The Arctic Shores assessment, which some candidates call the Arctic Shores games, is a task-based psychometric test that employers use in hiring. Instead of answering questions about yourself, you complete short interactive tasks while the platform records how you approach them.
This page explains what Arctic Shores officially says about the format, results, devices and adjustments, and what candidates report about the tasks themselves. Official facts and candidate reports are labelled separately, because Arctic Shores does not publish its task list.
| What is it? | A task-based assessment from Arctic Shores, a UK company working on hiring assessments since 2014. There are no traditional questions: you play through interactive tasks. |
|---|---|
| How many tasks? | Up to nine, according to Arctic Shores. The employer chooses them for the role, so your set can differ from a friend's. |
| How long does it take? | No official total. Candidate and prep-site reports per task range from about two minutes to around 18 minutes. Our suggestion: allow at least an hour in one sitting if possible, unless your invitation gives a time. |
| Is there a pass mark? | None is published. Results are compared with a norm group and with an ideal framework of behaviours for the specific role and organisation. |
| Do you get feedback? | If the employer chooses to share it, Arctic Shores emails you a feedback report automatically after you finish. |
| Can you practise? | Arctic Shores says no practice is needed, but offers a practice task in the onboarding and a public demo task. Candidate reports describe the formats, but your employer's set may differ, and Arctic Shores advises against using unofficial guides. |
Want to see the reported task formats on screen?
Independent simulations of 15 candidate-reported Arctic Shores-style tasks, built by Candidate Falcon. They are not the real tasks, practice scores are not Arctic Shores results, and Candidate Falcon is not affiliated with Arctic Shores. Playing needs the HireVue Games Prep or Full Access plan; the task guides are free to read.
Explore Arctic Shores-style practiceArctic Shores calls its product a task-based assessment. Its help centre says the assessment does not ask questions with definitive answers or require written or spoken responses. Instead, each task collects data points from how you respond and interact, and thousands of these data points build a picture of how you typically think and behave.
The company says the assessment measures underlying “enablers” that make acquiring workplace skills possible: how you focus, consider emotions, work out problems, learn, handle tasks and apply yourself. It is developed by an in-house team of neuroscientists and psychometricians, in line with the standards of the International Test Commission, the British Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association.
Why do employers use it? Arctic Shores positions it as a way to look beyond the CV and reduce bias at the screening stage. Employers named by candidates on Reddit include graduate programmes, apprenticeships and placements, such as the Airbus graduate programme and Amazon apprenticeships, as well as UK Civil Service roles. These are posters' claims, not confirmed by the employers.
Arctic Shores does not publish a task list. Apart from the “Code Breaker” safe task, described in a 2024 Arctic Shores insight, the tasks below are the ones candidates and prep sites report, with the names they usually use. You will not get all of them: your employer picks up to nine, and the set can change over time.
| Task | What candidates report you do | Area | Guide |
|---|---|---|---|
| Security | Stop a shaded sector sweeping round a ring of digits on the highlighted target digit to build each lock code; a miss sends you back to the start. | Attention | Security guide |
| Direction | Say which way the centre arrow points with Q (left) or P (right) while the arrows around it point other ways and the pace speeds up. | Attention | Direction guide |
| Tiles | Watch tiles light up one by one, then tap them in the same order; sequences grow longer and a distractor icon later appears that you must leave out. | Memory | Tiles guide |
| Predict | See a pair of abstract icons and predict Night or Day within 3 seconds; the real outcome is then shown, and you learn which pairs usually lead to which outcome. | Learning | Predict guide |
| Balance | Work out how heavy each shape is from scales that already balance, then fill the empty pan of a final scale so it balances too. | Reasoning | Balance guide |
| Balloon | Pump a balloon to add money and collect it before it bursts; a burst loses that balloon’s money, and different balloon types behave differently. | Behaviour | Balloon guide |
| Order | Three frames show shapes changing by hidden rules such as colour, size, rotation and position; you build the fourth frame yourself. | Reasoning | Order guide |
| Expressions | Label the emotion on each face from a fixed list of seven, as the expressions become less obvious; candidates report about 50 faces. | Perception | Expressions guide |
| Tickets | A ticket with a number inside a shape appears at the top or bottom; the position decides whether you answer a question about the number or the shape, and the reminders later disappear. | Attention | Tickets guide |
| Energy | Choose between four generators again and again; each pull adds power but some also drain it, and you learn which ones build power over time. | Learning | Energy guide |
| Team Sales | Over 12 rounds your team and a rival team each choose a high or low price; what you earn depends on both choices. | Behaviour | Team Sales guide |
| Patterns | Work out the rules in a series of patterned squares and pick the square that comes next. | Reasoning | Patterns guide |
| Analysis | Answer timed multiple-choice questions using data from tables and charts; the one Arctic Shores task that is not a game. | Numerical | Analysis guide |
| Token Search | Open boxes to find hidden tokens one at a time; a token never returns to a box that already held one, and you have three lives. | Memory | Token Search guide |
| Firefly Freedom | A legacy three-part game: repeat a sequence of coloured jars, throw fruit from a safe or risky basket to free fireflies, and launch fireflies the moment “Ready” turns to “Fire”. | Memory | Firefly Freedom guide |
The area column is Candidate Falcon's grouping, not an Arctic Shores label.
Here is what five of the reported tasks involve, according to candidate reports. Each linked guide covers the reported rules, timing and common mistakes in more depth.
Task: A shaded sector sweeps round a ring of digits, and one digit is highlighted as the target.
What you actually do: You press Stop while the shade covers the target to enter each digit of a lock code. Candidates report that a miss sends you back to the start, and that the task ends when you open the safe or choose to exit. Arctic Shores says the dial speed adapts to the candidate and that the task measures processing speed and perseverance.
