Building your first TestGorilla assessment? Here’s a 15-minute checklist to take you from setup to launch — all in one place. It’s ideal for new users who want a quick, structured start.
Approx. read time: 5 minutes
🚀 First assessment quick-start checklist
Go to Jobs, click New job, then choose Assess candidates to start creating your first assessment. The creation process has four steps: Job details, Tools, Content, and Settings.
For example, you’ll hire a Technical Project Manager for this walkthrough.
💼 Step 1. Job details
Choose the role Technical Project Manager. You’ll also select the assessment language.
Provide a job description to our AI Job Builder, which powers AI-driven suggestions for skills tests, custom questions, and AI interviews.
📋 Step 2. Tools
Here you’ll decide which combination of assessment tools to include. You can select from:
- Skills tests (up to 5)
- Custom questions (up to 20 on the Plus plan)
- AI interviews: available on the Free and Plus plans, 2 credits per candidate. On Free, build 1 AI interview with up to 8 questions. The TestGorilla AI interview library is on Plus only.
- Video questions: available on all plans, 1 credit per candidate. On Free, write your own questions (up to 5 per assessment). The TestGorilla video question library is on Core and above.
- Resume scoring: available on all plans. No additional credit cost.
- Qualifying questions: available on all plans, up to 5 per assessment. No additional credit cost.
- ID verification: available on Plus plan only, 1 credit per candidate.
- Job simulations: available on Plus plan only, 2 credits per candidate.
Once you find the tools you want, move on to the next step.
⚙️ Step 3. Content
This is where you assemble everything. Choose the specific tests and questions to include, depending on the assessment tools you've chosen. If you added a job description in Step 1, our AI Job Builder will recommend tests and questions.
For a Technical Project Manager, recommendations might include:
- Attention to detail
- Microsoft Excel
- Leadership & people management
- Business ethics & compliance
Research shows that multi-measure assessments (combining different types of tests and questions) predict job success best. Learn more.
Skills tests — Browse the library, filter by category, and preview sample questions. Click Add to include a test, then drag & drop to reorder. We recommend adding at least four tests to every assessment.
Custom questions — Gather work samples or additional candidate info. Available on all plans, including the Free forever plan, at no additional credit cost. Add up to 5 custom questions per assessment on Free and Core, and up to 20 on Plus, in formats like essay, multiple-choice, file upload, or video question. Each custom question is saved to your library for reuse.
- Essay questions — ask candidates to respond to an example customer email.
- Multiple-choice questions — test knowledge or gather opinions.
- Video questions — get to know candidates; can replace an initial screen.
- File upload questions — request a take-home task, CV, or portfolio.
AI interviews — Assess communication and behavioral competencies via a structured, AI-scored interview.
Resume scoring — Automatically evaluates resumes against role criteria to speed up initial screening.
Plus plan only:
Build your own tests from scratch to assess company-specific skills or scenarios.
Get access to our ATS Integrations and API, verify the candidate's Identity, and custom-brand your assessments.
Create custom coding challenges for technical roles and add them to your assessments once published.
You can manage these in your Library and reuse them across assessments.
| 📘 Looking for a deeper dive? Read the complete guide to creating an assessment. |
✅ Step 4. Settings
Review the tests and custom questions included, as well as total duration. Aim to keep the assessment around one hour for a positive candidate experience.
The advanced options you can include are:
- Job invitation details. Help candidates identify the sender and purpose.
- Qualifying questions — filter out unqualified candidates before they start.
- Welcome video — add a personal, branded intro/outro.
- Anti-cheating measures — turn camera snapshots and the single screen requirement on or off.
- Extra time for tests — allow additional time if needed.
- Accommodations — manage accessibility options.
- Assessment deadlines — set automatic closing.
- Show results to candidates — control candidate visibility.
Click Finalize to complete setup.
Ensure all tests and questions are final before inviting candidates.
| ⚠️ Important: Once candidates start taking your assessment, editing it deletes their results. To make changes later, clone the assessment and update the new version before sending more invites. |
➡️ Learn more: Advanced assessment settings
🧪 Test internally
- Use Try your assessment on your job page to take it yourself or share it with a teammate first.
- Check the assessment flow, timing, and clarity.
- If you need edits after any invite (even internal), clone and update the new version before sending live invites.
➡️ Learn more: Managing your team
🧠 Best-practice reminders
- ✅ Combine different test types (hard and soft skills) for stronger predictions.
- 🕒 Keep total assessment duration around 30–70 minutes.
- 🔍 Always preview tests before inviting candidates.
- 🚫 Don’t edit live assessments, clone instead.
- 💬 Communicate deadlines and next steps clearly to candidates.
📈 Next step: Learn how credits work
Now that you’ve built your first assessment, take a minute to understand how credits are used for evaluating candidates so you can plan your hiring smoothly.