A guide to Selection Testing

When looking for a job it is very easy to concentrate entirely on what YOU can get out of a new position, and how YOU should prepare. Instead try looking at the recruiting process from an employer's point of view.

Recruiting personnel is a long and expensive process. It is very important that a company gets it right, if the company hires someone that turns out to be unsuitable then it costs time, money and potential new clients.

If a new recruit causes personality conflicts within an established team or department then other members of staff become unhappy and under-perform. To reduce the possibility of hiring an inappropriate candidate employers use several filtering methods. Traditionally these have been the CV, covering letter, and interview. However respected companies recruiting a large volume of people can receive hundreds of CV's and covering letters for each position they advertise, they are finding that traditional candidate elimination techniques do not go far enough and are not cost effective.

Not only are CVs time consuming to read but there is also no consistency in the type of information they show and they can fail to include vital candidate information which the employer is looking for. It is also known that people exaggerate their qualifications and experience on their CVs and tell the employer only what they want to hear.

As a result employers are using psychometric testing more and more in addition to the traditional selection methods.

A psychometric test usually comes in the form of approximately fifty questions or statements, for example:

For each statement there is usually a five-grade answer bar ranging from 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree'. You have to read each statement carefully and circle the response that best represents your opinion, for example you if a statement contains an element of truth but you do not strongly agree with it then you would circle a four out of five.

Your results are scanned into a computer for interpretation after which the employer will print out your profile. By varying the type of statements included in a test the employer can get a general overview of your personality, whether you are a good team player and what motivates you in the workplace.

It is also possible to base a test around a specific role, for example you could be tested to see if you possess the innate qualities required to be a good sales person.