Many companies, universities or the public sector use special selection procedures when it comes to checking the suitability of applicants for a specific position, an apprenticeship position or a place at a university. So-called psychometric tests are often used for this purpose. However, the term “psychometric testing” doesn’t mean much to most people at first. But it’s very simple.
First of all, psychometric means nothing other than using a questionnaire. So it’s about written tasks and not about oral exams. These can be so-called performance tests, but also personality tests. In the following, we will present both types of tests in more detail and tell you how you can prepare yourself optimally.
Psychometric tests as a performance test
Psychometric tests are often carried out as a cognitive performance test. In this, for example, competences in the following areas are queried:
- General knowledge,
- logic,
- language,
- concentration,
- or intelligence
When it comes to general education, for example, it can be about geographical or historical knowledge. Logical thinking and concentration can be tested using rows of numbers or rows of letters. Spatial thinking, math and language skills can also be tested in a performance test.
These tasks are used by a wide variety of companies, the public sector or universities to check the suitability of their applicants for a specific position, training or university place.
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Psychometric tests as a personality test
However, just checking cognitive performance is not enough for most companies and universities. This is not unimportant, but one would also like to know whether the applicant fits in with his or her future tasks or if he fits in the team in general. For this purpose, a personality test is often carried out as part of the psychometric performance test. This is intended to find out more about the inner attitude, personal motivation or personal values of the applicant. Features like:
- assertiveness
- empathy
- sympathy
can be checked here, among other things. In a personality test, such as the “Big Five Personality Test”, there is no right or wrong, in contrast to the cognitive ability test. Rather, it depends on the respective position, training or field of study, which characteristics are required.
Preparation for psychometric tests
Many companies use psychometric tests in advance as an additional filter before the applicant is even invited to the interview. An online questionnaire is often used for this. However, it is also possible that you will be invited to the company for a real recruitment test or assessment center and then have to solve various psychometric tests on site. In any case, it is worth preparing thoroughly in advance to increase the chances of being hired.
The good news: There are numerous exercises online that you can use to prepare for psychometric tests, especially for the cognitive ability test. At this point we can recommend our online test trainer, with which you can interactively prepare yourself for all important parts of the test, such as logical thinking, language skills, concentration, general education or spatial thinking.
