What Is the SHL Test? The Verify G+ Explained

The SHL test most job candidates encounter is the Verify G+, a 36-minute test of general cognitive ability that presents 30 multiple-choice questions, 10 each in numerical ability, deductive reasoning, and inductive reasoning. A newer interactive version asks at most 24 activity-based questions in the same 36 minutes. SHL, one of the world's largest assessment publishers, reports that 45 million SHL assessments are taken every year across more than 10,000 businesses, which makes the Verify range one of the most common cognitive tests a working adult will ever sit.

SHL began as Saville and Holdsworth Ltd, a British occupational-psychology firm, and its assessments now sit inside the hiring pipelines of major employers; its own customer materials name companies such as Microsoft, Barclays, and Amazon among users of its platform. Candidates typically receive an SHL link at an early screening stage, complete the test unsupervised at home, and are compared against a norm group chosen for the job level and industry.

• Multiple-choice version: 30 questions, 36 minutes allowed, delivered with computer-adaptive technology. Numerical items involve interpreting charts and tables, deductive items require drawing logical conclusions from given information, and inductive items are entirely non-verbal pattern puzzles.

• Interactive version: A mobile-first variant with a maximum of 24 activity-based questions in 36 minutes, measuring the same three abilities plus an overall general ability score.

• Different items for every candidate: Questions are drawn from item banks built with "item response theory," so each candidate receives a different but statistically equivalent set. Memorizing leaked questions is pointless by design.

• A built-in cheating check: Because the main sitting is unsupervised, SHL offers short supervised "Verification Tests" that employers can use to confirm a suspicious score.

SHL grounds the Verify range in mainstream intelligence research. Its technical manual describes the inductive reasoning test as "a measure of fluid intelligence (Cattell, 1971) which is a facet of general intelligence (g)", and reports that scores on it correlate .56 with Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (.69 after correction), one of the most g-loaded tests ever built. In plain terms, the SHL test is measuring the reasoning ability at the core of intelligence, packaged for hiring. Our guide to fluid intelligence explains the construct these items target.

SHL does not report a percent-correct score or a fixed scale. Your result is expressed relative to a comparison group, normed by job level and industry sector, so the same performance can read differently for a graduate role and a managerial one. Employers see where you sit within the chosen norm group and judge you against the benchmark they set for the role. There is no universal pass mark, and SHL publishes no official cutoffs.

The Verify G+ measures general cognitive ability, the same construct an IQ test measures, and decades of research show such tests are among the strongest predictors of job performance and trainability. What a 36-minute screener cannot do is measure the construct with clinical precision, and it never reports an IQ. A full-length normed test such as the RIOT IQ test (the Reasoning and Intelligence Online Test) covers more abilities with a published margin of error on the standard IQ scale. If an SHL invitation has you curious about your actual number, you can take the free RIOT IQ test first and get a calibrated estimate.

SHL itself publishes free official practice tests for the general ability, verbal, numerical, inductive, and deductive formats, and encourages candidates to use them to learn the question types, while cautioning that practice difficulty may not match the real test. Familiarity with chart-reading and non-verbal pattern items pays off most, the same skills that matter on screeners like the Wonderlic. Retake rules are set by the hiring employer, not by SHL, so a second attempt requires the employer's decision.

Whatever clears the employer's benchmark for that role. Scores are reported against a norm group for the job level and industry, and SHL publishes no universal passing score.

The items range from routine to genuinely difficult, and the time limit does the real filtering. Most candidates find the inductive pattern items the least familiar, which is exactly why practicing the format helps.

No. Items are assembled from statistically calibrated banks, so two candidates for the same job see different but equivalent questions.

SHL's numerical items are delivered unsupervised, and employers follow SHL's instructions for the specific test. Check the invitation's rules rather than assuming; the test is built so that data interpretation, not arithmetic speed, is what separates scores.

It measures the same general ability as an IQ test, and its inductive section correlates strongly with classic fluid-intelligence measures, but it reports norm-relative hiring scores rather than an IQ number.

1. SHL. (2018). Verify G+ test: Test fact sheet. shl.com

2. SHL. (2007). The SHL Verify range of ability tests: Technical manual (Version 2.0). hrmforce.com

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4. Salgado, J. F., & Moscoso, S. (2019). Meta-analysis of the validity of general mental ability for five performance criteria: Hunter and Hunter (1984) revisited. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2227. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov