Here at King’s Careers & Employability, we want you to be as prepared as possible for your first steps in your career; and understanding more about psychometric testing in the recruitment process is crucial.
In this series, you can expect to learn more about: Psychometric testing, situational testing, verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning and what to do if you fail?
To check out other tests click here → Employment Tests
The essential facts of psychometric testing:
- This type of testing is more common than you think: from assessments in elementary and high school, to college and graduate admissions, to employment testing and certification, to placement in military occupations, millions of people are affected by psychometric testing each year. In the UK, 70% of companies with over 50 employees use them.
- Employers need a way of assessing a larger pool of candidates: today we experience a lot of competition in the job market – some organisations attract as many as 40 applicants for every vacancy. Employers rely on psychometrical testing to identify the more suitable candidates in a fair and objective way as possible.
- It is absolutely normal to fail some of them, especially if you have not practised beforehand. It does not mean that you do not have the ability to do the job or course in question. However, it does mean that you need to put in the effort to practice and perform better.
- There are many types of tests in use, some are more specific to some roles and some are more general. The most common ones you will come across are verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, situational judgment (personality questionnaires) and non-verbal/diagrammatic reasoning tests.
Alex, one of Careers Engagement Assistants, will go into more detail with each of the main psychometric tests, discussing from a student perspective that had to fail many tests until actually learning getting hold of the whole process.