How to prepare for tests ?
By Thomas Eymond-Daru

Thomas Eymond-Daru / Managing Consultant / Cubiks

1/ Why do companies run tests?

To ensure the reliability of their recruitment decision.

Most of the tests an applicant is going to take are logical tests, personality tests or simulation exercises. They rarely disqualify you, since a test is not the only decision basis in a recruitment process. Besides, these tools can be used during several phases of the recruitment process, either beforehand for preselection, or during the process, in order to know the applicant better and faster, or at the end of the process, to decide between applicants.

The goal of companies is to introduce more objectivity and equity when they set up tests in a recruitment process. Most of the time, companies are going to be more open-minded regarding atypical applications, if these people do pass the tests.

There is another reason why recruitment tests are used. It’s because they are used not only for recruitment but also for post-recruitment. When you’ve taken tests during a process, the company knows you better and the manager can better prepare your integration within the company. In the short-term, it’s very useful, and in the mid-term, it will enable him or her to prepare a plan for you to better manage your career.

2/ How can tests be combined with the job interview?

Companies do not place the same importance on tests in the recruitment process or on tests during the job interview. Therefore, there is not a sole answer.

Perhaps two schools can be distinguished. Some of the companies will give tests a central role during the interview. They will use them as a real discussion tool with applicants, they’ll give a very clear feedback and ask the applicant to respond. The better option for the applicant is to play the game, since the recruiter is not going to pay much attention to the results but to the subsequent discussion with the applicant.

There are companies whose approach may be more minimalist, with tools that will enable them to give an automated report to the applicant and ask him to read it and respond quickly. In any case, the applicant must adapt to the importance the recruiter gives to tests during the interview. However, the applicant must know that he is entitled to have a feedback. If the recruiter happened to forget, the applicant is entitled to ask for it.

But these tools do have a small margin of error. They’re not absolutely perfect. Therefore, the applicant must feel very free to respond to the presented results, rather in a constructive way. Maybe by illustrating with his professional background why he or she does not really correspond to the test results. Maybe by avoiding a more defensive approach: it doesn’t really work to try to show to the recruiter that his or her test is wrong.

3/ Why should you give honest answers?

First, it’s wise and clever to be honest.

First of all, because the designers of these tests planned a way to measure the degree of honesty. Thereby, if you have not been completely honest, the recruiter could notice it. It can make the recuiter doubt. And, in this case, doubt rarely benefits the applicant.

Then, you are going to have an interview where the recruiter is going to tell you about your answers and ask you to illustrate them. Thus, it’s not really easy to elude your tru personality. For a recruiter, the perfect applicant is someone who knows himself or herself, who is lucid, who can describe himself or herself regarding his or her strong and weak points, because it shows his or her maturity. It might also show his or her development capacity.

Therefore, the best advice I could give to an applicant would be to begin by doing this introspection, to know who he or she is, without lying, even if it’s not perfect. It’s always cleverer to have this approach rather than trying to avoid the recruiter “traps”. If you are more mature, it will be considered as an advantage.