In a world where roles are evolving faster than ever, skills have become the most accurate, actionable way to understand talent. Degrees, job titles, and even years of experience no longer guarantee job readiness. What matters most today is what someone can actually do, not just what they say they’ve done.
That’s why we created the Bryq skills assessments.
They’re built to help organizations answer fundamental questions:
Can this person perform the tasks the role requires?
What strengths do they bring to the table?
Where is there room for development?
Whether you're hiring new talent, identifying internal potential, or planning for future needs, skills assessments provide the clarity, objectivity, and scalability needed to make confident decisions at speed and at scale.
This article breaks down how our assessments were developed, why they’re essential, and what categories of skills we cover, so you can use them with purpose and precision.
Why Skills Assessments Matter
In a skills-first economy, organizations need more than credentials and job titles to make sound talent decisions. They need evidence of capability — insight into what someone can actually do, not just what their résumé says.
Bryq’s skills assessments provide that evidence.
They offer a standardized, scalable, and objective way to:
Evaluate candidate readiness during hiring
Identify strengths and gaps for internal development
Enable fairer, bias-resistant comparisons
Support workforce transformation and mobility at scale
They are built to help organizations move beyond assumptions and toward real, measurable insights — making it easier to match people with the roles they’re equipped to succeed in.
💡And it works: According to ADP’s 2025 Workforce Insights,
90% of employers report fewer hiring mistakes, and 94% say skills-based hires outperform those chosen based on degrees, certifications, or years of experience.
In a talent market defined by change, skills assessments are no longer optional; they’re essential for making confident, future-proof decisions. |
How the Bryq Assessments Were Developed
The Bryq Skills Assessments were developed through a rigorous, multi-stage process that blends big data, expert analysis, AI-driven insights, and global market validation. The goal was simple: to build a scalable, structured, and future-ready assessment framework that reflects the real needs of modern organizations.
Here’s how we did it:
Phase 1: Identifying What Matters Most
We began by analyzing Bryq’s proprietary workforce data to surface high-frequency, high-impact skills across industries and job levels. This included:
Mining customer hiring data and performance patterns
Leveraging AI-powered skill extraction to analyze thousands of real-world job descriptions and match them to relevant competencies
Identifying popular and trending unstructured skills that may not yet be codified in traditional databases but reflect current hiring needs
This ensured our foundation reflected real-world job content, not just theoretical models.
Phase 2: Validating Skills with Global Market Standards
To ensure breadth, credibility, and long-term relevance, we validated and enriched our internal findings through:
Benchmarking against trusted platforms like O*NET, ESCO, and Lightcast
Extracting the most in-demand technologies and role-specific competencies
Reviewing future-of-work research from sources like McKinsey, AIHR, Deloitte, and other industry leaders to align with emerging trends and economic shifts
Conducting in-depth market and industry research with our in-house I/O psychology experts
This cross-referencing phase ensured our skill framework was both globally aligned and forward-looking.
Phase 3: Structuring the Skills into a Usable Framework
With thousands of validated skills in hand, we moved into the process of organizing and refining the dataset:
We normalized all data points into a unified skills library of over 6,000 unique skills
Removed duplicate or overlapping entries through statistical analysis
Clustered related skills under consistent naming and headers
Mapped each skill to relevant job functions, roles, and levels
This became the foundation of our proprietary Skills Taxonomy, which enables consistent use of skills across hiring, development, and internal mobility use cases.
Phase 4: Categorization by Skill Type
Once structured, skills were grouped into four broad Skill Types, making it easier for customers to align their assessment strategy to role requirements:
Hard Skills: Technical, job-specific skills that are typically measurable and observable (e.g., Excel, Agile, SQL)
Soft Skills: Interpersonal and behavioral abilities (e.g., Communication, Time Management)
Hybrid Skills: Competencies that combine technical knowledge with soft skills (e.g., Cybersecurity Awareness, AI Governance)
Job-Specific Skills: Bundled assessments built around the core tasks and traits of specific roles, divided into:
White-Collar Roles (e.g., Sales, Finance)
Blue-Collar Roles (e.g., CNC Operator, Nurse)
This structure allowed us to prioritize the production of assessments that are both practical and role-relevant, whether for hiring, promotion, or development.
