Careers and Jobs

Psychometric Testing article is for jobseekers. If you are an employer seeking more information about testing in Ireland read Psychometric Testing Ireland.

What is Psychometric Testing?

A quite simple definition is that psychometrics is the study concerned with measurement of “psychological” aspects of a person like skills, knowledge, personality or ability. Most jobseeker exposure to testing is in the form of ability testing and personality questionnaire.

Why is testing used by employers?

There are many reasons why employers use psychometric testing. The most important reason is that it helps them make better recruitment decisions. Research has show that traditional interviews do not work so employers are incorporating assessment to tighten up their recruitment. Testing can also help save employer’s time and money during the recruitment process.

So you get invited into the recruitment process and are informed that you face psychometric testing. How do you prepare? I have provided some tips below BUT the most important point is the find out exactly what you face as testing can be ability tests, personality questionnaires, assessment centers and much more.

Preparing for Psychometric Testing – Personality Questionnaires

Unfortunately there is no real preparation for a personality questionnaire. You will find loads of sites promising how to cheat. Most personality questionnaires have cheat checks making this impossible. The best approach is to answer the questions honestly. Why try to fake your personality – you will just end up in a job not suited to you.

Preparation – Ability Tests

You can prepare for verbal ability tests by reading books, reading newspapers, doing verbal puzzles or crosswords. You can prepare for numerical ability tests by reviewing basic mathematics and make sure that you practice interpreting tables, pie charts and graphs.

Post Psychometric Testing – Ability Tests
- If you do not receive on request a practice leaflet. If a practice leaflet is not available try this site www.shldirect.com
- Prepare yourself but do not stay up all night – this may be counter productive.
- Plan in advance and leave plenty of time to get to the testing.
- Bring glasses or hearing aid if your require them.
- Inform the employer if you have a disability that might make testing difficult.

During the session
- There are instructions – listen carefully!!
- Follow the instructions.
- If you are unsure – ask questions.
- Read questions carefully before picking an answer.
- Remember to work quickly and accurately.
- Try not to waste time on the difficult questions.
- Give it your best shot

If you want to try a timed ability test or would like to do a personality questionnaire and get feedback contact Psychometric Testing

I guess to purpose of this post is to highlight that interviews can be more complex and varied than you may think. For this reason it is essential that you prepare properly and that you get as much information about the interview process as possible. This information combined with preparation will help improve your confidence and your performance which will increase your interview to job offer ratio.

Different types of Interviews – There are a wide variety of possible interview scenarios that you can face when notified that you have been called for interview. Some of these types of interview include:

Traditional Interviews
Competency / Behavioural Interviews
Panel Interviews
Phone Interviews

Different types of Assessments – To confuse things more many organisations are combining interviews with objective assessments in the form of psychometric testing and assessment. Some of these include:

Personality Questionnaires
Ability Tests
Aptitude Tests
Skills Tests
Assessment Centres

Different types of interviewer and interviewer styles – Finally you can face different types of interviewers who use a different style. It will help you to understand these different styles but more importantly have a strategy to cope with the different styles. Six of the possible interview styles include:

Absentee Interviewer
Inquisitor Interviewer
Buddy Interviewer
Laser Beam Interviewer
Shotgun Interviewer
Silver Bullet Interviewer

In later posts we will provide information on the above interviews, assessments, interviewer styles and more importantly how you can prepare. If you would like more information about the different types of interviewers visit this post.

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