Criteria Cognitive Aptitude test - 2nd stage

[R.O.S.S.I]

Sorry for the thread resurrection but I have to do one of these for a job interview in the next couple of days.

Did the OP pass?

Have to say they are quite tricky from the couple practice ones I've done and it's definitely made harder by there not being a "standardised" set of questions/structure.

I struggle with some of the more obscure matrix/shape questions. The questions themselves don't actually appear to be too difficult but are made infinitely more difficult due to the time constraint.

Going to plough through as many practice tests as possible and maybe do it tomorrow night. I have to use some desktop and webcam recording software whilst I do it.

Have to say it's only been in my last two job applications that I've had to do them (or a variation of an aptitude test). Are they becoming more commonplace?

 

[HangTime]

We used a similar aptitude test at a previous employer. I quite liked them; I never had someone score highly on them that turned out to not be very smart, although the converse isn't true (i.e. scoring badly doesn't necessarily infer incompetence). Two of my best hires were > 95th percentile compared to the general population.

 

[VoteQuimby]

I recently had to take this specific test and weirdly enough, my "raw score" was 26 but my math and logic subcategory was 85.
I've always been terrible with spatial and verbal though.

 

[dowie]

We used a similar aptitude test at a previous employer. I quite liked them; I never had someone score highly on them that turned out to not be very smart, although the converse isn't true (i.e. scoring badly doesn't necessarily infer incompetence). Two of my best hires were > 95th percentile compared to the general population.

That's kinda the bare minimum in some places tbh. for example in terms of IQ (which is pretty much what these tests are a proxy of) the average Physics grad might be circa 133 and the average maths grad 130 etc.. that average is around the 98th percentile, But if you're recruiting from among maths and physics grads and want the best then...


On the other hand, I've seen an experienced manager come in with a very mediocre score and do well regardless, really should have been a "fail" if hired for a technical role but... he was well recommended and it's not necessarily as important for his role; turned out he was a good hire. He was super organised, could present himself well and was great at managing a team.

 

[Nitefly]

My approach to these (many, many years ago!!!) was to read the question first. Then you know what to look for in the wall of text they give you.

 

[HangTime]

That's kinda the bare minimum in some places tbh. for example in terms of IQ (which is pretty much what these tests are a proxy of) the average Physics grad might be circa 133 and the average maths grad 130 etc.. that average is around the 98th percentile, But if you're recruiting from among maths and physics grads and want the best then...


On the other hand, I've seen an experienced manager come in with a very mediocre score and do well regardless, really should have been a "fail" if hired for a technical role but... he was well recommended and it's not necessarily as important for his role; turned out he was a good hire. He was super organised, could present himself well and was great at managing a team.

Anywhere that has that as a bare minimum is clearly looking for a particular type of person, probably for some sort of technical or hands-on role, I'd be surprised if there were many orgs that had such a policy across the board as critical thinking just isn't THAT important in some roles. Certainly if we'd had such a policy we'd have really struggled to fill our roles. I guess if you are recruiting grads then it's of relatively more importance because there won't be much work experience to go on etc.

What I found interesting was we had quite a few applicants with truly abysmal scores. Like amazed they can tie their shoelaces sort of scores. I remember someone who'd worked at Deloitte for four years and interviewed 'OK' being 4th percentile (no that isn't a typo!) for example. That wasn't a one-off, in fact I actually resat the test myself (with a hangover) because I thought it might be bugged or something! In the end I got Recruitment to change our process and move the test to pre-interview because it was a waste of time interviewing people who would then flunk the test.

 

[dowie]

In the end I got Recruitment to change our process and move the test to pre-interview because it was a waste of time interviewing people who would then flunk the test.

Yikes, that should be standard already in any place where a test is a hard pass/fail. Get one of the receptionists/admin people to usher someone into a conference room and conduct the test(s).

At some proprietary trading firms it's a few rounds of tests before you're even seen by someone for an interview, first round is in a group setting too, bunch of candidates all sitting an exam or two in a conference room. (But these firms get a lot of applicants!)

 

[Rroff]

These things are hilarious, probably took me a good 3 minutes to get my head around the reasoning in the example question in post 3, but on balance I'd probably do a better job than someone who can flash through 50 of these in 15 minutes :s

 

[OldKitMan]

ideally you want something that says - read all questions before starting and then on the last page says go back and do question 1 only, the number of people actually doing this would have had similar experience before and be very low.

 

[FishThrower]

These things are hilarious, probably took me a good 3 minutes to get my head around the reasoning in the example question in post 3, but on balance I'd probably do a better job than someone who can flash through 50 of these in 15 minutes :s

wouldn't surprise me. These tests (as well as most academic qualifications) are absolute garbage in the real world after having 5 years of experience under the belt. I have 22 years of experience in IT, and earning decent money, if any company asked me to-do this on interview stage I would simply decline .

 

[malachi]

wouldn't surprise me. These tests (as well as most academic qualifications) are absolute garbage in the real world after having 5 years of experience under the belt. I have 22 years of experience in IT, and earning decent money, if any company asked me to-do this on interview stage I would simply decline .

Never apply for PWC, they have these stupid tests too.

I wasn't offered an Cloud Engineer role because of it.

 

[dowie]

These things are hilarious, probably took me a good 3 minutes to get my head around the reasoning in the example question in post 3, but on balance I'd probably do a better job than someone who can flash through 50 of these in 15 minutes :s

Depends on the role really, it's not going to tell you how well-organised someone is, how hard working they are, how good they are at managing projects etc.

But for some technical roles and some roles in say finance too they need people to be really quite sharp, have good problem-solving skills etc. and getting at least some minimum score on these tests can be a useful indicator there.

 

[FishThrower]

Depends on the role really, it's not going to tell you how well-organised someone is, how hard working they are, how good they are at managing projects etc.

But for some technical roles and some roles in say finance too they need people to be really quite sharp, have good problem-solving skills etc. and getting at least some minimum score on these tests can be a useful indicator there.

yeah i can see the logic behind that for sure, but i cant see how tests like these are relevant to IT roles, like a bog standard support, engineering or development role. These sort of tests were very common mid 00s for IT roles and thought they died off. I had a absolutely brutal coding test on PowerShell for quant trading firm a couple of years ago, that was savage but relevant to the role.

 

[HangTime]

Even if not relevant I think there's a lot to be said for hiring smart people (assuming they tick other boxes), like I said above probably my best two hires (in IT) scored high 90s, they didn't necessarily need that to be successful but they had the right aptitude for identifying problems and figuring out solutions, able to understand complex situations fairly quickly etc. It's also just nice working with people close to your level so you don't have to dumb things down. They still would've been hired if they scored 20 percentiles lower, but the extra brainpower helped them to shine.