The introduction of the new SHL Interactive G+ cognitive assessment in the recent AD7 internal competition [1] has sparked significant discussion among colleagues across the European Commission. While cognitive testing is not new in EPSO procedures, this specific format represents a substantial evolution in both methodology and scope.
For many colleagues, the first striking aspect is that this type of assessment is now being imposed on already serving officials and other eligible staff members who have previously succeeded in highly competitive EPSO selection procedures. Candidates who have already passed numerical, verbal, and abstract reasoning tests in the past before becoming officials, are now required to undergo a new generation of cognitive testing as part of their career progression towards AD positions.
At the same time, questions arise regarding consistency between categories of staff. While officials and long-serving internal candidates are once again required to pass extensive reasoning and cognitive filtering exercises, the situation may differ for certain temporary agent recruitment procedures, raising broader reflections on coherence and equal treatment within institutional talent management.
A New Type of Assessment
The Interactive G+ assessment differs significantly from traditional EPSO reasoning tests. Rather than focusing only on verbal, numerical, or abstract reasoning in isolation, the test combines several categories of rapid decision-making and operational processing exercises.
Examples observed during the practice assessment included:
- interpretation of financial charts and sales data,
- calculation of percentages and budget distributions,
- reimbursement and compliance verification,
- scheduling and calendar coordination,
- meeting-room allocation exercises,
- prioritisation of tasks under time constraints,
- management of overlapping operational restrictions,
- visual sequence and pattern recognition,
- abstract logical progression exercises,
- and rapid processing of several variables simultaneously.
The overall structure appears designed to measure not only reasoning ability, but also operational multitasking, speed of execution, prioritisation under pressure, and the ability to absorb fragmented information quickly.
Some exercises resemble practical administrative coordination tasks, while others remain highly abstract and visually oriented. The combination creates an assessment environment that differs considerably from more traditional EPSO-style reasoning tests.
Time Pressure and Strategic Test Navigation
One of the most debated aspects of the assessment concerns the relationship between question complexity and available time.
Although candidates reportedly faced approximately 24 questions within 36 minutes, it appears neither expected nor realistically possible to complete all questions. Instead, the assessment seems designed to evaluate how many questions candidates can process correctly within a highly compressed timeframe. Based on feedback from candidates, a strong result may already correspond to completing only a relatively limited proportion of the total exercises.
This creates a very specific testing dynamic.
Some questions can potentially be solved in seconds through immediate recognition of a pattern. Others, however, require several stages of calculation, interpretation, and verification before an answer can even be attempted. Certain examples involving percentages, financial distributions or operational constraints may realistically require four to five minutes of careful calculation.
As a result, candidates may effectively have only one to two minutes per question on average.
This naturally leads to strategic considerations. Candidates may need to rapidly identify which questions are too time-consuming and decide whether to skip them entirely to maximise the number of completed answers elsewhere. Success therefore depends not only on reasoning ability itself, but also on pacing strategy, prioritisation, and familiarity with the logic of the assessment format.
At the same time, candidates receive limited transparency regarding the scoring methodology. Important questions remain unclear:
- Are unanswered questions penalised?
- Do more complex questions carry greater weight?
- Are different categories of exercises evaluated separately?
- Or does the system simply count the total number of correct answers regardless of complexity?
These uncertainties may significantly influence candidate behaviour during the test and raise broader questions regarding fairness and assessment design.
This lack of transparency is further reinforced by the limited information available to candidates shortly before the exam. Two weeks before the competition, the Single Candidate Portal still provides very little detail about the exact format of the test. Candidates are only informed that the test will take place during a full-day window, with the possibility to choose a slot between 8:00 and 20:00. For an entirely new type of cognitive assessment, this level of information is clearly insufficient and makes adequate preparation unnecessarily difficult.
Cultural and Linguistic Bias
Another aspect raised by colleagues concerns the strong cultural and linguistic bias that some exercises appear to contain.
Several examples seem clearly designed for a predominantly US-oriented testing environment. This is reflected not only in the use of non-metric measurement systems, such as square feet or dollars, but also in the terminology, names and contextual references used throughout the assessment.
For candidates working in a European institutional environment, this may create an additional layer of difficulty unrelated to the competencies supposedly being assessed. The European Commission operates in a multilingual and multicultural framework where many colleagues work primarily with the metric system and within different administrative, linguistic, and educational traditions.
Certain names, formulations, or contextual references used in the exercises may feel unfamiliar or unnatural for European candidates and may require additional cognitive adaptation before the actual reasoning task can even begin. While such adaptation may appear minor in isolation, in an assessment built around extreme time pressure and rapid processing, even small additional interpretation efforts may influence performance.
This raises broader questions regarding the extent to which imported private-sector testing methodologies, particularly those developed primarily for Anglo-American corporate recruitment markets, are fully adapted to the realities of a multilingual European public administration.
Personal Data and Access to Practice Tests
Another concern raised by colleagues relates to access to the practice environment itself.
