Assessment
Communication Skills Assessment
Evaluate communication skills with AI-powered assessments. Covers written communication, verbal clarity, active listening, and stakeholder management.
The short answer
A communication skills assessment for hiring typically runs 20-30 minutes, writing exercises, email composition, scenario responses, message interpretation and audience adaptation, at 3 difficulty levels. Give it after the first screen and before interviews, and score it on the areas below, fixed before you see any answers, so every candidate is judged the same way.
- Written communication clarity and conciseness
- Professional email and business writing
- Active listening and comprehension
- Adapting communication style to different audiences
Paste a job description; Cohesyve builds the assessment and the rubric. Ten candidates free, no card.
About to take a Communication test? Practise it free →A Communication Skills Assessment evaluates a candidate's ability to communicate clearly, persuasively, and professionally across various contexts. Strong communication is consistently ranked as one of the most important skills for any role, yet it's difficult to assess from resumes alone. This assessment helps employers identify candidates who can write clearly, present effectively, and navigate complex interpersonal interactions.
Format
What it measures
- Written communication clarity and conciseness
- Professional email and business writing
- Active listening and comprehension
- Adapting communication style to different audiences
- Presenting data and ideas effectively
- Conflict resolution through communication
- Feedback delivery and reception
- Cross-cultural communication awareness
Cohesyve
Run a Communication assessment on your next opening
Cohesyve generates a unique task per candidate from your job description, with the scoring rubric attached. Questions differ for every applicant, so they cannot be shared or looked up.
Who takes it
Topics covered
Written Communication
- Email clarity
- Report writing
- Proposal structure
- Documentation
- Editing and proofreading
Verbal & Interpersonal
- Meeting facilitation
- Stakeholder updates
- Difficult conversations
- Negotiation
- Presentation skills
Adaptive Communication
- Technical to non-technical translation
- Executive summaries
- Cross-functional alignment
- Cultural sensitivity
- Feedback delivery
Sample questions
A customer emails: 'This is the third time your product has broken this week and nobody has helped me. I want a refund.' Draft your reply.
EntryLook for Acknowledges the frustration first, takes ownership without over-apologizing, offers a concrete next step and timeline, and avoids defensive or scripted language. Tone stays warm and human.
Summarize this 250-word project update into three sentences a VP can read in 15 seconds.
EntryLook for Leads with the headline (on track / at risk / blocked), cuts detail ruthlessly, and surfaces the one thing the VP must decide or know. No burying the lede.
You need to tell a peer their part of a shared deliverable is late and it is now blocking you. Write the message.
MidLook for Direct but not accusatory, focuses on the problem and the unblock rather than blame, proposes a specific path forward, and leaves the working relationship intact.
Explain why your team chose tool A over tool B to a stakeholder who preferred B, in writing.
MidLook for Acknowledges their preference, gives the decision criteria plainly, ties the choice to a shared goal, and persuades with reasoning rather than authority or jargon.
Record a 90-second verbal explanation of a recent project to someone outside your field.
MidLook for Clear structure (what, why, outcome), plain language, appropriate pacing, and confidence without filler. Checks whether they can self-edit out the jargon.
A launch you committed to will slip by two weeks. Write the message to the customer who is counting on it.
SeniorLook for Proactive and honest, leads with the new date and the reason, owns the impact, offers mitigation, and frames it to preserve trust rather than minimize or hide it.
Two senior stakeholders disagree and both have copied you asking you to side with them. How do you respond, and what do you write?
SeniorLook for Stays neutral, reframes around the shared objective, separates facts from positions, and moves the group toward a decision instead of escalating or picking a side.
Give an example of a time your communication failed and someone misunderstood you. What happened and what did you change?
SeniorLook for Real self-awareness, a specific story, ownership rather than blaming the reader, and a concrete habit they changed. Vague or blameless answers are a flag.
Red flags
- Long, unstructured answers that never reach a clear point or ask
- One default tone for every audience, formal with peers, casual with execs, or vice versa
- Defensiveness or blame when handling the angry-customer or late-peer scenario
- Polished in conversation but sloppy, rambling, or error-filled in writing
- Talks over the question instead of answering it, or never asks a clarifying question
- Confuses being verbose or using jargon with being thorough or smart
- Cannot give a single real example of a past communication failure or what they learned
Scoring rubric
| Criterion | Weight | What strong looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Clarity and structure | 30% | Reader understands the point and the ask in one pass. Logical order, no filler, scannable. |
| Audience adaptation and tone | 25% | Tone, formality, and detail visibly shift to fit the reader. Warm where it helps, crisp where it counts. |
| Persuasion and judgment | 20% | Moves the reader toward action with reasoning and empathy, and knows what to leave out. |
| Handling difficulty and conflict | 15% | Delivers bad news or pushback honestly while protecting the relationship. Stays calm and solution-focused. |
| Mechanics and professionalism | 10% | Correct grammar, appropriate format, and a finished, polished artifact that needs no cleanup. |
Why it is used
For employers
- Objectively evaluate a skill that's notoriously hard to assess from resumes
- Identify candidates who can communicate clearly under pressure
- Reduce miscommunication-related issues in teams
- AI-powered assessment adapts to role-specific communication needs
- Compare candidates fairly on communication competencies
For candidates
- Demonstrate communication strengths through practical exercises
- Complete the assessment quickly (20-30 minutes)
- Showcase skills that differentiate you from other candidates
- Receive evaluation on specific communication dimensions
Common questions
Can communication skills really be tested?
Yes, through well-designed scenario-based exercises. Writing samples, email composition, audience adaptation exercises, and stakeholder management scenarios reliably reveal a candidate's communication ability. These practical exercises predict real-world performance better than interview impressions alone.
Is this assessment relevant for technical roles?
Absolutely. Technical professionals need to communicate with non-technical stakeholders, write documentation, present findings, and collaborate across teams. Communication is consistently cited as a top differentiator between good and great technical contributors.
How does AI help assess communication?
Cohesyve's AI generates unique, role-specific communication scenarios for every candidate. It evaluates responses on clarity, conciseness, appropriateness, and effectiveness, providing a detailed breakdown of communication strengths and areas for improvement.
Cohesyve · Skill assessments for hiring
Test Communication before the first interview
Cohesyve turns a job description into a role-specific assessment with a scoring rubric. Each candidate gets a different version, so questions cannot be shared between applicants.
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