Cognitive skills are the core mental abilities of an individual. These skills help to identify information, process it, make sense of it, remember it, retrieve it, and use it when needed. They are considered to be essential skills that are needed in our daily lives. In this article, we will look at the following:
- The importance of cognitive abilities
- Some of the key cognitive skills
- Benefits of cognitive tests
- upskillable’s cognitive test
Why are cognitive skills important?
Cognitive skills are important for the following reasons:
Effective Learning
Effective learning is essential for human adaptation and survival, whether it means learning how to read at school, learning how to use new technology, or learning how to perform complex tasks at work. We use cognitive skills every day to solve problems, make decisions, acquire new knowledge, and even for simple tasks like reading this article. They help us think, read, learn, remember, reason, and pay attention.
Growth
Cognitive skills and growth have a strong relationship. Higher skills improve our ability to learn fast and adapt to change and complexity quickly, which is an essential requirement for personal and professional growth in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment.
Job Performance
Research has found cognitive abilities to be one of the best predictors of performance on the job, including task performance, training performance, and organizational citizenship behaviour.
Key Cognitive Skills
Each of the following skills is important and is interdependent on the other cognitive skills.
- Perception & Attention – What we perceive and attend to, why and for how long. It includes attention to detail, contextual intelligence, multi-tasking, and staying focused.
- Memory (Long-term, short-term, working) – How fast we recall and how we retrieve information. It includes learning agility and handling change.
- Logic/ Reasoning – How we think and reason logically. It includes problem-solving, decision-making, creativity and innovation, critical thinking, and abstract thinking.
- Auditory and Visual Processing – How much and how fast we understand, comprehend, and process audio and visual information. It includes spatial ability and verbal ability.
- Processing Speed – How fast and accurately we process information.
Benefits of Cognitive Ability Tests
Assessment of cognitive ability can be useful in the:
- Selecting the right candidate by matching the specific cognitive skill required for the job.
- Knowing about the strengths and weaknesses of an individual.
- Providing focused training for the development of cognitive skill targeting specific problem areas.
upskillable’s Cognitive test
upskillable offers a cognitive assessment test that measures critical thinking, abstract reasoning, numerical reasoning, and verbal reasoning skills. It can be used to assess individuals across functions such as marketing, sales, human resources, finance, administration, research, technology, etc., in different industries, including automobile, finance, healthcare, hospitality, e-commerce, IT, telecom, retail, manufacturing, etc.
upskillable’s Cognitive test:
- Is Easy to use
- Can be administered online
- Takes only approx. 30 minutes to complete
- Can be used to assess the cognitive skills of potential candidates for hiring purposes
- Helps in identifying the training requirements of existing employees.
Want to know more about our cognitive testing tool or would like a demo? Follow us on Upskillable.
Author:
Kanika kadam
