Psychometric testing is to help identify key areas such as skills, personality, problem solving and knowledge. This sort of testing is normally used during a recruitment process. It is to give a more in-depth assessment of whether you would be a good fit within the company.
We have been asked before to do them on behalf of a company but normally it will be done at an interview stage with the employer.
There are two main types, personality and ability tests.
Personality tests
This will test your core values, your motivation, what drives you, it will analyse your behaviour, different aspects of your personality and how you would react in certain situations.
They want to know what’s important to you, how you prioritise things, your emotional intelligence and decision making.
One of the most common personality tests to use is the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBYI). They use questions such as how much you agree with a statement or how you would feel in a situation. They can be scored from absolutely agree to do not agree.
With the answers given and reviewed you can then be placed in one of the 16 personality types. Then they can see if you have the right attitude and personality to fit within the company.
There is no right or wrong to answer these personality questions, so you are best to answer not to over think them, answer them honestly and try not to give answers you think your employer will want to read.
Ability/Aptitude tests
This is to assess your skill levels, this is done across many different areas such as:
Diagrammatic Reasoning
This is where you might analyse a sequence of shapes numbers and patterns. They can be presented as flow charts and diagrams. The answers are multiple choice and the average time spent on each question will be between 45 seconds to a minute.
This measures your critical thinking, your capacity for logical reasoning and will give a better idea of how good your analytical problem solving is. Companies who would use this sort of testing would typically be in areas like IT, high level finance, engineering and science. These roles focus more on complex and analytical problems.
Numerical Reasoning
This is where you will see graphs, tables, number sequences and ratios. They want to see how well you interpret data, how well you can read graphs or charts to gather the right information. They want to see how quickly and accurately you can answer these types of questions. Again, these are normally multiple choice and depending on the test you can spend up to two minutes on each question. Numerical Reasoning is not specific to one job type as it is important to many roles so it’s a vital part of psychometric testing.
For this part you can absolutely prepare for it, it will help immensely to do practise some tests online and this will give you a better idea of the sort of questions you will be asked, the lay out and it will be easier to absorb the information written this way.
Verbal Reasoning
With this section you will find questions or statements and you will have to decide whether they are true, false or can’t say. The average time spent on these questions is about 30- 60 seconds.
The employer will use these types of questions to assess your understanding and comprehension skills. They will want to see how well you can extract the written text to give to correct answer.
Error Checking
This section is one of the most common areas to be tested. They are designed to challenge you to identify errors in complex data or combinations of alpha – numeric characters.
For example, you might be given a paragraph from a letter or an article with limited to correct it, or you may have to decide which statement has been written incorrectly.
The average time spent on these types of questions is between 30 – 60 seconds.
This area pf psychometric testing lends itself to more administrative, clerical, marketing and educational roles.
There are lots of error practice sheets out there as with the numerical reasoning you can take full advantage and prepare.
Inductive Reasoning
This is like diagrammatic reasoning but focuses on a slightly different working method. You will need to be able to spot trends, patterns and consistencies in data. Its normally in the form of a series of pictures and one will be replaced with an X or ? and it will be your job to figure it out. This is also a multiple-choice question so you will be given a selection of answers and you have to work out which one it correct. From this the employer is looking to measure how quickly and efficiently to predict the next missing sequence, to solve abstract problems and to think logically.
With it being a good test for predicting problem solving this is important in any job.
These are the main categories within the psychometric testing but are more sub- sections and we could be here all day. You may not have to experience all of these sections, it will be determined on your job role and which sector it is in.
We would always advise our candidates if they will be sitting any tests and what questions to expect. We think interview / test preparation is very important.
A few key points
- On both personality and ability tests read the questions carefully
- Take note of how long you have on each question
- With the personality test be honest and consistent
- Try not to give answers you think the employer will want to read
- Numerical, Error and Inductive, practice there are lots of ones on the internet.
Here a few examples I have found on the internet with the websites underneath just to give you an idea.
‘I enjoy making detailed plans.’
You are required to respond to this statement by selecting how strongly you agree with it on a five-point scale:
- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Neutral
- Agree
- Strongly Agree
(https://www.psychometricinstitute.co.uk/test-area-instructions.asp?testid=18)
Which share had the largest difference between highest and lowest price over the last 12 months?
- A. Huver Co. B. Drebs Ltd. C. Fevs Plc. D. Fauvers E. Steapars
(https://www.assessmentday.co.uk/numerical/Free/NumericalTest1/)