Phase 5: Role Mapping and Assessment Design
Finally, we mapped these skills to a wide spectrum of job roles, functions, and industries, ensuring that the resulting assessments could:
Serve both entry-level and senior-level positions
Span across industries — from healthcare and logistics to software and finance
Reflect the actual demands of real-world jobs, from strategic thinking to tool-based execution
Each assessment was then built to test these skills in a way that is:
Contextual to the role
Scalable for organizations of all sizes
Validated through pilot testing and psychometric standards
The result? A structured, validated, and purpose-built library of assessments that enables organizations to evaluate skills with confidence — and build talent strategies rooted in real capability. |
Empowering Growth, Mobility and Equity Through Skills Assessments
Bryq’s skills assessments were designed to do more than evaluate candidates at the point of hire. They are built to support the full employee lifecycle, providing organizations with the tools to develop talent, promote fairly, and build more inclusive teams.
In today’s world of continuous learning and constant change, assessments offer a critical layer of insight to help organizations stay ahead of workforce transformation.
🌱Fueling Internal Growth and Workforce Agility
As roles evolve due to automation, AI, and new technologies, so do the skills required to succeed. Organizations need to know not just who to hire, but how to:
Identify internal talent with high potential
Bridge skill gaps through targeted development
Build internal mobility and career growth frameworks
Support succession planning and future leadership
Skills assessments provide the data foundation to power these decisions, giving managers and HR teams visibility into where people are today and where they can grow.
⚖️ Driving Fairness and Inclusion
By focusing on what individuals can do rather than where they come from, skills assessments help remove bias and open doors to non-traditional talent.
They offer:
A consistent, unbiased way to evaluate all candidates and employees
More equitable opportunities for advancement and recognition
Transparent benchmarks that promote trust and fairness
This skills-first approach empowers organizations to build more diverse, inclusive, and high-performing teams, where ability, not background, determines access to opportunity.
What Our Assessments Cover
Bryq’s assessments are organized into four overarching skill types, each focused on a different dimension of performance. All categories are built on validated criteria, real-world alignment, and consistent evaluation standards.
🛠Hard Skills
Measure technical knowledge and practical know-how — from tools and technologies to methods and processes. These assessments are designed to evaluate role-specific execution and are offered in Entry, Mid, and Senior levels.
Learn more about Hard Skills →
💬 Soft Skills
Evaluate interpersonal behaviors, workplace habits, and the human side of performance — like communication, teamwork, time management, and adaptability. These are essential for success in almost any role.
Learn more about Soft Skills here →
🔄 Hybrid Skills
Target the intersection of technical fluency and soft skills evaluation. Ideal for roles that require cross-functional insight, or working at the edge of technology and business.
Learn more about Hybrid Skills here →
🎯Job-specific Skills
👔 White-Collar Job-Specific Assessments
Ready-to-use bundles for commonly found office-based roles, including sales, marketing, finance, and administrative positions. These combine soft and hybrid skills tailored to real job demands.
See White-Collar Assessments here →
🛠 Blue-Collar Job-Specific Assessments
Built for skilled trade, frontline, and technical service roles — from healthcare workers to machine operators. These assess practical competence, safety awareness, and industry-specific knowledge.
See Blue-Collar Assessments here →
Explore Further
Ready to build your assessment journey?
Visit our Step-by-Step Selection Guide to get started — it's a step-by-step tool to help you select the right assessments based on your role, goals, and context.
Not sure which assessment is right for your needs? Or do you have questions about how to implement them effectively?
Our team is here to help.
📩 Don’t hesitate to contact support@bryq.com.— we’ll guide you through the best setup for your organization.