown
- Half the calculation is missing. We can describe what the assessments cover and what the vendor claims about their science, but not whether the price earns it.
- ScalabilityUnknown
- Nothing about seats, per-assessment volume or the threshold between the self-service and enterprise routes is published, so how the buying model behaves as usage grows is not knowable from outside.
Our reading of the evidence on this page. No score, no formula.
Where it sits
- Apply
- Screen
- Interview
- Decision
- Hire
The SourcrLab bottom line
The incumbent in psychometric assessment, selling cognitive ability through Verify, personality through the OPQ, motivation through the MQ, plus situational judgement, coding and call-centre simulations, language evaluation, video interviews and 360 feedback. What you are buying is not software but instruments with a validation history, and the vendor leans on that: it claims a bank of over 45 billion data points and 45 million assessments taken a year, and publishes guidance on the EU AI Act. Two things a buyer should hold onto. No price is published anywhere, including on the self-service store, so budgeting starts with a call. And defensibility comes from matching the right instrument to a profiled role, which is work that stays on your side of the contract.
Best fit
The hire that will be questioned. When you need to say why one candidate progressed and another did not, and have the answer hold up in front of a works council, a regulator or a rejected applicant, a validated instrument with decades of normative data behind it is a different kind of evidence than a scorecard somebody wrote last month. That is the argument SHL sells, and it is a real one.
Think twice if
If you need to compare cost, or if the roles are few and unusual. Nothing is priced publicly, so the first real comparison costs a conversation. And an instrument is only defensible for the job it was validated for: buying a personality questionnaire and applying it to a role nobody profiled is worse than not testing at all.
SourcrLab assessment
Everything on this page comes from the vendor's own pages, checked on the dates below. SourcrLab has not used this product in real recruitment work, so you will not find a first-hand opinion here.
Why choose SHL?
The catalogue covers the whole selection question
Cognitive ability through Verify, personality through the OPQ, motivation through the MQ, plus situational judgement tests, a global skills assessment, coding and call-centre simulations, technical and business skills, language evaluation, video interviews and 360 feedback. Few vendors cover that range from one instrument family.
There is a self-service route for smaller buyers
SHL Online is positioned for small and medium organisations with lower volumes and limited HR resources, offering named instruments such as OPQ32, Verify G+ and MQ M5. In a category where the incumbent usually means a sales cycle, that route exists and is worth asking about by name.
Defensibility is the actual product
The vendor's own framing is defensible decision-making, backed by a claimed bank of over 45 billion data points and 45 million assessments a year. For a buyer whose real risk is being asked to justify a rejection, that history is the thing being purchased, more than any feature.
It publishes guidance on the EU AI Act
Assessment used in selection sits squarely inside that regulation's scope for European employers. A vendor that has already written about it is a vendor whose paperwork your legal team can start from, which is not true of every tool in this category.
Main trade-offs
No price anywhere, on either route
Not on the product pages, not on the assessment catalogue, and not on the SHL Online page that advertises straightforward pricing. There is no range, no per-assessment cost and no stated minimum, so a shortlist against a priced competitor costs a conversation before it starts.
Validity belongs to the instrument, not to the purchase
An assessment is defensible for the job it was validated against. Buying access does not transfer that: profiling the role, choosing the right instrument and monitoring adverse impact stay with you, and skipping them turns a validated test into an unexamined filter.
Scale claims are vendor claims
Forty-five billion data points and forty-five million assessments a year are the vendor's own figures, published without an external reference on the pages we read. They describe reach rather than predictive accuracy for your roles, which is the number nobody publishes.
Candidate assessment data is sensitive by default
Personality and cognitive results are personal data with real consequences attached. Retention, access and the candidate's right to an explanation are decisions to settle before the first invitation goes out, and no vendor certification settles them for you.
The self-service route is not described in detail
SHL Online is positioned for smaller organisations, but where it stops and the enterprise motion starts, and what changes at that boundary, is not written down. If you are small, ask what happens when you are not.
Pricing and buying reality
Not publicly priced: both the enterprise and the self-service routes end in a conversation
- No price, range or per-assessment cost appears on the product catalogue, the assessment pages or the SHL Online page
- The main route is demo-led, with Book a Demo and Sales Inquiries as the calls to action
- SHL Online is a self-service web platform positioned for small and medium organisations with lower hiring volumes and limited HR resources, described as offering quick setup and straightforward pricing, though no figure is shown
- Instruments named for the self-service route include OPQ32 for personality, Verify G+ for cognitive ability and MQ M5 for motivation
- No free plan and no free trial is mentioned on either route
What we do not know
- Any price at all, on either route
- Whether it is sold per assessment, per seat or per hiring campaign
- The minimum commitment and contract length
- Where the self-service route stops and the enterprise one begins
- Where assessment results are stored and which transfer safeguards apply
Checked August 2026. We do not list a price we have not verified ourselves. SHL Online, the self-service route, with no price shown
How it fits your stack
Works with
- Your ATS, as the place an invitation and a result would have to land
- A structured interview, which is what an assessment result is supposed to inform
Likely replaces
- A screening judgement made from a CV and a hunch
- A homemade test nobody has validated
May overlap with
- TestGorilla and HackerRank, which assess with published pricing and a self-serve start
- Codility, where the question is specifically engineering skill
Check before buying
- Which instrument is validated for the role you are actually hiring for
- The price, the unit it is charged in and the minimum term, in writing
- Whether SHL Online covers your volume, since it is the cheaper route
- Your retention and explanation policy for assessment results
SHL vs alternatives
Products a buyer would genuinely put next to this one, with the reason you would pick each instead.
Choose TestGorilla when you need to compare cost and start without a sales call, and a shorter validation history is an acceptable trade.
Choose HackerRank when the question is specifically whether an engineer can code, rather than a broad cognitive or personality picture.
Choose Codility for technical hiring where the assessment has to sit inside an engineering interview process.
Used SHL?
Tell other recruiters what worked, what did not, and who it suits. Positive, mixed or critical — all useful.
Evidence
- No pricing published on the product, assessment or self-service pages — checked against a primary source: SHL Online, the self-service route, with no price shown
- SHL Online is a self-service platform positioned for SME buyers — checked against a primary source: SHL Online, the self-service route, with no price shown
- Named instruments include OPQ32, Verify G+ and MQ M5 — checked against a primary source: SHL Online, the self-service route, with no price shown
- Catalogue covers cognitive, personality, motivation, situational judgement, simulations, language, video interviews and 360 — vendor claim, not independently verified: SHL product site, assessment catalogue and science claims
- Over 45 billion data points and 45 million assessments a year — vendor claim, not independently verified: SHL product site, assessment catalogue and science claims
- Published guidance on the EU AI Act and defensible decision-making — vendor claim, not independently verified: SHL product site, assessment catalogue and science claims
- Any price, and the unit it is charged in — not enough evidence
- Minimum commitment and contract length — not enough evidence
- Predictive accuracy for any specific role family — not enough evidence
- Storage location and transfer safeguards for results — not enough evidence
- SourcrLab hands-on use — not enough evidence
Last reviewed: August 2026. How SourcrLab verifies information
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