AIBU to ask your advice on passing Situational Judgement tests for job applications?

[RangeTesKopeks]

Hi everyone,

I would like to reapply for the Civil Service Fast Stream this year.

I applied for the first time last autumn after graduating last year, and I didn't pass the initial assessment round (this involves taking a verbal reasoning test, a numerical reasoning test, a competency questionnaire and a situational judgement test).

I received feedback on my test scores, and found out that I only scored better than 1% of candidates on the situational judgement test

AIBU to ask you all for any tips or advice you might have on performing well in situational judgement tests please? I'd be really grateful to hear any advice or ideas you may have on the Civil Service situational judgement rest or on psychometric tests in general please.

Thanks very much!

Bump

Watching with interest.

I'm thinking of applying this year (for the first time)

I did it a few years ago(5ish) Not entirely sure what you mean by situational judgement test. I did numerical, and verbal and what I can only describe as a personality test. Aced the first two and bombed the 3rd.
All the bumf they gave and all the stuff I read online said you just have to answer this honestly, and you will struggle to fake it.
If it's still the same sort of test I took I'm not sure you can really improve on it unless in the last year your personality and approach to working has changed and is suddenly what they are looking for. Sorry

Thanks for your reply Flibbertigibbet! From what I understand, the situational judgement test is a very new test. I think it was only introduced last year (from September 2015 onwards).

Also, Flibbertigibbet, I'd just like to ask if you used any particular resources to prepare for the numerical and verbal reasoning tests? I struggle with numerical reasoning, so would be really grateful if you could recommend any resources you may have found helpful.

If anyone else has any advice on this that they'd like to share, I'd really appreciate hearing from you!

Range I was bad at them too at first.
I used a great website with a huge amount of practice tests you could do and then gave correct answers with explanations.
Cost about £15 for a couple months full access.
You also had a profile full of stats so you could see where you were weakest like ratios or percentages.
I'll find some time today to trawl through old emails and find the one I used
It had verbal tests as well

That sounds interesting! Do you have any examples of the questions?

I'm sorry I no longer have the link, but I found a website talking about the test and why it was introduced and some sample questions with reasoning regarding the 'correct' answers. To be entirely honest with you, I totally disagreed with the authors, thought "OK, so that's why I failed... maybe it just isn't for me, if that's the type of people they want because I am not like that" and found a whole new career path but perhaps it might show you what they want.

For the numerical (which I did actually pass! Like you it was just situational judgement I wasn't good at) I looked up the basics on BBC bitesize to make sure I had them down, and then just googled for tests and did as many as I could find. I talked through them afterwards with my mum, who is a maths whizz, so she could explain where I was going wrong. I am actually ok at numerical reasoning but lost a lot of confidence. If you have someone who can help you to figure out the answers by yourself, that really helps!

Wow thank you so much CurlyBlueberry and Flibbertigibbet! I'll have a Google and see if I can find the website with the situational judgement tips :)

Ooh Flibbertigibbet I'm just wondering if
Assessment Day is the numerical reasoning website you mentioned earlier?

Currently in the civil service and had to do an online situational judgement test as part of last promotion board. Although I passed it I complained about it afterwards. If it's a similar one your answers are compared with those from "a group of experienced managers" I pointed out that the organisation needed people with a range of different views at the top not people who all thought the same way and might reinforce each others misconceptions. I seem to remember being really frustrated by it too because you had to choose just one action for each situation when in real life you might well want to carry out several actions. All I can suggest is finding as many sample tests as you can online and analysing their preferred answers as much as you can (even if you have to do the same test several times to see the impact of different answers)

I think the recruitment process has changed flibberti
OP I think you'll have better luck on the student room forum, I don't know if anyone has started a thread for 2016 applications yet though.

Thanks Patapouf

Hi range,
Sorry crazy week so didn't get to do this earlier but I trawled my emails and can't find it. Think I was possibly still using my uni account at the time. But the one you linked too looks very similar.
The other tip that might help was I found it useful to learn the basic formulas off by heart. So you do this and this to that number to get 20% increase for example. Do it the other way to get decrease. Same for ratios.
Sorry I couldn't help more