A situational judgement test for managers puts candidates in realistic people-management situations and asks them to judge the best and worst ways to respond. This guide explains the format with a generic worked example, sets out what the evidence says about where manager SJTs work well and where they need support, and offers practical advice for candidates and employers.

Why employers use a situational judgement test for managers

Stepping into a supervisory or management role changes what good performance looks like. Technical expertise matters less; handling people, priorities and pressure matters more. Those qualities are hard to judge from a CV, and interviews tend to reward people who talk well about management rather than those who would do it well.

Situational judgement tests (SJTs) offer a structured alternative. Motowidlo, Dunnette and Carter described this approach as a "low-fidelity simulation": rather than recreating a full work situation, it presents a written scenario and a set of possible responses for the candidate to judge [1].

The Viewpoint Supervisor and Manager SJT presents 16 situations. It is untimed and typically takes up to about 15 minutes, which makes it practical to use early in a selection process for supervisory and management roles, for internal and external candidates alike.

What the situations cover: a described example

The following is a generic illustration written for this article. It is not an item from the Viewpoint test.

Imagine you supervise a team of eight. On a Monday morning, two team members each ask for the same Friday off at short notice. One has a family event; the other has a long-planned appointment. Only one can be released without leaving the team short. Possible responses might include:

• Approve whichever request arrived first and tell the other person no.

• Speak to both individually, explain the staffing constraint, and look together for options such as swapping shifts or covering part of the day.

• Refuse both, so nobody feels treated unfairly.

• Ask the team to sort it out among themselves.

Many experienced managers would see the second response as most appropriate, because it is fair, open and looks for a solution. Refusing both might seem even-handed but ignores a workable compromise and may damage goodwill; leaving the team to sort it out avoids the manager's responsibility. A well-designed SJT's scoring reflects the judgement of effective people in the role, so the key point for candidates is to weigh fairness, communication and the needs of the work together.

The evidence: strengths and limits

The research on SJTs is broadly positive. McDaniel and colleagues' meta-analysis of 102 validity coefficients found that SJTs predict job performance at useful levels (an estimated validity of .34), and that this generalised across settings [2]. The same work showed that SJT scores tend to relate to cognitive ability, which is worth remembering when interpreting results.

Christian, Edwards and Bradley found that SJTs most often target leadership and interpersonal skills, and that they predict best when the construct an SJT targets is aligned with the type of performance being assessed [3]. In other words, a manager SJT should be designed around the people-management demands of the role.

There are limits too. Shakeri and Lievens compared an SJT and an assessment centre for 406 applicants to supervisory and management roles. The SJT matched the assessment centre in predicting the thinking side of performance but was clearly weaker for the dimensions the authors labelled Feeling and Power, broadly the interpersonal and influencing sides of the job [4]. An SJT is therefore a valuable, efficient first look rather than a complete picture of someone's management capability.

Getting the most from a manager SJT

For employers, read results in bands from Very Low to Very High rather than against a single pass mark, and use them to shape what comes next. A candidate whose result sits in a lower band might be asked in a structured interview to describe how they handled a conflict between team members. For senior or high-stakes appointments, combine the SJT with interactive exercises such as role-plays, and with a personality questionnaire such as those in our personality questionnaires range.

For candidates, read each situation and all the options carefully, think about what a fair, effective manager would do, and remember that the least appropriate choice matters as much as the most appropriate one. Avoid extreme options unless the situation clearly demands them.

You can find more on the Supervisor and Manager SJT page, compare our other situational judgement tests, or contact us to discuss your selection process.

Frequently asked questions

How long does the Viewpoint manager SJT take?

It is untimed, with 16 situations, and typically takes up to about 15 minutes.

Is there a right answer to each situation?

SJT scoring keys are usually built from the judgements of experienced, effective people in the role, so some responses are more appropriate than others. Your result reflects your judgements across all the situations, not any single answer.

Can a manager SJT replace an assessment centre?

Not on its own. Research shows SJTs are efficient and predictive, but interactive exercises capture interpersonal and influencing skills more fully.

Should I answer with what I would really do?

Follow the test instructions. In a most-and-least format you are judging which responses are most and least appropriate, so think about what an effective manager should do in the situation.

References

1. Motowidlo, S. J., Dunnette, M. D. & Carter, G. W. (1990). An alternative selection procedure: the low-fidelity simulation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75(6), 640–647.
2. McDaniel, M. A., Morgeson, F. P., Finnegan, E. B., Campion, M. A. & Braverman, E. P. (2001). Use of situational judgment tests to predict job performance: a clarification of the literature. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(4), 730–740.
3. Christian, M. S., Edwards, B. D. & Bradley, J. C. (2010). Situational judgment tests: constructs assessed and a meta-analysis of their criterion-related validities. Personnel Psychology, 63(1), 83–117.
4. Shakeri, I. & Lievens, F. (2025). A head-to-head comparison of situational judgment tests and assessment centers for measuring and predicting the same performance dimensions. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 33(1), 1–16.