What Is a Good Typing Speed? A Typing Test Guide for Pre-Hiring Assessments

Today, nearly every role relies on digital written communication in some form, whether through email, chat, CRMs, ticketing systems, internal documentation, project management tools, or AI-powered workflows. A good typing speed is no longer just an administrative advantage. It directly impacts productivity, responsiveness, accuracy, collaboration, and overall work quality across departments. 

A reliable typing speed test helps hiring teams screen candidates consistently, validate real workplace readiness during onboarding, and identify coaching opportunities without relying on self-reported claims. Canditech includes a typing speed test as part of its pre-employment assessment platform, giving hiring teams a single place to measure typing speed and accuracy alongside the rest of a candidate’s skill profile. Typing tests are often most effective when combined with broader work-sample assessments and job simulations that measure real-world performance. Together, these methods help evaluate hard skills, soft skills, and AI skills, which are becoming essential to assess across nearly every role in today’s workforce.

The most effective approach is to use a structured platform that captures both speed and accuracy, logs results, and makes it easy to run the same test for every candidate. Most tools report Words Per Minute (WPM) and accuracy, allowing hiring teams to compare applicants fairly and define role-specific benchmarks from the start.

 

What Is Typing Speed?

Typing speed is how quickly someone can type, most commonly measured as Words Per Minute (WPM). In hiring, typing speed provides a consistent, measurable signal of how efficiently a candidate can produce accurate text in day-to-day tools such as email, chat, and internal systems.

The key nuance is that speed and accuracy are not independent. A high WPM with frequent errors can reduce real productivity due to rework, which is why typing speed is almost always evaluated alongside accuracy rather than in isolation. The most useful hiring metric is not raw speed but productive output, and that means factoring in mistakes.

Book a demo to start assessing typing speed and accuracy with Canditech.

 

What Is a Good Typing Speed and WPM?

A good typing speed depends on the role and the cost of mistakes in that role. For most office positions, 40 to 50 Net WPM with 97 to 99 percent accuracy is considered a practical benchmark, while high-volume typing roles such as customer support, data entry, and operations may require faster speeds.

Common typing speed benchmarks include:

• 20 to 30 WPM: Entry-level keyboarding.
• 40 WPM: Baseline for many office roles.
• 60 WPM: Strong productivity for support and administrative work.
• 80+ WPM: Excellent for high-volume typing environments.

Accuracy matters as much as speed. A candidate typing 70 WPM with frequent errors may be less productive than someone typing more slowly with high accuracy. For this reason, many hiring teams evaluate Net WPM alongside an accuracy threshold rather than relying on raw speed alone.

The most effective benchmark is often based on your own top performers. Organizations commonly assess current employees to establish realistic typing standards for future hires.

 

What Is Canditech’s Typing Test?

Canditech’s typing speed test is a skills assessment section that evaluates typing speed and accuracy as part of a skills-based hiring process. It gives hiring teams a more objective way to measure workplace readiness through consistent, documented results rather than self-reported skills.

Many organizations choose Canditech because it combines the typing test with a holistic pre-employment assessment platform, allowing teams to evaluate typing speed alongside technical, cognitive, communication, personality, and AI skills within a single candidate assessment. As AI becomes one of the most important workplace skills to evaluate, many employers assess both typing proficiency and the ability to effectively use AI tools, alongside other hard skills, through realistic job simulations. The typing test can also function as a standalone assessment.

Common use cases include: 

• Customer-facing roles such as customer support, live chat, email support, customer success, and contact centers, where response speed and written accuracy directly impact customer experience.
• Administrative and operations roles that require frequent documentation, data entry, scheduling, and internal coordination.
• Sales and recruiting teams that spend significant time communicating with candidates, customers, and updating CRMs.
• Marketing, content, and communication roles where employees regularly create written content and collaborate across digital tools.
• Finance, legal, and compliance teams where accuracy and efficient documentation are critical.
• AI-enabled knowledge work roles where employees increasingly switch between typing, prompting AI tools, reviewing outputs, and communicating insights.

Canditech offers a library of 500+ assessment sections and tests, along with AI auto-scoring, advanced anti-cheating features, 40+ ATS integrations, and an AI Assessment Builder that generates additional role-specific assessment sections from a job description through deep research. 

Customers also receive hands-on support from PhD-level psychometric experts to help build customized hiring workflows where the typing test serves as one part of a broader evaluation process.

To get started with Canditech’s typing test or to add it to an existing assessment in your account, speak with your account manager or book a demo.

 

Why Does Employee Typing Speed Matter?

Typing speed matters most in roles where written output is a significant part of daily work. Faster, accurate typists can typically:

• Handle higher volumes of tickets, notes, messages, and documentation.
• Reduce cycle time when responding to customers or internal stakeholders.
• Lower rework and error rates when accuracy is enforced alongside speed.

Higher WPM combined with strong accuracy often translates into faster task completion and less rework.

Beyond initial screening, typing speed data is useful for workforce planning and development. You can identify which employees may benefit from targeted training, set role-based benchmarks for onboarding readiness, and track team-wide improvement over time with periodic retesting. Organizations that use a structured platform for this are better positioned to make coaching decisions based on actual performance rather than manager intuition.

