A significant, yet overlooked hurdle in the application
process for graduate jobs is psychometric testing. Many students struggle with psychometric
testing (SHL and OneTest being the most common) simply because of lack of
exposure to the types of questions asked. The major test providers keep the
content of the tests heavily guarded and practice material from them are scarce.
There are three types of psychometric tests that you
are very likely to encounter:
- Numerical reasoning – High school maths is all you need here. Common questions involve interpreting graphs and tables as well as working with rates, percentages, and ratios. If you don’t remember anything from high school, this book is handy. If your not willing to fork out the money, there are plenty of torrents and e-books available on the net.
- Verbal reasoning (also known as deductive reasoning) – This is similar to comprehension. In answering these questions, use only the information given in the passage and do not try to use your own knowledge (even if it contradicts to the facts in the question).
- Problem solving – Most likely form of testing will be shapes/pattern recognition. An example:
This shouldn't take more than one minute to solve
A couple of things to remember:
- Practice makes perfect – Do as many practice tests and repeat them. Thankfully this bloke and this Uni have put together a handy bank of questions to practice.
- Record your tests using CamStudio: Assuming you apply for multiple organisations, use simple software such as CamStudio to record screen activity while doing a test. Then playback using a video player such as VLC and practice.
- Psychometric testing is part of the overall assessment procedure – Don’t forget that testing is used by employers as part of the overall assessment alongside written application questions, interviews, references, academic results and other selection methods. If you fail to get an interview after testing, it's not necessarily your test results which is holding you back.