Your Strengths, Weaknesses and Trainability

As well as assessing your suitability for a particular job,psychometric tests are useful for your development as a candidate and as an employee by providing an indication of your level of ‘trainability’ and which areas you require training in. For example, one of the characteristics assessed by psychometric tests is ability. Ability actually refers to your capability to learn something, i.e. your trainability. That is, an ability test is intended to assess your capability of learning or potential. One way this is measured is by your apparent relative strengths and weaknesses. For example, if you do not score correctly on a particular item that assesses verbal ability, but you do demonstrate good problem solving skills and ability to learn, your employer will know that you require further training in this area and that you are capable of learning through training.

By practicing psychometric tests online you can improve your capacity to learn particular tasks. Practicing psychometric test online helps you to identify your relative strengths and weaknesses. As a result you can increase your personal awareness of your strengths and weaknesses before the formal psychometric testing situation. You can then further address your weaknesses through your own development and training.

For example, with cognitive ability tests, you are presented with items that represent individual problems to solve. These items either assess verbal (e.g. reading) or nonverbal cognitive ability (e.g. mathematical reasoning). By practicing solving such items/problems through practicing psychometric tests online, you can actually identify your own strengths and weaknesses. For instance, you may identify that you have strengths in verbal cognition and need less preparation in this area. You may identify that you have weaknesses in nonverbal cognition, and that this is an area you need to concentrate on and prepare for further through practicing online psychometric tests.

In addition to identifying your strengths and weaknesses, through practicing psychometric test online, you can increase your level of trainability. That is, practicing psychometric tests online can strengthen your ability to learn, retain and utilise new skills and procedures. This is something that is obviously appealing to your prospective employers. Employers use this information (e.g. your ability test results) as an indication of how rapidly you can learn, use and retain new information, thus measuring how ‘trainable’ you are. This is particularly important when there is a gap between the skills required for a job and your current competency level.

In summary, ability tests are not limited to measuring your verbal and nonverbal cognitive skills. Aptitude tests also answer the following types of questions about you: Can you think on your feet? Can you cope with the mental demands of the job? Could you be a high flyer? Are you a problem solver? Through practicing psychometric tests online, you can improve your level of ‘trainability’, by identifying what your strengths and weaknesses are before you undertake formal psychometric testing. You can then train yourself to improve on your weaknesses, and as a bonus, strengthen your ‘trainability’ in the process.