Psychometric Testing

[FuelFlow]

Can anyone shed any light on these tests. Do most airlines require a candidate to sit them before offering them employment? If so, what are they looking for? Surely you shouldn`t be flying at all if they find you not suitable for a certain company.

Are there any Mad Chaps out there????

Cheers FF

[Dr Jekyll]

It is more a personality classification than a sanity check. Providing you don't come across as a habitual risk taker, or lacking in determination, it's really a case of trying to judge whether you'd fit in.

They can be useful, if administered properly in conjuction with interviews and not taken too seriously.
Best advice is to try to visualise in advance the kind of person you would employ if you were them and try to answer from that point of view. Don't try to speculate what the right answers are to individual questions or the inconsistencies will show up.

Some firms don't worry much about what kind of personality the test indicates, but simply reject candidates that give inconsistent answers on the basis that they are probably bull****ters.

[Lou Scannon]

These tests are extremely valuable in that they provide a good income to the psychologists who administer them.They also help to create the impression that Human Resources are terribly clever people. To pilots they are of little use, especially when trying to select experienced aircrew.

They were originally used in the States where they gave the interviewer considerable protection if the pilot he hired subsequently turned out to be the Boston Strangler.

The correlation between the pilot that you want and the one that you hire can best be achieved, in my opinion, by sensible and relaxed interviewing by sensible and relaxed pilots.
There are however still companies which prefer the mumbo-jumbo techniques of the lego-building tests and these paper exercises. I have worked under both systems over the years and have found the good-guy to nutter ratio to be at it's optimum when candidates are selected by means of a friendly chat over coffee.



------------------
Lou Scannon