Damian Young

Psychometric testing… Not much fun. If you need to complete psychometric testing for a role, I can offer the following tips.

1. Preparation is everything. It has probably been a fair while since you have sat any kind of test. Being under time pressure, and having to work quickly is something that you may have forgotten how to manage. Replicating the conditions that you will experience being tested beforehand will help you handle the stress.

2. Have a strategy for answering. Practicing the tests will ensure that you get used to working to the clock. What things do you need to work out the tests? A pad and paper, a calculator etc. I found, through doing multiple tests that I worked best working through a question and pointing to the screen at the information as I required it. Sounds a bit silly? Whilst I looked a bit strange running my fingers over the screen, my test results improved. Something about the way my brain processes information?

3. Have a strategy to keep to time. Most tests are timed. There are greater penalties for not answering enough questions rather than getting one wrong. Do not get stuck on a question in the test. Practice identifying questions you are going to struggle with quickly and move on. Don’t overinvest time in a hard question early in the questions. Most of the tests are designed to be very difficult to complete in the given time – so aim to answer as many as possible rather than getting them all right. Accuracy is critical, but if you have an inner perfectionist who finds it hard to let go, you are going to need to silence that inner voice!.

Work out how you are going to keep time. I used my iphone. Before you start the test, it should tell you how many questions and how much time. Divide the time by the number of questions and write down “Marker” questions. For example, if there are 60 questions, and you have 60 minutes, you should be answering 20 questions every 20 minutes. Dividing into thirds worked best for me. So as my timer ticked over to 20 and then 40 minutes, I would know if I was keeping up by completing 20 and 40 questions respectively. Practice this way…

4. Three Things you are going to need to know. 

• Percentages. Every kind of percentage calculation. The people who write these tests must think that this is all we do at work! The questions will often require multiple calculations to arrive at an answer. If you cannot instantly identify the correct method for calculation quickly you will not succeed.
• Algebra. Don’t avoid this. You will get some questions that need you to use long forgotten algebra skillz. Solving simultaneous equations etc is critical to a lot of questions.
• Some verbal reasoning questions will purposefully be around polarising subjects. Forget your personal viewpoint and focus on the information.

5. Useful links to help.

The best free tests I could find online are here : http://www.shldirect.com/practice_tests.html
SHL Direct’s test questions are pretty good.

I used this paid site as well :
http://www.psychometricinstitute.com.au/
which I would rate as “OK”.

The best way I found to work out what skills I needed to relearn :

1. Do an online test completely “real time” to see where you are at.
2. Be horrified at how many questions you get wrong!
3. Go back and print screen on all the questions without the answer. What you want is a copy of each question that you can work on offline.
4. Answer each question slowly and carefully offline – this is to identify what you do and don’t know in terms of having the mental toolkit to answer the question. You will work out pretty quickly what you need to refresh your brain on – percentage and algebra most likely! This is the perfect way to relearn the skills you need to succeed.
5. Go back to the website and pop in all your answers “real time” to see how many you got right. If you got any wrong, get help. Ask a super brainiac mate for a hand on methodology. Learn it.
6. Re-do the test/s in real time. Hopefully you now have all your answering methodology down pat, so you are just practicing now to do it quickly.
7. Re-do the tests many times. The more you do them, the better you will perform in the “real deal”. A footy coach said to me once “you play the same way you train.” If you take it easy at training, you are probably going to do the same thing on game day.

Do as many different kinds of tests that you can find. There was one particular kind of test that I failed miserably at to start with. I was just terrible. The third time I did the test, my brain suddenly recognised what to look for and I went from getting a very small percentage right to virtually 100% correct in an instant.

I have heard of very smart and intelligent people not performing in psychometric testing because they had not prepared. Second time round, after some decent prepping though, they aced them. I am not sure of the value of psychometric testing and how closely it correlates with successful appointments – the fact that you can “learn” the skills that are being tested and improve your results substantially suggests that psychometric testing tests your ability to answer psychometric questions. But, if you want the job, you have to play by the rules that are defined by someone else. Be smart and prepare your self as best you can for the job you want!

"So, tell me all about yourself!"

OK, so I had some thoughts from the hiring side of the table. How about the other side?

These are just things that I find important – your experience may differ depending who is on the other side of the table! This is by no means a comprehensive list, just some random thoughts you may not have considered…

1. If you do not know why you are perfect for the job, neither will they. First step is to take five minutes to compare yourself to what the job ad is asking for. Then get to work on your custom Cover Letter.

Cover Letters are King. If you are not serious enough about the role to write a specific, targeted cover letter, then do not apply. A targeted cover letter should outline three key reasons why you are great idea to get in to interview. It just makes it easy for an employer to judge if you have taken the time to understand what the role needs, and why you are the right person for the job!

The three key reasons should also form your key story during the interview process. Keep reinforcing these reasons during the process.

2. Situation. Task. Action. Result.    Situation. Task. Action. Result.    When you are asked to talk about something to do with work, use this mantra to structure your answer.

Situation – What was the situation? What needed changing? Why were you assigned to do it? Why did you volunteer? What was the environment that led to something needing to be done?

Eg: There was no new products in development when I arrived, so we had no idea what we were going to present at the next range review. Sales were tanking and we were losing shelf space rapidly.

Task – A short summary of what needed to be done.

Eg: The brand needed a comprehensive NPD pipeline to be established out to 3 years.

