What are Psychometric Tests? The word psychometric is formed from
the Greek words for mental and
measurement. Psychometric tests
attempt to objectively measure aspects of
your mental ability or your personality.
You are most likely to encounter psychometric testing as part of the
recruitment or selection process and
occupational psychometric tests are
designed to provide employers with a
reliable method of selecting the most
suitable job applicants or candidates for promotion. Psychometric tests are seldom used in
isolation and represent just one of the
methods used by employers in the
selection process. The usual procedures
for selecting candidates still apply, for
example: A job is advertised and you are invited to send in your resume, which is
then checked to see if the organisation
thinks that your experience and
qualifications are suitable. It is only after this initial screening that
you may be asked to sit a psychometric
test. These tests aim to measure
attributes like intelligence, aptitude and
personality, providing a potential
employer with an insight into how well you work with other people, how well you
handle stress, and whether you will be
able to cope with the intellectual
demands of the job. There are two main types of psychometric
tests: Ability Tests – Measure your ability to
perform or carry out different tasks.
Personality Questionnaires - Measure your
way of doing things, and specifically the
way you interact with your environment
and other people. Aptitude Tests
Aptitude and ability tests are designed to
assess your logical reasoning or thinking
performance. They consist of multiple
choice questions and are administered
under exam conditions. They are strictly timed and a typical test might allow 30
minutes for 30 or so questions. Verbal Ability - These include questions
which test your ability to spell words
correctly, use correct grammar,
understand analogies and follow detailed
written instructions. Numeric Ability - These include questions
on basic arithmetic, number sequences
and simple mathematics. In more
complex numerical critical reasoning
questions, blocks of information are
provided that require interpretation. Abstract Reasoning - These tests are
usually based on diagrams and measure
your ability to identify the underlying
logic of a pattern and then determine the
solution. Spatial Reasoning - These tests measure
your ability to manipulate shapes in two
dimensions or to visualize three-
dimensional objects presented as two-
dimensional pictures. Mechanical Reasoning - These tests are
designed to assess your knowledge of
physical and mechanical principles. Aptitude tests produce raw scores which
are compared to a benchmark which may
be either average scores for a particular
norm group or which may be a specific
criterion of performance. In other words,
your score may indicate that a certain ability is better than say 70% of
graduates, or is at a level which shows
sufficient competence to carry out certain
tasks required by the job. Aptitude tests are designed so that very
few people will be able to complete all of
the questions, and the problems usually
become more complex as the test
progresses. Don’t be concerned if you do
not complete all of the questions - its the number of correct answers that matters. Personality Questionnaires
The principle behind personality
questionnaires is that it is possible to
quantify your personality by asking you
about your feelings, thoughts and
behavior. You will be presented with statements describing various ways of
feeling or acting and asked to answer
each one on a scale. For example; 1. I enjoy taking risks? A) True B) False 2. I like to be the center of attention? A) strongly disagree B) disagree C)
neutrals D) agree E) strongly agree The number of questions you are
expected to answer varies from about 50
to 500 depending on the particular
questionnaire used by the employer. Personality has a significant role to play
in providing answers to questions the
employer may have regarding your
enthusiasm and motivation as well as
providing an insight into whether you are
going to fit in, in terms of your personality, attitude and general work
style. What types of employers use
psychometric tests? Psychometric testing is now used by over
80% of the Fortune 500 companies in the
USA and by over 75% of the Times Top
100 companies in the UK. Tests are used
by many employers across most sectors,
including IT, engineering, energy, banking, consultancy, accountancy, the
civil service and other public sector, fast
moving consumer goods and retail.