Task: A row of arrows appears, and only the centre arrow matters.
What you actually do: You say which way the centre arrow points, left or right, while the arrows around it point other ways. Candidates report that the pace speeds up, so the challenge is staying accurate when the surrounding arrows disagree.
Task: A balloon gains money each time you pump it, and it can burst.
What you actually do: You choose when to collect the money. A burst loses that balloon’s money, and candidates report that different balloon types behave differently. There is no published right number of pumps.
Task: Several scales already balance using shapes of unknown weight.
What you actually do: You work out what each shape weighs, then fill the empty pan of a final scale so that it balances too. Candidates report that puzzles get harder after correct answers.
Task: A pair of abstract icons appears, and you have a few seconds to predict Night or Day.
What you actually do: After each guess the real outcome is shown, so over many rounds you learn which pairs usually lead to which outcome. Candidates report around 80 scored rounds.
Arctic Shores does not publish a total duration. Its candidate guidance asks you to complete all the tasks in one sitting if possible, and its help centre suggests choosing the time of day when you feel most alert.
Per task: candidate and prep-site reports vary a lot by task. Fast reaction tasks such as Direction and Tickets are reported at about two to three minutes. Reasoning tasks are longer: prep sites report Order at around 15 minutes and a 17-minute clock for Patterns, and the Analysis numerical test is reported at about 18 questions in 18 minutes. Some tasks, such as Security and Balloon, are reported as untimed.
In total: with up to nine tasks, the length depends heavily on which ones your employer chose. We suggest reserving at least an hour without interruptions. Any time stated in your invitation outranks these estimates.
Arctic Shores says employers see how you performed in the areas being assessed, compared with a representative norm group of similar people who took the assessment before. The help centre adds that results are compared with a framework of the behaviours that matter most for the specific role and organisation, so only those behaviours are taken into account.
If the employer chooses to share it, you receive a feedback report by email. The candidate guidance describes each behaviour on a 1 to 10 spectrum, while a help-centre article describes dimensions on a four-point scale. Either way, Arctic Shores says neither end is better or worse: a result towards one end only means your behaviour is more distinctive than most of the comparison group.
No pass mark is published, and Arctic Shores says there is no single way to pass because each employer values different qualities. Online “good score” claims cannot be verified. For a closer look at the report, read how to read your Arctic Shores feedback report.
Arctic Shores says each task measures something different but that it “can't spill all our secrets”, so that responses stay genuine and instinctive. It says the tasks use research-backed methods from cognitive neuroscience and behavioural science and do not test knowledge or past experience. Based on candidate reports and the research tasks they resemble, the formats fall into a few broad groups:
These groupings are interpretations, not Arctic Shores labels. They also suggest why familiarity matters more for some formats than others: knowing the controls of a reaction task can reduce surprises, while there is nothing to “get right” on a behaviour task. Familiarity is not the same as a better result, and Arctic Shores says no practice is needed.
For a fuller plan with sources, read how to pass the Arctic Shores assessment. If you want to see the reported formats on screen, you can try Candidate Falcon's Arctic Shores-style simulations. They are independent recreations built from candidate reports, not the real tasks; practice scores are not Arctic Shores results, and Candidate Falcon is not affiliated with Arctic Shores. Playing a simulation requires the HireVue Games Prep or Full Access plan.
These points reflect Arctic Shores' help centre. What the employer and Arctic Shores support tell you about your own assessment takes precedence.
HOWTOPASS
What passing the Arctic Shores assessment means: official facts and candidate reports on practice, results and adjustments, and a plan without hacks.
It is a task-based psychometric assessment from Arctic Shores, a UK company working since 2014 to make recruitment fairer. There are no traditional questions: you complete interactive tasks while the platform records how you naturally think, behave and solve problems. Arctic Shores says the results help employers see beyond the CV, and that both you and the employer receive feedback.
Arctic Shores says an assessment has up to nine tasks, chosen by the employer for the role. Candidate and prep-site reports describe about fifteen different tasks overall, so your set may differ from another employer’s.
Arctic Shores does not publish a total time and recommends one sitting if possible. Candidate and prep-site reports for single tasks range from about two minutes to around 18 minutes, so the total depends on which tasks your employer selected. As a buffer, Candidate Falcon suggests setting aside at least an hour without interruptions; any time stated in your invitation takes precedence.
No pass mark is published. Arctic Shores compares results with a norm group and with an ideal framework of behaviours for the specific role and organisation, and says there is no single way to pass.
Arctic Shores says a feedback report is emailed to you, if the employer chooses, showing where you fall on each behaviour compared with a large group of similar candidates. It stresses that neither end of a scale is better or worse.
Arctic Shores’ supported list includes phones, with version limits: Chrome and Firefox on iOS 12–14 and Android 6–11, alongside Chrome, Firefox and Edge on 64-bit Windows 8, 8.1 and 10, and Chrome and Firefox on macOS El Capitan to Big Sur. It recommends a device no more than four years old, fully charged, on a stable connection, and suggests borrowing a device if yours is too old. Use the practice task to check your phone works before you start.
Arctic Shores says no practice is needed and that getting familiar with the format is “totally fine”. It provides a practice task in the onboarding, and it also hosts a public demo task. It warns that guides found outside its own website and help centre may be misleading, and that using them “will result in poor or invalid measures, meaning you’re less likely to progress”. Its advice is to complete the tasks naturally. Familiarity can make the screens less surprising, but that is not the same as a better result.
Official sources: Arctic Shores candidate guidance and the Arctic Shores help centre, checked 15 October 2026. Candidate Falcon is independent from Arctic Shores.