Action – What did you do to resolve or complete the task. Focus on what YOU actually did.

Eg : Together with the R&D manager, we mapped out a 6 week process to ideate, develop concepts, test them with consumers, and present preferred concepts to the leadership team. etc etc.

Result : What was the outcome? What changed or was different as a result of what you did? How could you have done it better? What worked?

Eg : We went to the next range review with 3 new product lines, 2 of which were accepted by the customer. This resulted in incremental sales of $10 million in year one. Etc etc.

This is all about demonstrating that you can think your way through a problem, develop an effective solution, sell it in to stakeholders, execute it, leading to an improvement in the state of the business in some way.

3. Tell me what makes you different to the other candidates. What are you good at? Use the questions to help communicate your strengths. Make sure you can explain it in a couple of sentences, quickly and surely.

4. Read the job description carefully and pick out the key things they are looking for. For each, match up your demonstrated strength or relevant experience. Be able to relate how you are a great match quickly and decisively.

5. For a great proportion of employers, making a decision is about minimising the risk of making a bad decision rather than selecting the best candidate. Remember this – if you don’t work out to be a great choice, the hiring manager is going to have to explain it to their boss. Make sure that you “minimise risk”. Always overdress a little for an interview – nobody ever got knocked back for a job by wearing a tie, (an example for the guys) but plenty of people have missed the cut by making a poor impression through looking scruffy. A neat, tidy, well laid out resume – without any grammatical or spelling errors – vs one with patterned borders & colours etc will usually represent you better. Including a photo will not probably help you get an interview, so don’t do it.

6. If you don’t get this job, something else still might come up down the track as a result of this interview. Ask for feedback if you missed out. Send a thank you note. In the last year, I have personally employed a person who missed out on a first application with a company I worked with, and also recommended a person who wasn’t quite right for the role I was interviewing for, which also resulted in an appointment… Don’t assume the door is closed after a first knock back.

7. Ask your friends and contacts for help. It is amazing, but the majority of roles are filled by “someone who knows someone”. A personal recommendation from someone you trust when you are considering a candidate carries a lot of weight. The first thing I do when recruiting is ask people I know if they can recommend anyone… Networking is an unattractive word – but asking people for help is not.

8. Do your homework. If you make it to an interview, make sure you know the company, the brands, and that you have sampled the product. You will get asked about it, and not knowing or being able to talk about them is a quick way to the “no” pile of applicants. I am still surprised by how many people do not do this.

9. Lastly, don’t be afraid of “tough” questions. A trick question like “so tell me what you think we could do better” needs to be answered. Focus on how to make things better, not slag off on what is currently being done. Avoiding the question can paint you as a “yes” person. Most of the time, the person asking the question is more interested in your ability to critically think and that you are prepared to share your thoughts than whether you are spot on or not with your analysis.

I had reason to consider again this week what are the conditions that most often lead to success in your chosen career path. It is quite simple.

1. You have to be good at what you do.

This doesn’t mean you have to be a superstar from day one, or that you cannot learn skills and behaviours. It just means that you have a natural capability or intellectual disposition that favours the core needs of the role. When thinking through this, you need to leave your ego and self esteem needs at the door. I have met a few people in life who claim to work as a photographer, graphic designer or other “creative / artistic” jobs. Yet, their portfolio says something different – that they are not really that good at it… I suspect their continuing pursuit of this vocation is more about their self perception need to be “arty”.

I would like to be a professional photographer too – but I know I do not have the patience and attention to detail that most successful photographers that I have met tend to have. I am a very proficient “weekend warrior” but probably would struggle to make a good income from it. I simply do not have the discipline to do the detail required to set up shots, retouch images etc. I can take a great shot, but am often disappointed when I see the final image only to find I missed something. Julia Clark has one of my framed prints that she rescued from potentially being thrown out – it arrived into work, and I opened it only to find a dust/fibre spot on the print that I missed in retouching. Great image, but the flaw was enough to trash the print.

2. You have to love what you do. Or at least enjoy it.

There is no doubt that you can do a job you don’t like that much – plenty of people are in this bucket. It is bloody hard to motivate yourself to greatness and achievement in something to you don’t enjoy doing. To succeed and be good at a job, you need to like doing it. The top performers in almost any vocation you can think of make good money – not always a fortune, but still live pretty comfortably.

If you love doing something you are always going to do that little bit extra. Invest a little bit more energy in it. Spend a bit of time getting better at it. These kind of things increase your chances of success in anything.

Aussie Jones was a great example of this rule. He was a gifted footballer, but retired before he had reached the natural end of his AFL career. He has simply stopped enjoying the commitment required to be an AFL player. He stopped loving it at that level and gave it away – he did go on to a very successful suburban footy career, but that is very different.

Sometimes people also get stuck in jobs they don’t like because they are so good at them! Management refuse to move them sideways because they are worried about the gap it would leave. This is usually a smart person in a technical role who wishes to branch out into broader commercial roles.

Classically, this often occurs when people make a change mostly based on financial incentives. The dollar signs overcome their nature into making a mistake. The sales rep who becomes a sales manager but hates leading. The brand manager who is promoted to marketing manager but wishes they still had their own brand and no whiny direct reports…

What does it all mean?

Find something to do that
1. You are good at / suited to
2. You enjoy doing…

If you love it, you will invest more into it, and if you are naturally suited to it, that investment will deliver much higher returns…