Send the Skills Audit (21st-century skills) from Ashby in 15 minutes
Inside Ashby, the Skills Audit is the test product and engineering teams reach for when the role requires modern skills the existing job-description does not explicitly screen for — AI literacy, analytical thinking, creative problem-solving, learning agility. Ashby customers running modern technical stacks find AI-literacy in particular is the dominant 2026 hiring differentiator the legacy job-spec has not caught up to. The 12-domain self-assessment surfaces those gaps; pair with Ashby's work-sample-task feature for the highest predictive validity. Self-report alone is too easy to manipulate to anchor a hire decision — Mabe & West's meta-analysis lifts predictive validity from ρ .35 to ρ .55 when self-report is paired with observed work-sample evidence.
Validity
Skills self-assessments correlate moderately with supervisor ratings (ρ ≈ .35; Mabe & West 1982 meta-analysis of 41 studies). The signal rises sharply (ρ .35 → .55) when self-report is triangulated with work-sample evidence — pair the Skills Audit with a structured task in Ashby's scorecard before the screening decision.
Send the Skills Audit (21st-century skills) from Ashby
From Ashby admin to first scored candidate.
- 1
Add the JobCannon Ashby integration
From Ashby admin settings, add JobCannon as an Assessment Partner. Paste your Basic Auth credentials (sandbox first, production after the first test cycle). One-time setup, takes 3 minutes.
- 2
Create a Ashby scorecard mapped to Skills Audit (21st-century skills) dimensions
In your job template, create a scorecard section per Skills Audit (21st-century skills) dimension. Each dimension maps 1:1 to a numeric attribute on the Ashby scorecard — no provider-specific glue needed.
- 3
Trigger the Skills Audit (21st-century skills) on the candidate's stage transition
Add "Send Skills Audit (21st-century skills)" as an automatic action when candidates enter the assessment stage. The candidate receives a co-branded Ashby email and completes the 15-minute form on mobile or desktop.
- 4
View the score envelope in the candidate profile
The full Skills Audit (21st-century skills) score envelope (dimensions, bands, narrative summary) lands in the Ashby candidate profile within 30 seconds of submission. Recruiters review without leaving Ashby.
Sample score envelope
The exact JSON shape your Ashby scorecard receives back. Every JobCannon assessment uses the same dimensions[].score envelope so ranking logic stays consistent across tests.
{
"test": "skills-audit",
"version": "v2.3",
"candidate_id": "ashby_app_2349817",
"completed_at": "2026-05-16T11:04:38Z",
"duration_seconds": 891,
"composite_readiness": 74,
"composite_band": "high",
"dimensions": [
{
"code": "analytical-thinking",
"label": "Analytical thinking",
"score": 81
},
{
"code": "creative-thinking",
"label": "Creative thinking",
"score": 72
},
{
"code": "ai-literacy",
"label": "AI literacy",
"score": 88,
"primary": true
},
{
"code": "resilience",
"label": "Resilience and flexibility",
"score": 64
},
{
"code": "learning-agility",
"label": "Learning agility",
"score": 79
},
{
"code": "self-direction",
"label": "Self-direction",
"score": 71
},
{
"code": "collaboration",
"label": "Collaboration",
"score": 68
},
{
"code": "critical-thinking",
"label": "Critical thinking",
"score": 76
}
],
"narrative_summary": "Strong analytical and AI-literacy profile with consistent learning-agility scores. Fits modern knowledge-work roles where the tool-stack changes quarterly."
}Other assessments for Ashby hiring
Run a different cut on the same candidate by sending one of these from the same Ashby pipeline.
Big Five (OCEAN)
personality test
Across 117 studies and 85 years of validation literature, Big Five conscientiousness predicts job performance at corrected ρ ≈ .31 (Barrick & Mount 1991, Personnel Psychology) — making it the strongest single personality dimension for hiring decisions. JobCannon's 50-item adaptation is built on the NEO-PI-R taxonomy and returns five normalised dimension scores per candidate.
Send from Ashby →
DISC
behavioural style assessment
DISC maps four observable behaviour styles (dominance, influence, steadiness, conscientiousness) onto the assertiveness × cooperativeness grid. Its meta-analytic correlation with job performance is modest (~.10-.15) — far below Big Five — so it works best inside Ashby as a team-fit and communication-style input, not a primary hiring filter.
Send from Ashby →
EQ (Emotional Intelligence)
emotional intelligence assessment
Emotional intelligence adds incremental predictive validity over cognitive ability and Big Five for emotional-labour roles — corrected ρ ≈ .24 across 88 studies for customer-facing and people-management positions (Joseph & Newman 2010, Journal of Applied Psychology). Less informative for back-office, technical, or solo-IC pipelines.
Send from Ashby →
Frequently asked
When does the Ashby integration go live?+
Ashby adapter built; partner directory request filed 2026-05. Sandbox endpoints available to early-access customers today; production rollout follows in 2-4 weeks.
Is the Skills Audit EEOC-defensible inside Ashby?+
The Skills Audit is defensible when self-report scores are triangulated with Ashby's work-sample task feature before any hire decision. Self-report alone is too easy to manipulate to anchor a screening filter — the meta-analytic correlation rises from ρ .35 to ρ .55 when self-report is paired with observed work-sample evidence. Configure the work-sample task in Ashby's job template before using Skills Audit as a screening filter.
How does the Skills Audit integrate with Ashby scorecards?+
The composite readiness score (0-100) plus 12 domain sub-scores map to scorecard rubric questions. Engineering and product roles typically weight the composite at 30% of total scorecard; ops and compliance roles closer to 10%. Use the AI-literacy sub-score as a separate threshold for any role that touches AI tooling daily.
Which Ashby roles benefit most from the Skills Audit?+
Roles where the tool-stack changes faster than the job-description can keep up — software engineering, data, design, product, marketing, research. AI literacy is the fastest-rising 21st-century skill on the WEF Future of Jobs 2023 employer-need ranking (cited by 80% of surveyed employers as core for hiring in 2023-2027).
How long does the Skills Audit take inside Ashby?+
Median candidate completion is 15 minutes on JobCannon's 60-item form covering 12 skill domains. Longer than DISC or Big Five but shorter than the cognitive test.
How is the Skills Audit priced for Ashby customers?+
Free for sandbox + first 5 invitations per month. From $99/mo on the Business tier — same flat pricing across all 22 hire-eligible tests.
Get Ashby sandbox credentials for Skills Audit (21st-century skills) this week
Email [email protected] with your Ashby tenant ID. Early-access sandbox credentials provisioned within one business day; production rollout follows directory listing.
Prefer to try the Skills Audit (21st-century skills) first? Take it on JobCannon to see exactly what your candidates will see — or read the assessment API docs for the full envelope spec (Skills Audit).