 

How to Run a Typing Test That Is Fair and Useful

A typing test produces comparable, defensible results only when conditions are standardized across every candidate. The most important decision is to pick one platform and one test format and use them consistently throughout a hiring cycle.

• Use the same duration: 1 minute is quick but prone to noise; 3 to 5 minutes is more reliable and gives a more representative picture of sustained performance.
• Prioritize accuracy: require a minimum accuracy floor, typically 97 percent, to prevent typing that prioritizes speed over accuracy.
• Match the text to the role: general prose works for most office positions; include numbers and symbols if the job regularly requires them.
• Holistic skills evaluation: Many hiring teams combine Canditech’s typing test with broader job simulations because fast typing alone does not measure decision-making, communication quality, cognitive ability, AI skills, or real workplace readiness. A fair and effective assessment evaluates typing skills alongside a broader set of role-relevant competencies.

Want to build a job simulation that includes a typing test? Book a demo with Canditech.

 

Best Typing Test Platforms

For hiring managers, the best typing test platform is one that produces consistent scores, is easy to deploy to candidates, allows results to be documented and compared across applicants, and fits inside an existing hiring workflow, such as integrating with an ATS.

1. Canditech: Combines the typing speed test with a full pre-employment assessment or offers it as a standalone test, allowing you to evaluate speed and accuracy alongside role-relevant skills in a single candidate session rather than across separate tools. Integrates with 40+ ATS systems and includes advanced anti-cheating features.
2. Typing.com: A well-regarded option for employee development, with structured lesson sequences and timed tests designed for ongoing skill-building.
3. 10FastFingers: Simple browser-based WPM test with instant results, useful for quick benchmarking without any account setup.
4. NitroType: Multiplayer, gamified typing races that work well for driving engagement in internal training programs.
5. TypingClub: Structured curriculum with lesson-by-lesson progression and an admin dashboard for tracking progress across a team.

For hiring contexts where compliance controls, identity verification, or anti-cheating features are required, a formal typing assessment and skills assessment platform is a more appropriate choice over a standalone typing website.

 

What to Coach After Hiring

If you use an assessment platform to both screen candidates and develop employees, coaching proper typing technique is one of the highest-impact ways to improve long-term typing speed and accuracy. Some of the most important typing methods and concepts include:

• Touch-typing: Typing with all fingers using muscle memory rather than looking down at the keyboard. This method is generally faster, more accurate, and more sustainable over time.
• Home row placement (ASDF and JKL;): The standard finger positioning used in touch-typing, where each finger is responsible for nearby keys to improve speed, consistency, and accuracy.
• Typing without looking down at the keyboard: A core touch-typing skill that helps employees maintain focus and reduce interruptions while typing.
• Hunt-and-peck typing: A slower typing style where users visually search for keys and often type with only a few fingers. While people can improve with practice, this method usually limits long-term speed and efficiency compared to touch-typing.

The coaching sequence that produces the best results is accuracy first, then speed. When employees consistently maintain high accuracy, speed tends to improve naturally without reinforcing habits that introduce errors at higher rates. Setting accuracy as the primary KPI for early coaching helps avoid rewarding fast but error-prone typing.

Typing assessments are valuable for current employees as part of workforce development and performance management initiatives. Many organizations use Canditech as a performance management tool to evaluate typing speed and accuracy alongside broader technical, cognitive, communication, and AI skills. Using skills data for performance management helps organizations identify skill gaps, support learning and development (L&D) programs, conduct performance reviews, and track employee growth over time.

 

Employee Typing Speed FAQs

Should we test typing speed for every role?

Typing speed can be relevant across many modern roles, since most jobs today involve some level of digital communication through email, chat, documentation, CRMs, or AI-powered tools. It is especially valuable for support, admin, operations, and other roles with high volumes of written communication. Typing tests are often most effective when combined with broader work sample assessments and job simulations that measure real-world performance.

What is more important: typing speed or typing accuracy?

Accuracy first. Net WPM with an accuracy floor, commonly 97 to 99 percent, is a more reliable threshold than raw speed alone.

How long should a typing test be?

3 to 5 minutes is more reliable than 1 minute for hiring comparisons. Longer tests reveal sustained performance rather than short bursts.

Can candidates cheat during typing tests?

Standardizing instructions, limiting retries, and using a platform that prevents copy-pasting help reduce cheating. Canditech also includes advanced anti-cheating protections designed to flag suspicious behavior and preserve assessment integrity. 

What is Canditech? 

In short, Canditech helps leading global companies, from Monday, Wix, and Fiverr to Deloitte, EY, Equinox, and ManpowerGroup (adjust based on client industry), reduce costly mis-hires and make faster, more confident, and objective hiring decisions. The platform uses AI-powered skills assessments and realistic job simulations that mirror real work and evaluate AI skills, one of the most critical capabilities in today’s workplace, alongside technical and soft skills to predict future job performance. In addition, Canditech supports high-volume hiring with solutions including customizable pre-screening chatbots and one-way video interviews.

How do I access the typing test in Canditech?

The typing test is available as an add-on within the Canditech platform. Contact your account manager to enable it for your team, or book a demo to get started.