In order to access practice assessments, candidates are required to create accounts and provide personal information, including email addresses and additional personal data. Some colleagues have questioned whether the extent of the requested information is proportionate for simple access to preparation materials.
Given increasing institutional emphasis on data protection and privacy awareness, this aspect has also attracted attention among participants.
What Skills Should Modern Administrations Prioritise?
Beyond the technical details of the assessment itself, the introduction of the Interactive G+ test raises a broader institutional question: what competencies should modern European administrations prioritise when identifying future AD officials?
The current assessment format strongly rewards:
- rapid information processing,
- operational multitasking,
- speed under pressure,
- pattern recognition,
- short-term logical optimisation,
- and fast prioritisation of competing constraints.
These are undoubtedly useful competencies in certain environments.
However, many colleagues question whether such exercises fully capture the broader profile required from future policymakers and administrators in the European institutions. Modern public administration increasingly relies on:
- strategic judgement,
- policy understanding,
- negotiation capacity,
- communication skills,
- stakeholder management,
- digital literacy,
- adaptability,
- ethical decision-making,
- resilience,
- and the ability to work effectively alongside emerging AI technologies.
This debate becomes even more relevant in the context of ongoing digital and AI transformation. Many tasks simulated in the assessment such as rapid calculations, data interpretation, scheduling optimisation, pattern recognition and procedural processing, are precisely the types of activities increasingly supported or automated by artificial intelligence systems.
This therefore raises a legitimate reflection on the future direction of institutional recruitment and promotion methodologies. Should future competitions continue to focus primarily on high-speed cognitive filtering exercises, or should they place greater emphasis on strategic, collaborative and policy-oriented competencies that may become increasingly important in the AI era?
Experience, Motivation and the Risk of Further Frustration
Another important aspect concerns the potential long-term impact of this type of testing staff motivation and career perspectives within the institutions.
Many of the officials eligible for the AD7 internal competition may already have close to two decades of professional experience within the European institutions. In some cases, colleagues reaching AST7 level have accumulated extensive operational, legal, financial, technical, or policy expertise over many years of service. Even for those recruited at higher AST grades, candidates often still represent a highly experienced segment of the administration.
At the same time, the career realities between different staff categories are not always comparable. Certain temporary agents may have entered the institutions directly at relatively high grades or through different recruitment pathways, while long-serving officials may have spent many years progressively advancing through the AST career structure before becoming eligible for internal progression opportunities.
In this context, some colleagues question whether highly selective cognitive filtering exercises risk creating additional frustration among experienced staff who have already demonstrated long-term commitment, resilience, institutional knowledge, and professional competence over many years of service.
For some colleagues, the launch of a new internal competition initially created hope that internal career progression opportunities might finally become more accessible after many years of limited possibilities. However, after discovering the nature, intensity, and speed of the new cognitive assessments, some candidates described the process as feeling almost like a “mission impossible” exercise rather than a realistic career opportunity for experienced internal staff.
For many AST colleagues, this feeling is reinforced by previous experiences with the certification exercise, which has often been perceived as highly selective and accessible only to a very limited number of candidates. In this context, the launch of broader internal competitions initially created expectations of more realistic and inclusive career development opportunities for experienced staff. The introduction of a new generation of highly demanding cognitive screening tests has therefore led some colleagues to fear that similar barriers may once again emerge, potentially limiting meaningful career progression prospects for a large part of the existing administration.
The introduction of such a demanding and highly time-pressured assessment also raises a broader question regarding the design and validation of the testing methodology itself. Some colleagues wonder to what extent the practical candidate experience was fully assessed during the decision-making process, including whether the exercises were evaluated under realistic conditions reflecting the actual constraints faced by candidates during the competition.
Given the intensity, pace, and complexity of certain exercises, this discussion goes beyond the technical functioning of the platform itself and touches on the broader issue of proportionality and suitability for internal career progression exercises involving experienced serving staff.
The concern is not necessarily the existence of assessment itself, but rather the possibility that career progression may become increasingly dependent on performance in highly time-pressured cognitive screening exercises that may only partially reflect the real competencies developed through years of institutional work.
This also raises a broader human resources question for the future of the administration: how can the institutions modernise recruitment and promotion systems while at the same time maintaining motivation, recognising accumulated experience, and preserving confidence in long-term career perspectives for serving staff?
As the Commission reflects on the future profile of AD officials, the challenge will be to strike the right balance between modern competency-based assessment and proper recognition of the expertise, experience, and institutional memory already present within the administration.
A Broader Institutional Debate
The introduction of the Interactive G+ test in the AD7 internal competition may therefore represent more than a simple technical modification of EPSO-style testing.
It opens a wider discussion about how the institutions define talent, leadership potential, and professional excellence in a rapidly evolving administrative environment.
As the European Commission continues its modernisation efforts and adapts to digital transformation, the question is no longer only whether candidates can process information quickly under pressure, but also whether recruitment and promotion systems are identifying the diverse range of competencies needed for the future European public administration.
Generation 2004 [2], in collaboration with Yasemos Europeos [3], is offering trainings [4] for the COM AD7 Internal competition.