Pre-Employment Grammar Test

Find out whether your candidates have the language skills needed for the job.

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From marketing materials to emails for clients, basic grammar proficiency plays a role in every aspect of business communications. Incorrect capitalization, lack of punctuation, wrong word usage, and other grammatical mistakes can lead to costly errors and hurt your company’s image. Grammar testing for employment purposes is one of the best ways to ensure that your job candidates have the necessary language skills for the position.

What is a pre-employment grammar proficiency test?

A pre-employment grammar proficiency test is an assessment given to job candidates to determine their knowledge of basic English grammar and punctuation. When used as part of the hiring process, this test can save you time — and possibly a bad hire — by helping you objectively eliminate anyone who doesn’t have the skills you need.

The benefits of testing your job applicants

By requiring a grammar proficiency test for employment, you can ensure that everyone you bring in for an interview has the language skills needed for a particular role at your company. You can also create custom aptitude and skills tests that include questions tailored to the job you’re hiring for.

Occupational roles that might benefit from a grammar test for employment include:

  • Writers/editors
  • Marketing assistants
  • Administrative assistants
  • Communications associates
  • Public relations specialists
  • HR associates
  • Paralegals
  • Real estate agents
  • And many more
Hire success pre-employment grammar proficiency test

What does the Hire Success pre-employment grammar test include?

The Hire Success® Grammar Proficiency Test consists of 41 multiple-choice questions about basic English grammar and punctuation, ranging from a fourth-grade level to college level. The majority of questions on this test are at the middle school or high school level. In each question, applicants are asked to choose the sentence that is grammatically correct or incorrect, as directed in the instructions.

Our grammar test for job applicants includes the following topics:

Identifying grammatically correct sentences

Identifying correct subject-verb combinations

Punctuation

Capitalization

Word usage

Number of questions

41

Test type

Skills test

Time limit

Not timed

You will receive up to 3 separate reports:

Hire Success accounting test summary report screenshot

Grammar Proficiency Summary Report

The Hire Success® Summary Report for every grammar skills test is broken down into sections.

  • High-level summary - Get information specific to the test taker, such as overall score, weighted score, and number of questions correct.
  • Summary of statistics by cohort - Incorporating campaign, position, location, and account, this section shows you how the applicant compares to other cohorts.
  • Distribution of people - A graph shows you the distribution of people within the applicant’s campaign.
  • Scores by category - Examine summary scores by category.
Detail report for academic test

Grammar Proficiency Detail Report

The Hire Success® Detail Report for the grammar skills test gives you a breakdown of how the candidate answered each question on the test:

  • Section 1 — incorrectly answered questions
  • Section 2 — correctly answered questions

Grouping the candidate's test answers in this way not only provides you with an easy way to gauge where the candidate made mistakes but also helps you get an idea of the candidate’s areas of strength or weakness. You may want to follow up on some concepts in an interview if the candidate is selected for the next step in the hiring process.

Hire Success accounting test audit report

Candidate Audit Report

If you activate the cheating mitigation feature for your grammar aptitude test, you’ll receive a Hire Success® Audit Report showing you a timeline that reveals:

  1. When the test taker selects answers within a question.
  2. When the test taker moves to the next question.
  3. If or when the test taker leaves/returns to the test.

The report also shows whether the test was automatically submitted because the candidate left the testing window for too long (possibly to look up an answer) or ran out of time.

This feature doesn’t just help you find out whether applicants know the test answers — it uncovers how well they know them. With the Audit Report, you’ll have added confidence in your hiring decisions.

Frequently Asked Questions

How will I receive each job candidate’s test results?

For every grammar aptitude test that’s submitted, you’ll receive two reports (or three, if you activate cheating mitigation). An email notification will be sent to you immediately upon submission, and results will be available for review in your Hire Success® online account instantly. You can view results in your account securely from any internet-connected device, and print or share results if needed.

Can I customize the pre-employment grammar test?

Yes! With our Custom Test Builder, you can use questions from our pre-designed grammar test for employment in combination with any questions you want to add, tailoring the exam exactly to the job you’re hiring for. You can also include questions in other areas, such as reading comprehension or logic.

Learn about the Hire Success® Custom Test Builder

How much does the grammar skills test cost?

Hire Success® doesn’t just offer individual employment tests — we offer a complete system to help you improve your entire recruiting, interviewing, and hiring process. Pricing depends on a few factors specific to your business, industry, and needs, so the best way to get accurate pricing information is to contact us for a tailored quote.

Request a customized quote from Hire Success®

Ready to take your hiring to the next level?

Take a free test run of our whole system — from the grammar aptitude test to the personality profile to the integrity test and more — and find out why thousands of companies have turned to Hire Success® to build stronger, more organized, and more consistent hiring systems.

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