When are Aptitude Tests Used, and Why are They Useful? (2024)

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Aptitude tests aim to measure the direction and power of a person’s intelligence.

Properly devised aptitude tests like those in this book use scientific methods to ensure consistency of results and accurate comparison of one result with another. You can then predict what your competencies are likely to be.

It is becoming routine for organizations to use tests to select externally as well as internally.

Why internally, when you might suppose a person’s abilities and competencies are already well known?

Here are some of the advantages:

• To create awarenesss of further potential for development in the person’s present job;
• As a means of assessing suitability for alternative functional opportunities within the same organization;
• In competition with external applicants, to deliberately ‘test the market’, that is, to ensure that the quality of internal staff is keeping pace with what is happening in other, possibly rival, organizations;
• As a way of validating training programmes;
• For purposes of career guidance and counselling.

Why are Aptitude Tests useful?

Aptitude tests are just like any other tools that can increase efficiency and productivity. There is substantial risk attached to selecting or developing people who turn out to be unsuitable, and the financial costs attached to wrong decisions about employment can be considerable.Testing enables many of the aims of organizations that, ultimately, are to do with getting the best results from their people, for example:

• To obtain the most competent students or staff and to develop that competence in order to make fullest use of each person’s contribution;
• To reduce the risk of people leaving, since it makes sense to develop staff, where possible, if they have talents that can be extended;
• To be proactive in discovering potential in staff who may not be aware of it themselves;
• To develop relevant training programmes, either because the tests check on the effectiveness of training or because they help to make sure that training is directed at those most likely to benefit from it;
• To obtain increased staff satisfaction as the result of using tests, since they are not used to judge performances in the present job, but to reveal possible opportunities.

Anything that will decrease costs and increase the probability of success will be taken seriously by an organization. This has led many organizations to investigate numerous methods, but it is only the psychometric test method that has been shown to be consistently accurate.

Start by testing your core intelligence on the webpage set up by the authors of Ultimate Aptitude Tests, Jim Barrett and Tom Barrett. For more information about our Ultimate Careers titles, visit the Ultimate Careers Homepage.

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