Doing an aptitude test? Trust your instincts, unless you’re an accountant
Do you have an aptitude test coming up? It’s very possible. They’re not super common for senior hires (although some banks, such as UBS, do do them), but they’re very common for student hires. What do you do when one shows up in your inbox?
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If you’re like most people, you’re probably rushing them. It’s understandable; they feel like threading a needle. They’re a pain, they’re meant to test your intellectual instinct anyway, they have a low pass threshold… So why not just rush it, even if you get a slightly lower score than usual?
Well, about that. You might not get a lower score than usual. Research from Practice Aptitude Tests – which hosts a number of practice packs – found that, across some 3.8 million aptitude test sittings, the slowest test takers don’t always get the best scores.
If you have a mechanical, inductive, or deductive reasoning test for example, it can benefit you significantly to do the test quickly. Practice Aptitude Tests says that the score gap between the fastest and slowest test takers (quartiles, not maxima/minima) was between 20 and 25 points in favour of the faster test takers. The Watson Glaser test, which is popular with law students, also favoured quick respondents.
Not all tests favoured quick takers. Numerical reasoning and financial reasoning, for example, were completed with higher scores by slower test takers than quick ones. And if you want to be a police officer, accountant, or correctional officer, it also helps to take your time doing the test.
Banks use a mix of these tests on student applicants. Morgan Stanley, UBS, and Nomura are known to set numerical and verbal reasoning tests, and Morgan Stanley's also cover deductive and logical reasoning. You'll likely get both kinds in one go. Take your time on the numbers, and don't stress over pattern recognition. Others skip the tests altogether - JPMorgan used to have games for students to play, for example.
And if you think your future career in finance is competitive, you might be surprised. According to Practice Aptitude Tests, the most difficult tests – the ones with the lowest average scores – included nursing, air traffic, firefighting, and law. Fine company.
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