Psychometric & Aptitude Tests

A lot of organisations require all potential employees to undertake some form of testing as part of the application process.  Psychometric and aptitude tests measure your cognitive ability and the most common type of these tests is SHL. Practicing these tests will help improve your scores so make sure you visit www.shl.com as part of your preparation.  Other testing includes assessment-centre based tests and various online assessments.

We have put together some tips to help you to prepare: 

• Always practice in advance so you are familiar with the style, format and how the timings work
• Request in advance what test publisher employers will be using so you can familiarise yourself with how they specifically work
• If you have been given an online test at home, then make sure you have everything you need to hand and complete it at a time
• Make sure you will not be interrupted
• If you are in an assessment centre, then request a calculator and/or dictionary
• Make sure you are awake, alert and able to concentrate with no distractions
• The number of correct answers is usually more important than the percentage of questions answered correctly so know when to move on 
• The difficulty level of questions is varied throughout the test so if a question looks challenging then move ahead and come back to it
• Make sure you fully read and understand the question properly, so you don’t get caught out

Numerical reasoning tests

• Always use the rough paper to write things down as it is easier to double check your workings our and spot any mistakes
• Double check the information you are given and ensure you have checked the units and bases so you don’t miss something 
• Sanity check your answers before moving on

Verbal reasoning tests

• Take everything literally and do not make assumptions – you can only consider what you have been told in a particular statement or passage
• There are three potential responses for verbal reasoning tests: True, False or Cannot Say.  The key to all of these is only looking at what you have been told and if there isn’t enough information to decide on true or false then it must be that you ‘cannot say’.

Finally

• Always ask for feedback so you can prepare better next time
• Never get someone else to complete the test on your behalf