Criteria Corp assessment 2026: the complete guide

Updated April 2026 · 11 min read · CCAT, CBST, Employee Personality Index — widely used in US hiring

Criteria Corp is a US-based assessment company best known for the CCAT (Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test) — one of the most widely used cognitive ability tests in US hiring. If you're applying to a US company (particularly in technology, SaaS, finance, or professional services) and asked to take a "cognitive assessment" through the Criteria platform, you are almost certainly taking the CCAT.

CCAT — format and scoring

50 questions in 15 minutes — 18 seconds per question. Similar speed to Wonderlic but with 3 additional minutes. Questions span verbal reasoning (analogies, sentence completion, antonyms), mathematical reasoning (percentages, arithmetic, number series, ratios), and spatial/abstract reasoning (matrix completion, shape patterns). Average score: approximately 24/50. Score of 31+ is approximately 70th percentile. Most tech companies set a minimum of 28–32 for individual contributor roles.

Optimal strategy

Don't get stuck. With 18 seconds per question, any question taking more than 25 seconds should be skipped and returned to later. Answer all easy questions first, then return. Guessing carries no penalty — always leave an answer, even if guessing. Verbal analogies and number series questions are typically fastest to answer with practice. Multi-step algebra or complex geometry questions are the most time-consuming — skip if not immediately solvable.

CBST — Criteria Basic Skills Test

The CBST is Criteria Corp's separate assessment measuring foundational math and English skills rather than general cognitive aptitude — think basic arithmetic, grammar, spelling, and reading comprehension rather than the CCAT's mixed verbal/numerical/spatial reasoning format. It's commonly used for entry-level, administrative, and operational roles where the employer wants to confirm a baseline of workplace-relevant literacy and numeracy rather than assess general problem-solving speed. If your invitation specifically mentions "CBST" rather than "CCAT," expect a more straightforward, less time-pressured format testing concrete skills you either have or don't, rather than the CCAT's emphasis on rapid pattern recognition under tight time pressure.

Employee Personality Index (EPI)

The EPI is Criteria Corp's workplace personality assessment, often administered alongside the CCAT as part of a combined battery for roles where both cognitive ability and behavioural fit matter. Like most modern workplace personality instruments, it's a self-report questionnaire with no correct answers — instead it produces a profile across several workplace-relevant personality dimensions (typically covering areas like conscientiousness, extraversion, and emotional stability) that employers compare against a target profile for the specific role. Because it's untimed and has no right answers, the most useful preparation is simply answering honestly and consistently rather than trying to guess what profile the employer is looking for — the EPI, like comparable instruments from other providers, includes consistency checks that can flag an implausibly "ideal" profile as less credible than a genuine, honestly-answered one.

EASy — English and Arithmetic Skills

EASy is a narrower, more targeted skills check than either the CCAT or CBST — a shorter assessment focused specifically on foundational English and arithmetic ability, generally used as a quick initial screen before a candidate proceeds to a more comprehensive assessment or interview stage, rather than as the main hiring decision point on its own. It's most commonly seen for roles with a genuine baseline literacy and numeracy requirement (data entry, customer service, retail and hospitality operations) where the employer wants a fast, low-friction confirmation of basic competency rather than a detailed cognitive or personality profile.

Which Criteria Corp product will you actually face?

With four genuinely different products under one company, confirming which one you're facing before you prepare matters — studying CCAT-style timed reasoning drills when your actual invitation is for CBST or EASy wastes preparation time on the wrong skill set entirely. Your invitation email is the most reliable signal, since Criteria Corp and the employer typically name the specific product directly. As a rough guide by role type: CCAT is overwhelmingly the most common for professional, technical, and management roles across tech, SaaS, finance, and professional services; CBST and EASy appear more often for entry-level, administrative, and operational roles with a genuine basic-skills requirement; EPI tends to accompany CCAT specifically for roles where cultural and behavioural fit is being assessed alongside cognitive ability, rather than appearing as a standalone assessment on its own.

How CCAT scoring and percentiles actually work

Your raw CCAT score — the number of the 50 questions you answered correctly — is converted to a percentile relative to a comparison population before it reaches the employer, meaning the same raw score of, say, 28 can translate to a different percentile depending on which comparison group Criteria Corp uses for that specific employer or role. This is why cutoffs vary meaningfully across employers even for similar roles: a company hiring against a general working-population norm sets a different effective bar than one comparing candidates against a norm built specifically from its own past high-performing hires. Since candidates don't typically see their raw score or the exact comparison group used, the practical takeaway is to treat any single benchmark number you read online as a rough orientation rather than a precise target — performing as consistently and accurately as you genuinely can, across all three question types, is a more reliable goal than chasing a specific score you've read is "the" cutoff.