GUEST COMMENT: Ability tests have just got harder

With every single major investment bank (with the apparent exception of Goldman Sachs) using ability tests, be them numerical, verbal or logic, passing them is imperative.

Banks place enormous importance on these tests. Rumour has it that HSBC recruiters have explicitly told candidates this year that they conduct their telephone interviews in order of precedence beginning with candidates who scored highest in their numerical tests. Another candidate who applied to Deutsche Bank for a graduate role requested to change his application to an internship role and was told they'd allow this simply because he scored full marks in his numeracy test.

It's not just HR who are impressed by high scores, but also members of the business. One candidate who received a BarCap offer this year went to spend some time on his desk before signing and when the MD introduced the desk's latest graduate hire to him, she proudly boasted how he had scored full marks on his numeracy test and was 'far clever than the rest'.

Whilst ability tests are challenging, they're certainly not impossible. It's feasible to score very highly on them with some practice. The best places for trials are the SHL, PSL and this website. The key is working accurately AND quickly. All the tests have strict time limits; many candidates often find themselves running out of time and have to guess the last few questions which is not ideal. Although the questions do not try and trick you as such, many will contain a lot of information and it's easy to make simple mistakes.

This year, we've seen banks introducing new variants of the tests in order to make them tougher and filter out the best of the best applicants.

Most notable has been Citi. It seems they've completely altered the numeracy test system they use, and for the first time this year used 'Elements' as the platform for their tests. This is notably harder than either SHL or PSL, and has a time limit for each individual question. Other banks are expected to adopt these new tests very soon as the current mainstream ones make it too difficult to distinguish between the top candidates. Morgan Stanley have this year added a never-seen-before' number checking' test in which candidates are given a long list of two sets of alpha-numeric combinations and asked to decide whether the two sets match. The catch is that there are only a few seconds for each question.

To conclude, ability tests are seen as very important by recruiters in almost every bank. They're here to stay. It's well worth mastering them.