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psycometric (sp?) tests

11 replies

fairyglo · 07/06/2006 13:27

A friend is going for a job on promotion within her company and has been told that the week before the interview she will have a morning of psycometric tests. This hasn't happened to her before, I think the company doesn't always use these tests for a job interview, and she doesn't know what to expect. Since I know so little about this that I can't even spell the word (!), I can't help so I thought I would ask wise Mumsnetters for advice.

All she knows is that this will last 3-3.5 hours. There will be written and numerical tests plus some multiple choice I think and a psychologist will be present (not sure whether he/she will interview her or what).

Does anyone know:

  • what she should expect from the tests? what sort of questions are they going to be?

  • what are they looking for from the tests?

  • how are the test results likely to be used in the interview ie would she be likely to be asked about them or would they just be looked at side by side with interview performance?

  • anything else she should know/any way she can prepare herself for this?

Most grateful for advice. Thanks

Fairyglo

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Miaou · 07/06/2006 13:47

hi fairyglo, I've done loads of these in the past. A lot of it will be statements such as "team-building exercises contribute to the well-being of the workforce" and you mark on a scale of one to 5 how much you agree/dissgree with the statement. the idea is that you put down your first instinctive response and don't try to put what you think they want to hear as they will ask the question several times in subtly different ways! best advice is to be true to yourself really.

the tests will be looking for certain qualities - at a guess, teamworking, honesty, integrity, work ethic etc - all the things that in an interview you will say the right thing but they want to know if you really mean it!

they will be looked at alongside the interview and I would guess you'd have to perform pretty badly at them for the esults to override the effect of an interview.

there is nothing to do to prepare - concentrate on preparing for interview.

hth - scuse typing - one handed whilst feeding wriggler!

fairyglo · 07/06/2006 13:51

Miaou,

Thanks - I'll pass that on. Would the psychologist also be asking this sort of thing?

She's particularly anxious about the numerical tests. Any idea what sort of thing this would be? I think she's afraid they will be testing her o level maths knowledge (v. rusty by now!).

PS I put this thread here and then found there was an Employment site so duplicated it there but I'll stick here since you are the first respond :).

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Miaou · 07/06/2006 13:53

not sure about the numerical - I would guess it is more to do with logical/sequencing than actual maths. if it's of any help I am totally crap at maths but never found these bits too hard.

Miaou · 07/06/2006 13:54

Oh, not sure about the face to face bit, I've only ever done the paper ones, but I guess so.

MrsBadger · 07/06/2006 13:59

Think the numerical tests are more to check your innate mathy-ness that whether you remember Pythagoras etc -
I did a few of these and they were mostly either everyday mental arithmetic (if you bought a paperback and a pack of polos how much change would you get from a tenner) or estimating/ logical process skills (can't think of a good example, but something like how many mars bars are then in London - well say there's x square miles, about one sweet shop every mile, a supermarket every five miles, some in warehouses etc etc).

Don't let her worry - there's no pass mark or anything, the results are descriptive rather than quantitative - it's your personality that they're measuring not your abilities.

Gingerbear · 07/06/2006 14:22

I have been trained to interview and analyse results of such tests. The 'psychologist' will be there to interpret the results of the test - they are fed into a PC program and a report is churned out, also to give her some feedback on her personality 'traits' and probe further on certain traits by asking her questions (to see if she fits the job/personality profile)

Remember those A,B,C,D type quizzes in Cosmopolitan mags? Very similar really.

fairyglo · 07/06/2006 14:49

Gingerbear,

That's really interesting. Can you say a bit more? What do you place most emphasis on (I know that slightly depends on the job but I guess there would be a core set of requirements for senior management which wouldn't vary that much from job to job?)? What would you want to follow-up particularly? What sort of questions do you ask?

I mean I can see that if she answers eg "team-building exercises are a waste of time" to Miaou's question, that there may be some follow-up questions that the psychologist/interviewer might like to ask (eg how did you get this far in this company :o) but if she can't work out the mars bar question or comes out pretty average all round, what would the interviewer follow-up.

any other thoughts?

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Gingerbear · 07/06/2006 15:58

It was a while ago now, I profiled engineers and chemists, so the requirements would be different from 'senior management' I would guess.

I think the key attributes were Planning and organising ability, teamwork, problem analysis, Initiative, attention to detail and regard for work standards. I would ask questions like 'Can you give me an example of a time that you had to plan and organise?' 'How did you feel?' 'What were you most proud of'
All open ended questions (How, Why, where, when etc)
I was looking for evidence of how the person performed in certain situations.

No experience of numeracy stuff - we set an engineering problem and asked them to solve it.

fairyglo · 07/06/2006 18:31

Bump for the evening crowd.

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Halster · 07/06/2006 19:40

Very rusty about all of this, but here goes. 'Psychometric tests' can cover a whole range of things. However, the tests are likely to mean either personality tests and / or aptitude (ability) tests. As previously mentioned the psychologist will be present because these tests should only be administered and interpreted by someone who has been thoroughly trained in their use, and more often than not this will be a psychologist.

Personality tests aim to explore different personal characteristics in a candidate, e.g. the degree to which someone is extroverted or introverted, whether someone likes to operate on their own or part of a team, whether they are impulsive or must think out problems carefully, whether or not they are trusting of others or naturally suspicious etc etc. All of which are measured on a scale. There are absolutely no right or wrong answers on these tests - everyone's personality is valid! Your friend shouldn't try to second guess what the organisation is looking for as she will be rumbled: There are 'faking good' scales built into them that try and assess the extent to which a candidate is trying to portray themselves in a good light.

If the company is using the personality tests responsibly the results will only ever be used in addition to other more important information about the candidate. They may well interview her and explore aspects of her personality that may appear to conflict with how they see the role, e.g if its a sales position and the person is very introverted then they may wish to explore with the candidate how they go about building up contacts and networks, or if the job requires a meticulous planner and the candidate's personality suggests that they are much more of a 'come up with ideas and walk away' person then they might probe about their planning skills or boredom threshold.

The other most common type of psychometric test is an aptitude test. They aim to measure people's abilities in a number of areas, usually verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning and abstract reasoning. They are not designed to test someone's knowledge (or education) at all - they try and tap into people's underlying abilities (which is why they are so attractive to employers). The company should have sent your friend a 'practice' or 'familiarisation' booklet explaining what the tests she will be sitting are about. This is good practice. She should phone up and ask for one (every published test has one). If your friend is particularly worried about the aptitude tests then she could always buy one of the books available (in most career sections of book shops) that claim to be able to improve scores on these tests. What these books CAN do is familiarise someone with the format and content of apitude tests thereby increasing confidence and reducing anxiety. However, they CAN'T significantly improve how someone will perform on them.

It is also worth bearing in mind that there is no 'pass mark' on aptitude tests. Your friend's results will be compared with how another group of people have performed (e.g. graduates, school leavers aged 16 or engineers) and she will be given an above average, average or below average rating. Again if the company is using the tests responsibly then the results will only be used alongside other information about the candidate - the psychologist will be there to see that this happens (its not in their interest to see these tests abused).

Hope that helps.

Good grief thats blown some cobwebs away!

fairyglo · 09/06/2006 07:50

This has been really helpful, thank you. I passed on your comments to my friend. She's still a bit anxious about the numerical tests (someone mentioned they had had a question which involved looking at a balance sheet, apparently). She has also now been told she will be given the Myers Brink (some name like that?)test to do at home, presumably so that they can compare answers done at home to ones done under time pressure at the psycometric testing session.

just bumping for the morning crew.

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