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Which test did they send me? How to tell from the invitation

"Please complete the assessment within 3 days." The email often does not name the test. It nearly always contains enough to work it out in two minutes.

Updated October 13, 2026 · by TimedPrep

The two-minute check

Open the invitation and look for three things, in this order: names (in the text, the sender and the link), the time limit, and the number of parts.

Signs of a Criteria test (CCAT)

These come from Criteria's own candidate FAQ:

• Sender: invitations sent through Criteria come from [email protected]. Some employers send the link from their own address or from their applicant-tracking system instead.
• Link: the testing center is ondemandassessment.com (au.ondemandassessment.com for Australia, Asia, Oceania and the Middle East).
• Event ID: a code such as three letters, three digits and four more characters, printed under the testing center link. You can re-enter it to resume a session.
• Older name: Criteria's employer platform used to be called HireSelect, and you may still see that word in a link or a footer.

A Criteria invitation does not prove it is the CCAT. Criteria sells many assessments, and one session can hold several: a basic skills test, a personality profile, a typing test. The first screen of the session lists what is in it. The CCAT is the one described as 50 questions with a 15-minute limit.

Signs of a Wonderlic test

• Wording: "Wonderlic Select" is the current product; "WonScore" is the previous name of the same thing (Wonderlic candidate FAQ). School applicants may see "SLE" or "Scholastic Level Exam".
• Length: about 35 minutes in total, with three sections, one of them timed at 12 minutes.
• Sender: usually the employer, not Wonderlic. Wonderlic says hiring organizations send their own invitations, and its template invitation is written for the employer to send with its own link. So the sender address tells you little; look at the text and at where the link takes you. Pages on wonderlic.com addresses are commonly reported, and we could not confirm one fixed sending address.
• Link life: links generally stay active for up to 14 days.
• Short form: an invitation that says 8 minutes, or 30 questions, points to the Wonderlic quick test. Some employers follow it with a supervised 50-question test for finalists.

Signs of a Predictive Index test

• Sender: the publisher's help page for employers gives the sending address as a "noreply" mailbox at mailer.predictiveindex.com and suggests candidates add it to their safe senders. Check your spam folder for it.
• Wording: "PI Cognitive Assessment", sometimes still "PLI" or "PI Learning Indicator" in older employer templates (commonly reported; these were earlier names). The suggested invitation text describes "a 12-minute timed assessment that includes verbal, numerical, and abstract reasoning questions".
• A second, short assessment: the PI Behavioral Assessment, about six minutes, two lists of adjectives. If you got a checklist of adjectives, you are in Predictive Index territory, and a cognitive assessment often follows.
• Device note: instructions to use a computer or tablet rather than a phone.

"50 questions in 12 minutes": Wonderlic or PI?

This is the most common mix-up, because both tests have exactly that format. Three ways to separate them:

1. Total time. About 35 minutes with three sections is Wonderlic. Twelve minutes plus a six-minute questionnaire is PI.
2. The practice questions. The PI test shows three sample questions before you begin, each with four answer choices. Wonderlic questions mostly have five.
3. The layout. Five questions on one page with page buttons is PI.

By the time you see the layout you are about to start, so settle it earlier if you can. It matters: on the PI test wrong answers cost nothing and you can go back; on the Wonderlic the publisher tells you guessing is not likely to help and not to skip around. See guess or skip.

It might be something else

Not every hiring test is one of these three. A few clues that you have a different one:

• Games (balloons, shapes to memorize, reaction tasks) instead of multiple-choice questions.
• Separate timed sections for numerical, verbal and logical reasoning, each 15 to 25 minutes, often with a calculator allowed.
• A video recording of your answers.
• Job content: typing speed, spreadsheet tasks, coding exercises.

If the test is multiple-choice reasoning with a short clock but under a name we do not cover, our general cognitive ability practice test is the closest practice: the question types overlap heavily. See also what to expect from an unnamed cognitive test.

Still unsure? Ask the recruiter

This is a normal question, and recruiters get it all the time. You are asking about logistics, not for an advantage. Keep it short:

Hi [name], thank you for the assessment invitation. So I can set aside the right amount of quiet time, could you tell me the name of the assessment, how many sections it has, and how long it takes in total? Thanks, [your name]

The answer usually names the publisher. If the recruiter says only "a cognitive ability test, about 15 minutes", you have the format at least: prepare with a 50-question, 15-minute test.

While you wait for the reply, do not lose the day. The first hour of preparation is the same for every test in this family: one full timed test to find your slow question types. On TimedPrep that test is free, with no sign-up, in each of the three formats and in a general one.

One safety check

Real invitations do not ask you to pay. Wonderlic says in its FAQ that candidates should never have to pay to take its assessment, and the same holds for Criteria and The Predictive Index: the employer pays. If an "assessment invitation" asks for a card number or a fee, it did not come from the employer. Go to the company's careers page and contact them from there.

Related guides

• The CCAT: 50 questions in 15 minutes, average score 24
• The employer said "cognitive ability test" and nothing else. Now what?
• The Wonderlic test: 50 questions, 12 minutes, and what to do about it
• CCAT vs Wonderlic vs PI Cognitive Assessment
• Test-day checklist: the 20 minutes before you click Start