These are three sample questions from Bryq’s Administrative Support assessment, a soft skills test for hiring administrators, office managers, and executive assistants. The full assessment covers three skills: organization, schedule management, and multitasking. Each question describes an everyday administrative situation and asks how best to handle it, with four options to choose from.
Organization
Question
You are handed responsibility for a shared team inbox that has become disorganised, with emails from several months mixed across multiple topics. What is the best first step?
Select your answer
Audit the existing emails, establish a clear folder structure based on recurring themes, and apply it consistently going forward.
Create folders for each team member and sort emails by sender.
Archive everything older than 30 days to start fresh with a clean inbox.
Sort emails by date and work through them in chronological order.
WHY IS THIS THE CORECT ANSWER
Auditing first means the folder system is built around real, recurring themes and can be sustained.
Schedule Management
Question
You are managing a project and realise that two key milestones are at risk because a dependency has not been delivered on time by another team. What is the best response?
Select your answer
Communicate the risk proactively to relevant stakeholders, identify what can still progress independently, and agree on a revised plan for the dependent elements.
Continue working on other tasks and wait for the dependency to be resolved before raising the issue.
Escalate immediately to your manager and pause all work on the project until the dependency is delivered.
Adjust the milestone dates internally and inform stakeholders only if the final deadline is affected.
WHY IS THIS THE CORECT ANSWER
Being transparent with stakeholders while keeping independent work moving minimises delays.
Multitasking
Question
You are managing two time-sensitive deliverables simultaneously when you receive an unexpected request from a senior stakeholder that they describe as urgent. What is the best way to handle this?
Select your answer
Acknowledge the request, briefly explain your current commitments, and ask the stakeholder to help you assess relative priority before adjusting your plan.
Set aside both current deliverables and address the senior stakeholder’s request immediately.
Continue with your current deliverables and respond to the stakeholder once both are complete.
Split your time equally across all three tasks to make progress on each.
