1 - Studying the position

This first step is performed out in collaboration with the company. It involves identifying the main job tasks and must to be subtle enough to determine the importance of each task to the job.

Example: A lead-qualification person in a sales department initially qualifies an opportunity by phone and then independently organizes the first introductory meetings. Prospect qualification by phone is more important than the organizing of the first meeting.

Result: Description of the job tasks and relative weighing their relevance to that job.

2 - Analyzing the cognitive skills used in the identified job tasks.

This step is performed by Cognitive Psychologists.

Example: Prospecting and opportunity qualification by phone requires cognitive abilities such as listening, language accuracy, or logical reasoning, but also shared attention. The lead qualificaiton person must be able to take notes to simultaneously fill in his/her database accurately and thoroughly, while listening to the person on the phone.

Result: Correspondence table for position related tasks and the related cognitive skills required for the job.

3 - Selecting and weighing the necessary indicators

Our scientific team of cognitive experts have identified and cataloged a grid of 25 indicators covering the broad range of cognitive skills. This step establishes the relationship between the cognitive skills defined in step 2 with these 25 cognitive indicators.

Example: The notion of shared attention when qualifying opportunities by phone involves cognitive indicators such as verbal working memory (indicator 9) and the ability to resist interruptions or distractions (indicator 21). In order to accurately explain the notion of shared attention, resistance to interruptions should be given more weight than working memory (ind 9 = weight 1 ; ind 21 = weight 2).

Result: Selection of relevant cognitive indicators, along with their respective weight.

4 - Selecting the assessment exercises

We have built an in-depth library of over sixty exercises, each dedicated to a cognitive sub-function. Using the "Cognigen" search engine, the appropriate exercises are selected according to the indicators needed to assess in the candidate. The "Cognigen" search engine thus suggests a combination of exercises that are related to the indicators determined during the three previous steps.

Example: the selection of two indicators 9 and 21, along with their respective weight for the 'shared attention' function, enable « Cognigen » determine the most apropriate tests that will specifically assess these two cognitive skills.

Result: the module with standardized exercises..

5 - Selection of standards for the scoring and sampling

Sharp Cognition exercises have been standardized and validated on thousands of individuals, while factoring three 3 variables: age, gender and educational level. This step makes the selection for each test best matched to candidates being evalated. The standard chosen is then validated on a sample of the population to be evaluated. A test-group representing the target population takes the assessment test. This is called the sampling.

Example: sometimes the results of the sampling group maybe somewhat inferior to the average that has been calculated on SBT's standards. In this case, SBT's engineers adapt the calculation mode to the scoring obtained in order to obtain a new average based on the sampling's performance.

Result: standardized and sampled module.

6 - Training of examiners

This last step rolls out the Sharp Cognition program. Internal personnel are trained for successful deploment and result interpretation.

Result: delivery of a functional module including the Sharp Cognition management tool.