Q. How should I approach personality questionnaires?
A. Personality questionnaires ask about your preferences. Usually they will ask about your preferences without giving you a specific context (complete it how you "generally/usually" are), though sometimes they may ask you to give your preferences within a work context. Generally it is best not to think too long and hard about individual questions, as first answers or your immediate reaction to a question are usually the best and most accurate. Personality questionnaires are most commonly used to help the assessor understand more about your style and ways of doing things. Try to be as open and honest as you can when completing the questionnaire, as many assessors will use the results in conjunction with other information on you and may interview you about your responses.
Q. How honest should I be when completing personality questionnaires?
A. It can be tempting when completing a personality questionnaire to give the responses you think the assessor is looking for, or to project a profile you think fits the job role or that would be valued by the organization. We would always advocate honesty in completing personality questionnaires. Selection is a two-way process; assessors are interested in how you fit the role, but you should also see this as an opportunity to check if the role is right for you. In addition, any modern personality questionnaires have "response style indicators" or "lie detectors" built into them, which may show if you have tried consciously to manipulate your responses. You are also likely to be interviewed about your responses to the questionnaire, and any attempt to manipulate your responses may become apparent during the interview.
My opinion:
Psychometric/Biometric personality & aptitude assessments are mainly based on how you perceive yourself and how you think others perceive you. There is really no way to study or practice for this part of the test as the questions are based on you. The test is multiple choice and computer based.
The first section of the test I took, focused on vocabulary first. I had 10 minutes to complete as many of the 70 questions based on synonyms and antonyms. Even with this section, there is no real way to study for it, per se, because you don't know what words will be on there. The one recommendation I can make is to read!! Read as much as you can...topic doesn't really matter. Channeling Dr. Seuss, I can tell you that the more you read, the more words you know. If you come across a word you don't know, look it up in a dictionary or thesaurus, so you can add that word to your vocabulary. There are a few links on the main Getting Ready page that can help you with the vocabulary section.
The last part of the test was not timed and had approximately 225 psychometric personality/aptitude questions that measure your skills, abilities, personality and past experiences. As I stated above, there is really no way to study for this section. Answer the question only as it is being asked and go with your first instinct response. You'll notice that some of the questions will be asked multiple times, but in a slightly different format. The agency is looking for patterns! If you answer a question honestly, there is no reason why your response to the next similar question should be different. You control how this part of the test goes! Go into the testing session with a confident (not cocky!) mindset...no negative mindset. The options for these responses will be something to the effect of strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree.
When you are reading the questions, watch out for qualifiers. Qualifiers are words like always, never, all, most, some, none, usually, and sometimes. Qualifiers alter a statement and can make an option on a test question be a correct option or an incorrect option. The following statements are examples using qualifier words:
- It's often hot in Southern California
- It's always hot in Southern California
Best of luck to you all!
