From Personality and English Fluency Tests to the On-Demand Video Interview, We’ve Got You Covered
Once your application is submitted, the recruitment process rarely goes straight to a human recruiter. Most major airlines now use a sequence of online assessments to filter candidates before anyone is invited to an Open Day or Assessment Day, including video interviews, personality tests, situational judgment exercises, English fluency checks, and aptitude tests.
The online assessment stage catches more candidates out than almost any other part of the process, not because the tests are especially difficult, but because almost nobody prepares for them properly. Candidates spend hours preparing for a final interview that they may never reach because they were knocked out at the online assessment stage.
This hub page brings together every resource on The Cabin Crew Forum for the online assessment stage, such as what to expect, how each format works, and genuine practice tools you can use before the real thing.
Insight: The online assessment stage is where Artifical Intelligence (AI) has a massive role in cabin crew recruitment. Video interviews are scored by natural language processing, personality tests are scored against a predefined ideal profile, and situational judgment tests are scored against the response an airline has decided is correct. Understanding how these systems work changes how you should prepare for every one of them.
Video Interviews (ODVI)
On-demand video interviews are now standard at airlines, including Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Riyadh Air, and flydubai. If you’ve been invited to record video responses to a set of questions without a live interviewer, this is what you’re dealing with.
What is an On-Demand Video Interview (ODVI)? The Complete Guide: Part One
How ODVIs actually work, what AI is assessing when it analyses your responses, and what the human reviewer sees when they watch your recording.
How to Ace the Cabin Crew Video Interview: Part Two
The practical preparation guide to help you perform your best in an ODVI. Plan, prepare, rehearse, set up, appearance, pacing, and how to let your personality shine through on camera.
Common Cabin Crew Video Interview Questions: What to Expect and How to Answer
The five question categories that appear in almost every cabin crew ODVI, with the specific questions candidates have faced, and how to approach each one.
Personality Tests
Most major airlines use an online personality assessment as part of the early screening process — often before you’ve spoken to anyone.
How to Ace the Cabin Crew Online Personality Test
What these tests are actually measuring, the traits airlines are looking for, and how to approach the questions honestly while presenting the best version of your working personality.
Worth knowing: Personality tests are not designed to be “beaten” in the way a multiple-choice exam can be revised for. They are designed to catch inconsistency, such as answering the same underlying trait differently across different questions, which is a red flag the system is built to detect. The honest approach, calibrated towards how you behave at your best, consistently outperforms a candidate trying to guess what the airline wants to hear.
Situational Judgment Tests and Virtual Job Tryouts
US carriers, including Delta, United, and American, use a format often called a Virtual Job Tryout (VJT) — realistic customer service and crew scenarios where you choose the best response from several options. This VJT is designed to test judgment rather than personality, and the preparation is genuinely different.
Try the CCF Situational Judgment Practice Test
Ten realistic cabin crew scenarios covering customer service recovery, teamwork, safety judgment, composure under pressure, cultural sensitivity, and more. Choose your answer and get a detailed explanation of why it was or wasn’t the best option, including an honest breakdown of why the answer you picked seemed reasonable, even when it wasn’t the strongest choice.
Try the CCF Advanced Scenario: How Would You Handle This?
A single situation that develops across five decision points, exactly like the progressive scenario format used by some airlines, including British Airways. Your choices shape what happens next. This is the most realistic situational judgment practice available anywhere, and it’s built to mirror the real format rather than a generic quiz.
Insight: Situational judgment tests reward a specific mindset: always find the best available option rather than the easiest one, never stop at “there’s nothing I can do,” and put the passenger’s experience and safety ahead of convenience. The wrong answers in these tests are rarely absurd because they feel reasonable in the moment, but miss what the airline is actually looking for.
English Fluency Tests
Gulf carriers in particular use formal English fluency assessments as part of the screening process. This is one of the most common reasons candidates are filtered out early, regardless of how strong the rest of their application is.
We’ve built two practice English Fluency tests based on real tests used by airlines.
Worth knowing: The Emirates English language test catches more candidates than almost any other single stage in Gulf carrier recruitment. If you are a non-native English speaker applying to a Gulf carrier, these practice tests are worth completing more than once — not to memorise answers, but to get comfortable with the format and the time pressure.
Aptitude Tests: Reading, Memory, and Verbal Reasoning
Separate from English fluency, many airlines, including UK and European carriers as well as Gulf carriers, use aptitude tests to assess how quickly and accurately you can process written information, follow multi-step instructions, and reason through verbal problems under time pressure. These are cognitive tests rather than language tests, and even fluent English speakers can struggle if they haven’t practised the format.
Just like our English Fluency tests, our Reading and Memory test and Verbal Reasoning Test are based on real exams used by major airlines.
Worth knowing: Reading and memory tests typically ask you to absorb a passage of information quickly and then answer questions without referring back to the text. The skill being tested is less about intelligence and more about a specific technique, such as active reading, mental note-taking, and time management. This is a learnable skill that improves significantly with practice, which is exactly why it is worth attempting more than once before the real thing.
What Happens Next?
If you pass the online assessment stage, the next step is typically an invitation to an Open Day or Assessment Day.
The Cabin Crew Assessment Day Hub covers everything you need for that stage.
If you haven’t yet submitted your application, the CV and Resume Hub is the right place to start.
Frequently Asked Questions
Most major airlines use a combination of different tests and assessment tools, including on-demand video interviews (ODVI), a personality test, and increasingly a situational judgment test or Virtual Job Tryout (VJT). Gulf carriers also commonly use English fluency and aptitude tests. The exact combination varies by airline.
A Virtual Job Tryout (VJT) presents realistic workplace scenarios and asks you to choose the best response from several options. It is used by several US carriers, including Delta, United, and American Airlines, as part of their early screening process. Unlike a personality test, a VJT assesses situational judgment – whether you understand what good customer service and safe decision-making actually look like in practice.
Personality tests are not pass or fail in the traditional sense, but airlines do screen out profiles that fall outside the range they are looking for. Answering honestly and consistently is the most reliable approach, as the systems are specifically designed to detect inconsistent answers, which can be more damaging than an honest answer that doesn’t perfectly match the ideal profile.
Most ODVI platforms, including HireVue, use AI and natural language processing to analyse the content of your spoken responses, which means the specific words used, the relevance to the competency being assessed, and the structure of your answer. A human recruiter then reviews a prioritised list generated by the AI before making final decisions.
Yes, to some extent. US carriers more commonly use situational judgment tests and VJTs, which reward a different kind of preparation than a Gulf carrier’s combination of personality testing and English fluency assessment. Both reward honesty and clear thinking, but the format and the specific skills being measured are different.