From IT companies to financial institutions, management consultancies, care services, media houses, and PR firms, many organizations now turn to psychometric tests in interviews.
There is only so much a recruiter can glean from a candidate’s qualifications, CV, or face-to-face interactions. But psychometric tests measure a candidate’s mind to grant the recruiter comprehensive insights into your personality and abilities.
They offer fair assessments of the candidate, ensuring their placement matches the role advertised and working environment.
So if you want to ace those interviews and make your mark on the business world, here are the top assessments you may encounter during interviews.
Types of Psychometric Assessments
As mentioned, these assessments are psychological tools geared towards providing objective and measurable data concerning an interviewee’s suitability.
They look at a candidate’s critical thinking, intelligence, attitudes, behavior, and personality traits to identify the right candidates for the job duties. This helps reduce dissatisfaction for both the employer and employee and keeps employee turnover low.
Psychometric assessments fall into two board categories—aptitude and personality tests.
Aptitude tests want to know if you have the skillset for the job, so they assess your cognitive ability. From reasoning to intelligence, your competence will be measured against a preset standard, which essentially means that to pass you’ll need to attain a certain score.
Personality tests delve into your character and how you’ll fit into the role advertised and the organization in question. They explore your values, behavior, emotions, and motivations in various situations.
Top Psychometric Test You Can Expect
Companies employ different assessments when gauging suitability, but here are some of the more popular ones:
- Personality Profiling
With this assessment, you’re presented with a number of statements that describe different scenarios and responses.
Using a five-point scale (sometimes less or more) you’re asked to record the extent to which you agree or disagree. There are no absolutely right or absolutely wrong answers.
Your answers, however, help employers know if you have the attributes they are looking for.
An extrovert, for example, may fit well in sales, customer service, and marketing roles. Detail-oriented people may feel more comfortable with bookkeeping, computer programming, proofreading or editorial, and compliance roles.
Companies administer this test in several ways. Some will do it over the phone, through face-to-face interactions, or online. Others allow you to take the form home and bring it back upon completion.
When taking this test, ensure you:
- Are in a familiar and preferably quiet environment.
- Breath deeply and slowly to stay calm
- Are honest and provide consistent answers
- Read all instructions carefully to maximise comprehension
- Trust your initial reactions. It’s a better strategy than trying to sound smart.
- Verbal Reasoning Assessment
Verbal reasoning assesses your suitability by evaluating your ability to think constructively, articulate information with clarity, arrive at logical conclusions, and produce written reports.
Here, the employer wants to uncover your ability to identify business-related issues by reading business-related materials to draw logical conclusions.
They also check your communication abilities with colleagues, managers, and customers alongside your competency in producing concise written reports.
- Numerical Reasoning Assessment
As the name suggests, this assessment involves working with numerical data that’s presented in tables, graphs, charts, or statistics. They may also challenge your grasp of currency conversions, trends, and percentages.
You may encounter graphs or tables describing a business situation along with questions that require answers based on that information.
Their aim?
To assess your ability to effectively and efficiently analyse numerical data such as financial results or performance figures to make decisions and solve problems.
- Situational Judgement Test
In the bridge scene in the Fast 5 movie, Brian pops up in the nick of time to save Dom from Zizi who would have otherwise shot Dom. Early on, Dom had instructed Brian to leave and when asked why he didn’t go, Brian said he had to make a call.
A judgement call.
With situational judgement tests, you’re presented with work-related situations and several courses of action. You are then required to use effective judgement to single out the most (or least) effective course to take.
These tests consider your thoughts and responses in difficult or critical work situations. They give the employer a fair idea of your problem-solving ability and reveal the potential for future leadership.
- Logical Reasoning Assessment
How well can you follow sequences or spot patterns? Can you interpret and manipulate numbers, shapes, or pictures which differ slightly from one another?
This aptitude test evaluates your adeptness at learning quickly and choosing an option that completes the series you’ve been presented with. Employers use them to deduce your critical thinking skills besides your inductive and deductive reasoning capacity.
Logical reasoning tests are mostly used for IT, science-related, as well as operations and HR roles.
OPQ Leadership Report
As a bonus, we want to mention the OPQ Leadership Report that is used to ascertain a candidate’s management and leadership capabilities. They are ideal for senior-level and professional staff and provide insights into their preferred work behavior, strengths, and weaknesses.
Preparing for Aptitude Tests
We’ve already covered personality profiling preparations so these tips relate to tests nos 2 to 5 which fall under aptitude tests.
- Watch the time. Since the tests are timed, you need to have a clear idea of the time you can allot to each question. If you encounter a tough question, don’t linger there. Answer the easier ones first then attempt the tough ones.
- Have the right equipment. Arm yourself with a couple of pens, writing materials, a watch, and a calculator. The employer may offer these but it’s wise to go in prepared. Using your phone will be highly discouraged.
- Practice beforehand. Free online tests allow you to prepare and reveal gaps in your knowledge. Use them to improve your mastery.
In Closing
Psychometric tests support the recruitment process by providing a non-biased way of narrowing down the number of candidates on grounds of suitability. You’re likely to encounter psychometric tests as you start your career or go up the ladder.
Practice with as many as you can to know where you stand, improve your knowledge, and ultimately do well in the actual tests.
