Testing times in search for truth

You can embellish your resume and it might be possible to fudge your way through a job interview, but it's impossible to fool a psychological test, according to CompAssess director Rob Atkins.

Psychological tests are used in conjunction with traditional recruitment processes to give recruiters insights into candidates which aren't easily observable, Mr Atkins says.

The best indicator of a candidate's success in a role is their overall level of intelligence.

The higher the job, the stronger intelligence is as an indicator of performance, Mr Atkins says. Surprisingly, senior candidates aren't usually screened because they find it patronising and demeaning.

"Where it's used most commonly is for graduate positions," Mr Atkins says.

Intelligence tests are typically used during the initial stages of large graduate recruitment drives as a way of quickly removing unsuitable applicants where the company may have thousands of applicants, Mr Atkins says.

Testing can be done over the internet or in a supervised setting, not unlike a school exam, and each test typically takes 20-25 minutes to complete and is done under a strict time limit.

The two most common forms of psychometric testing measure a candidate's verbal and numerical reasoning ability.

"Verbal reasoning is essentially, in different shapes and forms, comprehension," Mr Atkins says. Numerical reasoning covers arithmetic skills and numerical critical reasoning, which means comparing the relationship of various numbers.

Businesses also measure aspects of a candidate's personality to make sure they aren't bluffing during the interview.

"Our behaviour tends to be consistent with our personality over a period of time, but in a short space of time any of us can behave quite differently and that can certainly be the case in an interview," Mr Atkins says.

The most credible personality tools will have different controls in place to stop people faking or manufacturing results.

Some tests have questions designed to see if candidates are giving answers they think the employer wants to hear.

For example there might be items such as: I've never used work email for personal use, and I've never told a lie.

"If you respond in the negative to those items then there's very high probability that you are responding in an artificial or socially desirable way," Mr Atkins says.

Personality testing is used to make sure the person and the job are the right fit.

"If someone is reporting that they feel intimidated influencing people, is introverted or lacks social confidence, then they are going to feel very uncomfortable in a role where they are constantly having to make new relationships such as a business development role," Mr Atkins says.

Can you cheat on psychological tests? The short answer is no. For personality tests there is no wrong or right answer.

In aptitude tests, Mr Atkins says people have tried to make copies of tests and produce cheat sheets.

To overcome this, testers now create each test from a pool of thousands of potential questions so each test is different. Candidates who sit the aptitude tests at home could potentially use a brains trust to score higher.

However, candidates usually sign a contract before beginning the test, stipulating that they are the sole person taking it.

They are also often re-tested in a formal situation, Mr Atkins says.

Much like your personality, your level of intelligence is fairly static and there isn't anything you can do to increase it.

But that doesn't mean there isn't anything you can do to help maximise your chances of scoring as high as possible in an intelligence test and beating your competition.

Mr Atkins says there is a small training effect.

"If a candidate is unhappy with their original score and re-sits a parallel form of the test [same test format but different questions] they typically score slightly higher the second time around," he says.

If taking the test online it is a good idea to sit as many practice questions as there are available to be as familiar as possible with the type of questions being asked.

"When you actually complete the test you'll be more focused on solving the problem rather than focusing on the format of the question," Mr Atkins says.

By Henry Budd, The Daily Telegraph, Saturday 11, August 2007.