Verbal and Numerical Testing for your candidates

As I do a bit of psychometric and aptitude testing on the side (that's not an invitation for the Inland Revenue to start investigating my accounts - it's all legit!) I was asked by a friend in recruitment (called Matt) if I could source some practice tests for a candidate of his (let's call her Sue).

Sue had to sit a verbal and numerical aptitude test as part of the interview with Matt's client and was concerned she'd flounder.  Matt wanted to ensure Sue was as prepared as possible.  This is what all recruiters should be doing for candidates; ensuring they are correctly prepped for interview.

Anyway, I found him some sample tests for Sue and thought I'd share them here so you can also prepare your candidates if and when they need to undertake aptitude tests.

The most well known verbal and numerical tests are probably from SHL and there are some examples on their site. You can actually do a full length practice aptitude test there.

There are also some great tests on the University of Kent website; numerical, numerical v2, verbal, verbal v2 (Synonyms and antonyms) and a non verbal reasoning test.

Comments

[Seamus McQuaid]

Louise
I would agree with your viewpoint about agencies helping candidates prepare for an interview. In this case providing sample tests would help with the preparation, but one point I would make it that these types of tests are not designed the same way as educational exams. I think they (agencies) should set the expectation level for the candidates when they try these samples. These tests are generally not ones where you can swot for, yes by all means familiarise yourself with the structure and the areas that they appear to test. But the design of the test is to evaluate testing ability verbal or numerical not necessarily knowledge. How a test is run is also a very important factor and here the responsibility lies with the tester. So candidates should expect be given the same conditions and time to perform for whichever test. Candidates should be aware that if they feel the test has not been conducted with the minimum of best practise standards they could have a right to ask for another attempt at a test.