State Unemployment Information

Psychometric or personality tests are used by some employers to gauge whether you have the right sort of personality traits for a particular job.

Employers spend a lot of resources both in people time and money searching for the right candidate and this is one way in which they can assess, or justify depending on your point of view, candidate choice.

Testing tends to be used in larger organisations as they are the ones who can afford the programmes but some placement firms use them as well. Are they the resort of those who are terrified of recruiting mistakes and need a guide to whittle down candidate numbers, or those that believe they result in better qualified candidates who stay in the job longer? Probably a bit of both.

What form do the tests take?

There will be a number of multiple choice questions that require answering within a specific time. You are asked to answer them instinctively, in the order they are asked, without returning to any questions.

How should you deal with the personality test and what are the right answers?

The answer is that there are no right answers.

The employer has predetermined which personality traits and strengths he or she is looking for and the test has been structured around those.

You can get an idea of what the employer is looking for from the job description and you could attempt to second guess the answers, but the questions are usually phrased in such a way, and the answers for you to choose from so similar, that it is almost impossible to do that. And who is to say that your attempts to beat the tests wont result in the “wrong” answers coming back and your rejection on those grounds?

By far the best option is to answer honestly. This may be a job that you really want but if the employer feels that as a result of the test you are not suited there isn’t a lot you can do about it.

You do have a right to see the test results which may give you some insight into why you were not successful. This may be useful in itself. If you’re going for jobs that require a high degree of independent working but really you feel more comfortable in a team then perhaps it’s time to give your job search a rethink.