IT Interview - Aptitude Test

mccutchie

Hey everyone,

I have an IT interview coming up and prior to it I have to sit an aptitude test. Now I assume the aptitude test is to test my knowledge in the IT field, but when speaking to a friend, they stated not necessarily, its could be based on areas such as Diagrammatic dexterity, attention to detail, problem solving and accuracy.

Has anyone experienced an aptitude test prior to an IT interview and if so, can you share your experience.

cheers

tk123

The ones I write up are just to test IT knowlege. EG we recently hired a sys admin so it was stuff like AD, server probs etc. I always throw in some brain teasers to see what kind of answers we get back to guage the persons way of thinking too. The amount of people who come in for an interview but do crap in the test is amazing thou.

Q - "Which version(s) of W2k3 support clustering?"
A - "Windows Cluster Server 2003"
Q - "What is the minimum number of disks needed to support RAID 5"
A - "2 megabytes"

the_syco

What sector is the job?

Programming, tech support, game tester?

mccutchie

Thanks for the responses. The area is mainly Db Admin, SQL & Oracle

Stheno

mccutchie wrote: »

Thanks for the responses. The area is mainly Db Admin, SQL & Oracle

Should be mostly a test of your technical knowledge then

Good luck!

prem_vw

I'd assume that this test would be mainly based around verbal reasoning, number series and diagramming. Otherwise the interviewer would have called it a technical test. Prob best to ring the company and put your mind at rest.

Supercell

Db Admins are rare commodities, i'd be very surprised if the potential employer is going to mess about with "aptitude" tests, my monies on scenarios and test of knowledge tbh.
At least thats what i would do.

mccutchie

Cheers for the feedback. If its technical I should be fine, i've been in the industry a while now. If its a standard aptitude test on areas such as verbal reasoning, number series and diagramming, it should be very interesting how I fair out.

I'll let you know how it goes

jetski

tk123 wrote: »

The ones I write up are just to test IT knowlege. EG we recently hired a sys admin so it was stuff like AD, server probs etc. I always throw in some brain teasers to see what kind of answers we get back to guage the persons way of thinking too. The amount of people who come in for an interview but do crap in the test is amazing thou.

Q - "Which version(s) of W2k3 support clustering?"
A - "Windows Cluster Server 2003"
Q - "What is the minimum number of disks needed to support RAID 5"
A - "2 megabytes"

Bull$hit.

eth0_

jetski wrote: »

Bull$hit.

Banned for a week.

BostonB

Its a bit of a lottery what kind of test it can be. Sometimes they are sensible and sometimes complete senseless. Sometime the technical tests are reasonable and sometimes they are based on weird trick questions which you'd only know from looking at a book, and not on real life questions. Some of these tests say more about the employer than they do about the potential employee.

That said some are valid tests of a persons common sense and technical ability. If you can't pass them then its times to do some study etc. Its becoming usual to have to pass tests in for IT roles. It can be worthwhile to study certification exams before these tests, as I find they are often simply copied from those.

the_syco

I agree with BostonB.

I've also found some tests to... see which area you'd be suited for (ie: tech support or programming). I've been asked 20 questions about various technologies once, some of which I didn't know, some which I knew.

turtleshead

It depends on the job/sector, I was interviewed for a position in Google and was asked a serious of problem solving questions prior to the interview, that was for a programming position, for a DBA role I would suspect a test around the technologies used in the company, so for Oracle I would suspect you will be asked questions on 8i to 10g and also questions on RAC...

Barry CPL

Could be either, although sounds like it will be about Oracle, SQL etc.
Best to ring the employer (or agency if you are working with one) and find out.
If it is a technical test, even if you have been in the industry a couple of years, it does no harm to do a bit of preparation. Don't get caught out by the classic pitfall - knowing how to be able to do it if you were sitting at your machine (and in fact doing it almost every day), but not being able to describe it in an interview scenario.