I am sure you have heard of Six Sigma, 6S. You probably also know the Six Prep Points,
6P: Proper preparation prevents pitifully poor performance.
Good tongue-twister, and an even better idea. But how should you react when you are told
there is no preparation necessary for an assessment? Is it a trick? An idiot-filter? Surely there is something you can do?
Er, no…
Most test-setters are telling the truth when they say you do not need to prepare for an assessment. The best assessments – the ones that predict job performance accurately and consistently – focus on the deep traits
and abilities that define your identity. Nobody knows for sure whether these characteristics are inherent or learned, but they are deep-seated, hard to
change and cannot be crammed or prepped for at the last minute.
This is a good thing.
You are most likely going to be in work for decades, so you deserve a
job where you will be fulfilled, happy and successful. Assessments get at the full
truth about your capabilities, and match you with the full truth about what
drives success in the job. If there’s a
good match between what you can do and what the job needs, great. If not, better that you find out at the
application stage and look elsewhere. There's little worse than getting hired into the wrong
job and flunking out before you have gotten your first annual performance
review, as happens to anything from 12% to 48% of new hires.
Well, yes…
Having said that you cannot prepare for in-depth
assessments, you can and should get take five common-sense steps to make sure the
full truth about you comes out.
- Make sure you will not be disturbed when you are taking an assessment. Get comfortable, warn others not to interrupt you, turn off your phone and disable app notifications and any other distractions. Do not even think about multi-tasking. Take the necessary 20 minutes or so and focus entirely on the assessment.
- Get familiar with the type of assessment. Find out what the assessment is about, how many questions there are, how long you have to answer each question, whether you need any special equipment (e.g. a calculator). Take the practice questions, several times if necessary. If you can, do this preparation a while before you actually take the assessment, so you know what to expect and feel relaxed and confident on the day.
- If the assessment is timed, manage the minutes. Work out in advance how long you have to answer each question, and how many questions you should have answered halfway through and three quarters of the way through the total time allowed. If you find yourself slipping behind, start making educated guesses (you can usually immediately discount one or even two possible answers). If you only have a minute left, click through the remaining answers randomly. You score nothing for blank responses, so at this last-minute stage you can only gain by guess-responses.
- Be yourself. Go with your instincts, not what you think you ought to say. You want the assessment to reflect the best, the truest you, so answer in the ways that feel most natural. If you are unsure how to respond to a question, your first thought is often the best one. If you get really stuck, think about how someone who knows you well would describe you and your choices.
- Stay relaxed. Try to keep calm before, during and after the assessment. Take a break between assessments, refresh yourself and stretch your legs. Give yourself a small but satisfying reward once you are done. Unless you are doing a timed assessment, do not worry about going too fast or too slow. Once you have answered a question, do not give it another thought. Remember, the assessment is there to show your strengths. The more at ease and open you are, the more of your true self the results will reveal.
Don’t panic – and don’t worry if you do
Even the best prepared candidates get the jitters, but
there’s no need to worry if it happens to you.
Good assessments are anxiety-proof. Nerves can make us forget the date of the
Louisiana Purchase or whether we left the car keys on the desk or in a pocket,
but even people in a state of all-out panic do not typically forget their core
personality or how they go about solving problems, working with others or
getting the job done.
If you do start feeling
nervous in an assessment, stop for ten seconds and take a slow, deep
breath. Remind yourself that the
assessment is there to show your strengths, not to trip you up. If you still cannot focus on the question,
just choose an option and move on – a single fluffed or random answer is not
going to make much difference in the context of even the shortest assessment.
Remember, too, that assessments are all about finding your
strengths, not your weaknesses. Go in
with an open attitude, make sure you are not going to be distracted or
interrupted, and try to enjoy the process.
How often, after all, do you get to spend half an hour completely focused
on yourself? Especially when the
results could – and one day will – lead you to your dream job.
