Mary-Ellen, Restructuring

Discover more about Mary-Ellen’s client work.

Tests

We use a number of professionally designed and validated tests to help make sure that all our candidates are treated in a fair, consistent and objective way. Your test results are another piece of evidence which we can use to help decide whether or not you have the potential to succeed at KPMG. The exercises we currently use are:

PAPI: Personality profiling 

Managers and above may be asked to complete a PAPI profile. The profile is based on your assessment of how you like to do things at work. Unlike ability tests, PAPI is not timed and there are no right or wrong answers. Your profile gives your interviewer a detailed insight into your preferred working style and can be a rich source of information for discussion at the final assessment stage. The good thing about PAPI is that you also get some valuable feedback on your work preferences. To find out more about PAPI Personality Assessments you can visit www.cubiks.com.

Verbal and numerical reasoning tests

These are two essential skills that you’ll need to succeed at KPMG and this is why you may be asked to sit one or both of these 20-minute tests. If you haven’t taken an ability test before, we recommend that you get some practice before you sit ours. There are lots of books on the market which give you examples and advice. You can also visit http://practicetests.cubiks.com to see live examples of our online tests.

Whichever test we ask you to complete, the following tips should help to make sure you do as well as you possibly can:

  • Make sure you’re relaxed and have everything to hand before you start the test. Once the time has begun, you cannot stop for a break to get a calculator or find a pen and paper.
  • Don’t expect to finish the tests – they have been designed to put you under time pressure.
  • Don’t get stuck on an individual question; move onto the next one if you don’t know the answer.
  • Don’t panic, the good news is that twice as many pass the tests than fail.

Finally, make sure you do the tests yourself. We test you because you need these skills and abilities to do the job. If you don’t have them, the job is probably not the right one for you. We also re-test a selection of candidates at random, so it’s simply not advisable to get someone else to sit the test for you.