I have to write a situational judgment test for a job I’m going for at work, and I’m really nervous. I was given 2 practice questions (here), and did miserably on both. I don’t tend to think of myself as having such abysmally poor judgment, but as it stands, I don’t think I’ll do very well. My biggest problem is that I don’t really understand the rationale for the answers they selected, so it’s difficult to understand what they’re looking for. Has anyone else written a test like this? Does anyone have any insight on how these tests work? Any idea on how someone could prepare for something like this? Or am I just doomed to my life of poor judgment?
This is such an abyssmally bad test. The first one suggests that you get involved with a problem that rightfully involves your fellow employee and your boss, not you. The second involves a problem between you and that employee and suggests you exclude him from it and go over his head to the boss. It’s so contraditory that I would suppose that the example questions’ answers were hopefully random.
Otherwise, I suppose that if your fellow worker were a cashier and an wad of hundred dollar bills fell out of his pocket, I should scold him give it back to him. In the other, if he left the cash register open, I should not tell him to close it but have the boss hire another guy just to close the register.
The only choice you have is to answer how you think the tester want you to answer and question the questions with your examinor. :wally
Wow.
I’m at a loss for words. This is such a bad test.
Both questions are similar; they both ask you how you solve the problem of a fellow employee not working when they should be. In the first question, they emphasize that you take a proactive approach and make things better without management’s knowledge or approval. I’m fine with that. But then, in the second question, they want you to take the problem to management and let them solve it. And I’m fine with that too. But if this is a test where there are right and wrong answers, they should be consistent.
You can tell a lot about what’s important to a company based on the sorts of questions they ask you and their expected responses. Perhaps they emphasize self-management. Or perhaps they encourage employees to rely on the chain of command. Or perhaps they focus their tests on other areas, like core competency, or on solving unknown problems quickly. In this case, what you can tell about the company is that they have no idea what the hell they’re doing.
If this is really a criteria for working at this job, I wonder if you want to work there. I see your link is on a site of the Canadian government. This is such an embarassment to my northern friends.
Thanks guys, I’m glad I’m not crazy.
Yeah, it’s a job with the Canadian government (I already work there, this is to try for a higher position). Usually the competition process is actually really good, a combination of knowledge tests, competency assessment, and personal suitability. I’ve written other standardized tests that aren’t nearly as head-scratchy as this one. I guess I’ll just have to cross my fingers and hope enough of my guesses are right.
But thanks again for the reassurance that it’s not just me…