The Careers Service has over 300 resources available to help you at every step of your career journey. Each week we put the spotlight on a resource that can help you. This week it’s….
Graduates First
We subscribe to Graduates First which allows you to practice psychometric and other common recruitment assessments.
Before we get into the sites: If you haven’t heard the term psychometric tests before - these are tests like verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning or other exercises. Employers may ask you to complete these tests as part of their recruitment processes.
Now all employers can be a little different in terms of the tests they might get you to do. But our testing packages can help you to practice the main types so you can get a feel of what to expect and how to approach them.
What it covers
Graduates First offers a lot of different tests. We’d recommend finding out what employers are planning to use in their recruitment before using these to practice. As you can see there are a limited number of tests to run through so it is wise to save these until you know for certain what test you are doing and can do some effective practice in the run up to the real test.
The types of test Graduate First offers include:
- 7 verbal reasoning tests
- 7 numerical reasoning tests
- 7 logical reasoning tests
- A work style personality questionnaire
- Interview Question Identifier tool
- Situational judgement test
- Assessment centre exercises
- Game-based assessments
- Watson Glaser critical thinking practice test
- IPAT (IBM style) tests
- A very comprehensive package including detailed reports, explanation of incorrect answers and video tutorials
Graduates First also has a guide to job assessment stages for a variety of big graduate employers. So you can get a sense of what tests different employers are likely to ask you to do, and at what stage.
Although we are talking about psychometric tests today, it is also worth pointing out that Graduates First also offers an interview practice tool. You can record yourself answering questions and get some automated feedback on this.
How to access
Both current students and graduates have access to the Graduates First package through the Careers Service. It is really important that you register using our dedicated Bath link on MyFuture. If you go straight to the Graduates First website, you will be prompted to pay for access!
You also need to make sure you register with your bath.ac.uk address. For Graduates use your @bath.edu alumni address.
Find the Bath specific Graduates First link on MyFuture
How to use
Using this resource is really a case of just doing the tests! But in order to get the most out of these we’d recommend:
- Using them in the run-up to a real employer test rather than practicing randomly with no upcoming test in mind
- Making sure you are in a quiet place with minimal distractions
- Give yourself plenty of time – the tests do have time limits but is also good to give yourself some time to reflect on the answers afterwards and work out which areas you need to work on for next time
- Read all the instructions carefully
Even more practice tests
If you exhaust the Graduates First test collection – we do have even more tests on offer. We subscribe to another supplier, Team Focus, that also offers some practice tests. We have also collected some sites that offer some good free options (do bear in mind they also offer chargeable tests).
Further help
If you need further help or have any questions we are here to help. We can help you track down information on specific questions and offer advice on how best we can help you. Email us via careers@bath.ac.uk
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