Strictly speaking you don't succeed or fail at psychometric tests.

There are no pass and fail marks in the conventional sense. On the other hand, there are things you can do to get the best out of a test.

If you're asked to take a psychometric test, it's probably because your employer or potential employer would like to know if you are a good for a particular job. However if you don't match their requirements, there may be a suitable opening elsewhere.

Make the best use of employees

Some employers use the tests like the Hogwarts sorting hat to make the best use of existing employees.

Supporters of psychometric theory believe the tests give useful insights into someone's attitudes and beliefs as well as their personality. In this way they can, for example, make sure empathic employees with good communications skills work in front of customers while the miserable bastards are kept in the back rooms where they are unlikely to upset anyone.

This is controversial in some circles as not everyone agrees psychometric tests have any value. What's more, while reducing individual personalities to a handful of key terms can by handy, it's an oversimplification and can lead to wrong assumptions about how people will react to various circumstances. Also, people change. If you take the same test on two different days you may get remarkable different results.

While it is possible to game a psychometric test, for example to present yourself with the personality required for a plum job, this is extremely difficult. It's also pointless.

Cheating is pointless

Cheating is difficult because well-designed psychometric tests have subtle cross-references to tease out inconsistencies. Skilled testers will know when your replies are not genuine. And, let's face it, being shown up as flaky and dishonest not a good outcome (unless perhaps you are seeking a career where these traits are an asset). Alternatively, you may just end up looking like you're confused or slightly crazy.

This aside, successfully cheating a psychometric test is utterly pointless because the purpose is to decide whether you are a good fit for a particular job.

Why would you want to trick your way into a role which, by definition, you are clearly unsuitable? Not only will you make yourself unhappy, but you'll almost certainly doom yourself to abject failure.

So, what can you do to get the best from a test?

Ten tips for getting a good psychometric test result:

1. Have a good night's sleep before your test. You'll think clearer.
2. Relax. Clam those nerves, this isn't going to hurt. You'll give a more accurate picture of your personality if you're in relaxed frame of mind.
3. Read the instructions carefully. Read the questions carefully. Reread anything that's unclear. If the tester says anything you don't understand before the test starts ask for clarification.
4. Make sure you are comfortable.
5. Don't hurry. Psychometric tests are rarely timed, so work through the questions carefully and consider each answer before ticking the box or clicking the mouse.
6. The testers want to know what you are like as an employee, so answer the questions based on what you are like at work and not at home or in private.
7. Answer the questions based on how you feel now and not in the past or in the future. The company wants to use your current personality.
8. Don't read too much into each question. Individual questions don't have hidden underlying  meanings, the subtlety lies in how the questions mesh together.
9. Avoid making too many extreme answers. If you have to mark things on a scale of one to five make sure there are more twos, threes and fours than ones or fives.
10. After the test is over ask the tester to discuss the results with you. While you may not get the job in question, the test may provide insights in to more suitable career options.

Psychometric testing is controversial – yet it's popular with human resource managers and recruiters. They see it as a quick and efficient way of sorting people.

From their point of view the issue is simple; a recruit’s CV, interviews and references tell managers about a person’s skills, experience and functional ability. It is harder to get important objective information about personality – in particular a candidate's ability to mesh with a corporate culture.

That's the sales pitch. In reality stressed recruiters use a barrage of different tests, including psychometrics, to speed up hiring.

Some tests are automated. Candidates sit at computers – perhaps in a recruitment company’s offices – and work through on-screen tests. In other cases the tests are paper based and professionals supervise the testing.

At a senior level these tests are a waste of time without a qualified and experienced professional taking charge. The results are complex to interpret and sensible analysis is beyond the scope of a layperson.

It might be fine to hire a cleaner on the basis of an automated test, but not a knowledge worker.

My psychometric test experience

I experienced psychometric testing in the 1990s. After a series of intense interviews for a senior position I took the tests. The session lasted for around four hours, almost without a break. In my case I warmed up with what looked like IQ tests and moved on to logical reasoning exercises.

Next was a long and vaguely baffling exercise where I had to choose from seemingly random pairs of job titles in order of preference. For example, the test might pair 'janitor' and 'rocket scientist'.

Picking one of those two isn’t hard. In fact, the test was obviously designed for an American audience and included job descriptions that, while not incomprehensible, certainly were not familiar.

Finally there were the real psychometric tests – I suspect the job-ranking test might be a form of psychometric exercise too. Answering the questions isn’t difficult; the tester asked me not to think too hard but to go with my first response to any question.

By the end of the four-hour test session I was emotionally drained, physically exhausted, thirsty and hungry. After a 30-minute lunch break I returned for a task-specific question and answer session.

A few days later an industrial psychiatrist called me to discuss the tests. He discussed my longer-term career prospects and plans and made suggestions that I hadn’t otherwise considered.

I worried the tests might show me as an employment basket case – or worse. In fact the news was positive and insightful. It turns out I'm better at certain things that I previously thought. I got the job, but that’s another story.

Going on my experience, I see merit in this kind of testing. Personality is the most important factor when hiring an executive. It's more important than skills and experience and as important as aptitude. It is good to set up objective benchmarks that go beyond the kind of human prejudices we can all be, even unwittingly, guilty of.

The downside of psychometric testing

However, I have two concerns. First, despite what the professionals say, it is possible for people to learn how to answer psychometric tests in a way that portrays them in a favourable light. You can succeed at psychometric tests.

I once interviewed John Wareham a New Zealand-born recruitment guru who helped develop these tests, he said the trick people quickly learn is to avoid the extremes. Most tests ask you to rate things on a scale of 1 to 5 – if you want to get a good job make sure the bulk of your answers cluster around the centre of this range.

On the other hand minor alarm bells ring if you fail to tick any extreme answers. Wareham also said the tests quickly detect any dishonesty by cross-referencing, so answer truthfully or you’ll be exposed as a phony.

My second fear is that managers use it as a way of offloading decision-making responsibility. External objective measures are good, but they can’t make decisions. There’s a temptation to just look at printouts and test scores and not go beyond this to look at other, possibly more compelling, evidence.