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Help! Administrator interview test

2 replies

PimmsOfCourse · 07/07/2022 20:16

I have an interview on Monday and they have said that there will be an aptitude test to look at my skills and knowledge. The job criteria says knowledge of MS Office, G-Suite and sales force.
Can anyone give pointers as to what they might ask?

OP posts:
maxelly · 08/07/2022 10:51

I would have thought it'll be an inbox type test, where you are given a bundle of different items that replicate the sort of tasks you'd get in the actual role (so for a it might be e.g. an email from the boss asking you to call him urgently with some info, a note from reception saying an important client has shown up unexpectedly, a phone call from a key staff member phoning in sick, some slides to proof read or format, some data that needs inputting to a database, a request for a report). Usually the first part of the task is to prioritize all the items and say what order you'd deal with them in, often it's cunningly set up so there's no single right answer and it's more do you have a sensible rationale for how you'd approach it (e.g. I think nearly everyone would say the important client should be a priority and the data entry and proof reading can wait unless required right away, but in the middle you could either call back the sick person or start making arrangements for cover or perhaps respond to the boss's request, either is probably OK).

Then you might be asked to actually do some of the tasks - it could be a technical thing using their database/Sales Force if they have a training version of available, perhaps inputting something or extracting some data. Or it might be a task on word or excel or powerpoint - write a paragraph for company newsletter on X initiative or make a pivot table and graph with Y data or make a slide illustrating Z for a client presentation, something along those lines. Or if this is the sort of thing you'd actually have to do in the job, read this report and make a summary, or look at this performance/financial/sales data and write a paragraph saying what it shows and what action you'd take to resolve. Hopefully it should be things you are already familiar with so just treat it as you would anything that came up in your day job - they're probably not looking for absolute top notch technical skills in an administrator role but more do you approach the task logically, do you have good written english, can you interpret data correctly and so on, so don't panic about it needing to be perfect (often they deliberately give you slightly less time than you really need to see how you respond to pressure, some people panic and don't start at all which is usually the wrong thing!).

PimmsOfCourse · 09/07/2022 22:04

Thank you @maxelly - very helpful

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