Essential Interviews Tips and Skills To Get You Started!
Essential Interviews Tips and Skills To Get You Started!
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Psychometric tests for Interviews
There are three main types:
Attainment tests: These are tests designed to find out how much you have learned from your past training and experience—much like school exams. If you are applying for your first real job you might be confronted with a test of maths, English, or IT skills, for example.
General Intelligence tests: This group and the next are concerned with your ability to learn new skills. Intelligence tests measure your capacity for abstract thinking and reasoning in particular contexts. The items usually cover numerical, verbal, and symbolic reasoning, often in the familiar forms, such as: ‘What is the missing number in this series . . .?’ The tests in most common use are the AH series, Raven’s Matrices, and NIIP tests. The first two have ‘advanced’ forms for use with graduates and managers.
Special Aptitude tests: Some types of work clearly require you to have—or be able to learn—particular skills at a high level. This group of tests is designed to reveal general or specific aptitudes that the employer needs to develop. The most usual types of test are:
-Verbal Ability: including verbal comprehension, usage, and critical evaluation. An example is the VA series.
-Numerical Ability: involving numerical reasoning or analysis of quantitative data. You might meet the NA series of tests, NC2, or the GMA numerical test.
-Spatial Ability: relating to skill at visualizing and manipulating three dimensional shapes, for example. Frequently used tests are the ST series. Analytical thinking: relating to the way in which candidates can read and process complex arguments. These tests are very common among graduates and those applying for MBAs. An example is the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking test.
-IT Aptitude: various tests for technical programming ability and word processing.
-Manual Dexterity: testing special manipulation or hand-eye co-ordination linked to the special requirements of a job. If you are applying for a modern apprenticeship, especially in engineering or technology, you may meet these.
If you want to know more about these test, visit your local library and look up reference books on the various kinds of psychometric tests. They should tell you what the tests measure, what research has been done on them, and provide statistical information on how reliable they are. (Any decent test should have background information on reliability and validity.)
Most importantly, be well rested and relaxed so that you can focus clearly on the questions and provide your best answers.
July 6th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
I have been looking looking around for this kind of information. Will you post some more in future? I’ll be grateful if you will.