Just failed a Situational Judgement test

[LadyinCement]

For a civil service job.

I spent ages filling in the application and even further ages on the accompanying test... and was informed immediately that I'd failed. It seems so arbitrary - the test had 20 situations and you had to rank responses 1-4. Obviously 1 was easy and 4 was easy but 2 and 3 not so much.

It seems odd to eliminate people in this way, and not to use the test as part of the recruitment process instead of as an initial cull. There is no comeback, your application is immediately halted and no feedback is offered. I don't know if I failed by one question or mucked up all 20!

So frustrating as I knew I could do the job in question well.

I failed the Aldi one. I thought carefully about the answers and picked the most common sense one but someone has told me since that they just want people who will refer everything to a manager rather than go some way towards trying to resolve things themselves.

I did that test too and did horribly. Granted I had flu and was lying in bed with the laptop on my belly but I felt like such a thick ( I promise I actually do have a relatively high iq and 3 degrees - no common sense though apparently).

I failed that one for the civil service fast track about 15 years ago. I'm usually good at the numerical and verbal reasoning ones as I've had to do a lot since and have got top marks but to be fair I'm not very level headed or good in a crisis so I suspect it was actually the right choice!

It is a bit of a blunt tool. However, you can improve your chances next time by googling how to pass this type of test - which pretty much defeats the object, I admit.

Did it not give you a score saying how you compared to the rest of the test takers? Check your civil service account?

I searched online afterwards and apparently they look for the answers that most correspond to those taken by a random sample of a grade higher... or sumfink like that

I saw a comment by someone objecting to this as that would lead to a "groupthink" recruitment process, eliminating anyone not on message.

originalbiglymavis - I can't even claim flu - was firing on full throttle I thought

Obviously too late for you but advice of the CS tests is to always take it for a job you don't actually want first.

Not following my own advice I failed it miserably last time I took it. If you can remember which way you answered try doing it again and answering differently (it's always the same test). That way any application you make in the next 6 months and you've got your test "banked".

Your feedback should tell you that you scored better than x% of people taking it. Scroll down.