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All this arguing about testing is moot. The OP said there were questions she couldn't answer that were like "college algebra". She is not a college grad and apparently the high school algebra did not meet this level or stick with her.
She is not qualified to get the interview compared to other applicants skills, it's that simple.
I applied for a web design internship and was called for a "possible" interview, but only after I pass the aptitude test. I asked the employer via email what this test consists of so I can prepare for it, and he said that it was a general test and there was nothing to study for.
I said okay. So I went to the office with nothing to study for. All I've googled from aptitude tests were just puzzles you find in generic IQ tests.
The lady(at the front desk who was not the employer) gave me a packet, and asked me to work in another room. The packet consists of 5 pages of problems that you normally get in a college algebra course(some of it was logic and puzzles). She gave me, 12 minutes to finish these tests. So I did the best I could. Some of those questions took a bit of time to answer correctly. I only managed to reach about 2 pages. And when the test was done, the lady checked and told me that I didn't answer enough questions, therefore not qualify for an interview. At that moment, I wanted to cry. I wanted to send the employer and email and say "What the **** was that for?!"
I left the building, in tears, in absolute anger that my 2 hours of my time was wasted(I take a bus to the building.) I wanted to cuss out the employer and say "Why". Why the living hell of all things would you bring math questions in a job that consists of designing things?! What does that have to do with my skills in HTML, CSS, Photoshop, all the adobe products, concepts of design, which I study very hard for?! I didn't even get a chance to show off my skills.
If there was a test that consists of HTML and Adobe Creative Suite, I would have grabbed all of my design textbooks and spend all night studying for it. Making sure I remembered everything there is to know about the topic.
What does this have to do with being a web designer?! Why do I have to answer some irrelevant aptitude test?
Sounds like the test screened you out appropriately IMO
I'm not opposed to such a test but imposing aggressive time limits makes the test less about intelligence and more about efficient test taking strategies.
That alone is information the company may wish to have about a future employee. Also, written testing of any type reveals people who can't read well or follow instructions (even if they are proficient in math), which are also legitimate reasons to reject job candidates.
The NFL uses the Wonderlic test, administered at the annual Scouting Combine, on candidates who submit for the professional football draft. There has been plenty of discussion that the test in no way indicates one's ability to play football. But some teams believe it helps them categorize draftees.
Take a look at the test. It's based off of your quickness. There are typically two types of cognitive ability assessments called; "power" tests and "speed" tests. It's two different ways to "measure" cognitive ability. They are typically very highly correlated with each other (r's of .8-.9). Tests like Wonderlic are actually a little more accurate at lower levels of cognitive ability because the questions are so easy. Above are a couple of the questions. It's the same one you hear about NFL players taking every year. Where guys like Vince Young supposedly scored like a 6, which means he got 6/50 questions correct in 12 minutes. I'm fairly certain the average person gets around 20 questions correct.
In my grad school stats class, the professor did a whole lesson on the test given to football players, and why it was a flawed measurement of intelligence that had little if anything to do with what actually happened on the field. It was pretty fascinating. It was part of the section on validity and reliability.
In any case, I think administering tests like this during interviews is usually counterproductive. They typically don't measure anything close to the actual skills needed in order to do the job well. People still believe in them somehow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MSchemist80
If you want to test candidates you give them a test of skills specific to the job especially in technical professions. You ask them about hypothetical scenarios and such. Other than that you use the interview to show they can present themselves as professionals.
You don't give junk science psychometric tests or this gimicy test and then stretch logic to say it gives a measure of time management and prioritization skills. All this test is is a novel brain teaser gimic.
Testing is a way to reduce the candidate pool. When companies have to deal with too many applicants, they often want to reduce the number they have to look at. Unfortunately, when they do this, they are more likely to weed out the best candidate for the job than weed them in but with so many to choose from, they still end up with someone decent.
I recently applied for a job at Verizon and I had to take two tests. The first one was basic mathematics, reading comprehension, reading tables and locating errors. Half the people that showed up for the test FAILED it. So the job pool is apparently filled with a lot of morons that flunked out of high school, or if they didn't should have been. Verizon even provided a practice test online days before the test date so you knew what to study for, there's no excuse for failing this test in my opinion.
The second test was more geared to the work the job was for, but if you had computer and networking knowledge/experience, it was pretty easy to pass (at least for me). They again provided a practice test days before the test so you knew what to study up on. Fewer people failed this test, but there was still unqualified applicants to be weeded out.
In my grad school stats class, the professor did a whole lesson on the test given to football players, and why it was a flawed measurement of intelligence that had little if anything to do with what actually happened on the field. It was pretty fascinating. It was part of the section on validity and reliability.
In any case, I think administering tests like this during interviews is usually counterproductive. They typically don't measure anything close to the actual skills needed in order to do the job well. People still believe in them somehow.
Exactly.
Neat. I didn't say that the wonderlic predicted success in the NFL, just that it is used by the NFL. That doesn't mean it doesn't predict intelligence, all it does mean is intelligence doesn't differentiate great football players from poor football players.
The company which hired me fresh out of college administered Wonderlic to all applicants in management track positions. I scored higher than any other applicant for the vacancy. I proved to be an outstanding employee and was steadily promoted.
I never thought the process was unfair when the exam was presented as part of the hiring process as I knew I was much smarter and mentally quicker than most folks.
Now as the senior manager, I use Wonderlic for any position which has managment track potential. I saw too much grade inflation and cheating while attending university to have faith in transcripts. I also see significant exaggeration of abilities or achievements in resumes. The exam allows me to reduce the pool to those I know are both intelligent and swift in mental calculations which are key factors for success in my experience.
In the middle of a job search for a sales and marketing position and I hate those tests now. Used to do well, if not too well (had a previous manager tell me that I scored too high on my verbal and I might use big words that clients could not understand, so almost didn't get hired). Seems that companies are looking for more aggressive sales people or sales reps that are more detailed oriented these days. I'm scoring lots of phone interviews and first interviews then take the Wonderlic and never hear a response back. The Wonderlic in the past helped me score some sales jobs with Fortune 500 companies, now it removes me from the pool. Now trying to focus my job search with smaller companies that don't use any tests and having better luck scoring second or third interviews.
Sometimes, employers have to narrow down their candidate pools when applications flood in.
The test is the most effecient way to do this. There might be some mistakes, but the overall result is pretty fair. This world is full of liars, nothing wrong that companies want to do some screening. It is a practical way to hire people. You say that you are qualified to do this job, prove it.
I had my first encounter with the Wonderlic fairly recently, and actually hadn't known what it was called until I began reading this thread.
Mine was at a fairly small local company that manufactures items for large, well-known locations and companies in the region. The woman who administered the test told me afterward that she'd never taken it herself and that she'd been told "there were no right or wrong answers". I replied that actually there were and that it was pretty obvious from the questions that it was an intelligence test meant to measure a person's logical and reasoning capability.
I don't know what my actual score was, but she did tell me that I scored "off the charts" compared to most of the applicants they'd been getting for that job. (For all I know, they might decide they want me, as I was told the hiring decision wouldn't be made until close to Christmas. In the meantime, I already have a short-contract job closer to home, so this might all become academic.) Now, I tend to do pretty well on tests of this nature, and I did have the presence of mind to skip over any question that was taking me longer than about 20 to 30 seconds to solve, in favor of answering a higher percentage of questions overall. On the other hand, I'm fairly good at doing math in my head, so that still didn't require me to skip too many.
If I recall correctly, I made it through about 33 to 35 questions in those twelve minutes, and I would estimate based on past performance that I probably got only one or two of them wrong. Then again, I like brain teasers.
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