Cognitive Testing in Executive Assistant Recruitment: Selection Tool or Development Tool?
Cognitive and psychometric assessments are now a familiar part of many recruitment processes.
In recent Executive Assistant searches, I have worked with organisations that use assessment in very different ways. Some incorporate cognitive testing as a formal stage of selection, with results carrying significant weight in determining whether a candidate progresses. Others use psychometric or behavioural assessment primarily as a development tool, helping the organisation, executive and successful candidate better understand working style, communication preferences and areas for development.
It raises an important question for HR leaders and hiring managers:
What are we actually trying to learn from an assessment — and how much influence should that information have on the final hiring decision?
Having recruited Executive Assistants for more than 20 years, and having worked as an EA myself, I believe assessment can add valuable information to a recruitment process.
But when recruiting an experienced Executive Assistant to support a CEO, founder or C-suite executive, it needs to be considered alongside something equally valuable: demonstrated career performance.
What are we actually assessing?
Before introducing cognitive or psychometric testing into an Executive Assistant recruitment process, I think the starting point should always be the role itself.
What capabilities genuinely predict success in this particular position?
A senior Executive Assistant may need to absorb information quickly, solve problems and manage complexity. But the role may also require exceptional judgement, discretion, emotional intelligence, adaptability and stakeholder awareness.
An outstanding EA may need to recognise that a diary simply won’t work before anyone else sees the problem.
They may need to determine which of five competing requests genuinely requires the CEO’s attention.
They may need to read the dynamics of a boardroom, anticipate what an executive will require before a meeting, handle highly confidential information and know when to make a decision independently — and when the executive needs to be involved.
These are sophisticated capabilities, and not all of them are easily measured by one assessment.
Cognitive ability and executive capability are not necessarily the same thing
Cognitive assessments can provide insight into areas such as reasoning, problem-solving and information processing. Properly selected and interpreted, they can add another useful data point to a hiring process.
But tested cognitive ability and demonstrated executive capability are not interchangeable.
Consider an Executive Assistant who has spent 12 or 15 years supporting CEOs, boards or founders in complex organisations.
Over that career they may have managed confidential board matters, coordinated competing priorities across international time zones, navigated difficult stakeholders, anticipated risks and become a trusted adviser to several senior executives.
That history is evidence too.
If that candidate performs differently than expected on a cognitive assessment, I don’t think the only question should be:
Did they meet the benchmark?
I’d also want to ask:
What does this result tell us when considered alongside everything else we know about this person’s ability to perform the job?
That’s a much more useful recruitment conversation.
Selection tool or development tool?
I’ve seen some interesting differences in the way organisations approach this.
Some businesses use assessment as a selection tool. Candidates need to reach a particular benchmark before progressing further in the recruitment process.
Others use assessment later - sometimes after the preferred candidate has effectively been identified - as a development and integration tool.
That creates a very different conversation.
Rather than asking only, “Should we hire this person?”, the organisation can explore how the person prefers to communicate, how they respond under pressure, where their natural strengths lie and where they may need additional support.
It can also help identify differences between the working style of the EA and the executive they will support, where misunderstandings could occur and how the two can establish an effective partnership more quickly.
For an Executive Assistant appointment, I think that information can be enormously valuable.
After all, an EA and executive often work extraordinarily closely.
This doesn’t mean using assessments for development is automatically better than using them for selection. It means organisations need to be clear about why they’re assessing in the first place.
If an assessment is a gate, understand what the gate is measuring
Where testing determines whether an Executive Assistant progresses, I’d want to understand the relevance of the benchmark to the role.
What does the score predict? How was the benchmark determined? Which capability is the organisation trying to identify? And how much weight will the result carry relative to structured interview performance, career history, references and demonstrated experience?
This matters particularly when an otherwise compelling candidate falls outside the expected range.
The assessment may have identified something genuinely important.
Equally, the result may warrant further exploration rather than immediate rejection.
The purpose of a strong recruitment process isn’t to collect the greatest number of selection mechanisms. It’s to identify the person most likely to succeed in the actual role.
Be careful not to assess what is easiest to measure
Executive Assistant roles can be deceptively difficult to assess because so much of exceptional performance happens in judgement calls.
The best EAs often make difficult work look effortless.
They prevent problems rather than merely solve them. They understand the executive’s priorities sufficiently well to filter noise. They notice when something feels wrong.
They know when a stakeholder needs reassurance, when an issue needs escalation and when the CEO needs protecting from unnecessary interruption.
How do we measure that?
Some of it can be explored through structured interviews and scenario-based questioning. Other elements become evident through references and a candidate’s career history.
This is why I favor looking at the whole body of evidence.
What about tertiary qualifications?
Cognitive testing also raises another question I encounter in senior Executive Assistant recruitment: the requirement for a university degree.
There are certainly EA roles where tertiary education may be relevant or desirable.
But I think organisations should ask themselves why it is being requested.
Is specific academic knowledge required to perform the position?
Or has a degree become shorthand for intelligence, intellectual curiosity, written communication or commercial sophistication?
Because they’re not necessarily the same thing.
Some of the most commercially astute Executive Assistants have developed their capability through years of working alongside exceptional executives rather than through university.
Conversely, holding a degree doesn’t automatically mean someone possesses the judgement, resilience or interpersonal capability required to support a demanding CEO.
Again, it comes back to what we’re actually trying to assess.
Assessment should add information, not replace judgement
There is considerable value in bringing structure and objective information into recruitment.
The danger is when one element of the process begins to override everything else without enough consideration of context.
For a senior Executive Assistant appointment, I want to understand the complete candidate — their career, achievements, judgement, communication style, relationship with previous executives, references, motivations, ability to anticipate, interview performance and, where appropriate, assessment results.
No single one of those should necessarily tell the whole story.
A better question for HR leaders
Perhaps the question isn’t whether cognitive testing belongs in Executive Assistant recruitment.
For many organisations, it can absolutely add value.
The better question is:
What role do we want it to play?
Is it designed to screen, validate, identify potential risks, compare candidates or help an already strong EA and executive understand how to work together more effectively?
Once the purpose is clear, the assessment becomes much more useful.
The most effective Executive Assistant recruitment processes I see aren’t necessarily those with the greatest number of hurdles.
They’re the ones where the CEO, HR team and recruiter have agreed from the beginning on what success looks like, what they need to assess and how each part of the selection process will contribute to the decision.
Because ultimately, assessment should help an organisation exercise better judgement.
It shouldn’t replace it.
Looking to recruit an Executive Assistant?
At Altitude EA, we specialise in recruiting high-performing Executive Assistants and Personal Assistants for CEOs, founders, C-suite executives and private offices.
Having worked as an Executive Assistant myself, I understand that finding the right EA goes well beyond a CV. Experience matters, but so do judgement, working style, chemistry and the way an EA and executive will operate together.
If you’re looking to recruit an Executive Assistant or would like to discuss your hiring process, contact Anastasia on 0421 16 55 96.