Psychometric Tests For Dummies

I thought this might be helpful for a 40ish person looking for a job who had been out of the workforce for a few years due to family obligations. He was always the best candidate and interviewed very well, but when it came to these "personality or psychometric" tests he always fell short. He was actually over qualified. The interviewing process changes so rapidly, which is too bad, because the pick is no longer based on human experience and relations, but on a flawed test......you know, "the model", sort of like "global warming". This book did help him pick up on that portion of the interview and he did finally land a job that his education and experience say he is overqualified for, but this is what he wants for his family. He loves his new job and all those who work around him, love having him there.

really a great tool

The book has a good tone and covers many of the potential tests you can find, providing examples as well. However, some questions are poorly formulated. For instance, in the "odd one out" exercises, all figures have four varied shapes except for one, which has five. One could argue that the figure with the different number of elements is the "odd one out." However, the author gives a different answer to the question. While it’s acceptable to have a poorly formulated question, the more significant issue is that explanations are not included in the book. They provide a website link for further exploration, but unfortunately, that website is inaccessible when you try to visit it.

Until I found out that I would have to take a psychometric test as part of an interview, I had no idea what this type of test entailed. Luckily, there are books solely for the purpose of helping individuals understand the types of questions one might see. The test is broken down into a variety of questions meant to given an employer, school, etc. an idea of how well an individual is able to use logic and follow patterns and such. I also found that vocabulary and reasoning seem to be important. As with the other "For Dummies" books, this one breaks the material down and helps to at least give a gauge of understanding for what you might see on the test. It's extremely helpful for preparation.

This book semi gives you the "rules" to some of the tests, but unless you know that an example can have multiple rules, you'll still risk getting the answer wrong. It's a start, but they don't call the rules anything. This may seem to be a WTH kind of point to make, but there are definitive rules, and you need to know that they exist. You need to be able to search them up in order to pass these tests. The problem is, I usually saw only one rule per example, and again, I've seen upwards of 4 rules on some examples. Having a 25% chance on a problem is better than zero, but you end up wasting valuable testing time trying to eliminate answers when you have a higher chance of getting it wrong. The book is a start, it appears to have a copyright date from 2008 so it's out of date, but if you have nothing else to draw from, it's better than nothing. Personally, I'm still looking.