Hi guys, I am currently writing a piece regarding the WG tests and would value your opinions.
Love them or loathe them they have increased in popularity with firms like Linklaters and DLA now deploying them as the sole barrier standing between a PFO and a place at their AC.
My personal view is that these tests are completely useless, I just fail to see how your intelligence is being tested as your competition may have an unfair advantage.
1) Many people get help from friends/family as its so easy to do so - the only thing stopping someone is the fear of repeating it at the AC (barely any firms do this)
2) You can now pay people to sit them for you and pay X amount to get into Y decile
3) You can purchase practice tests and answers - Again the law firms will be non the wiser.
4) These tests can be passed with a bit of luck. I did a practice test once (10 questions) simulated them and clicked one of the answers at random and got 8/10. Surely this does not make me more "smart" than the other person who got 4/10 but actually did it properly?
I would love to hear the views of applicants and what they think of the WG assessment. Its quite strange as S&M are seen as the toughest firm to obtain a TC/VS at as they are hugely focused on intelligence (high grades etc) but are also the only MC to not use the WG or any psychometric test.
WG has been around for a long time. I was sending out paper copies of the WG in 2005! I don’t think they are more popular now than they were then. If anything many firms have replaced the WG with other forms of assessment (video interviews/gamification based assessments).
No one is using them a a sole barrier though. Not sure where you got this perception from.
Firms often retest WG at assessment centre (along with verbal reasoning and other ability tests). The retest assessed whether you took the original test or not. I have not offered people in the past where the re-test didn’t match. It’s more common than you think for firms to retest.
As it isn’t a sole assessment, it’s likely that most people who falsely take the test will be rejected anyway.
Firms are well aware of practice tests and answers. Does not mean they are the questions you will get on the individual assessment you will get, as each candidate’s assessment comes from a bank of questions. If I took the same firm’s assessment as you, we’d receive different questions.
No paid for services can guarantee what percentile ranking you will get. Don’t fall for that marketing BS. Percentile ranking processes won’t be the same.
Practice tests are not a true indicator of the real assessment. They are assessed in very different ways - getting 8/10 in a practice test could mean a poor percentile ranking, while getting 4/10 on a practice test could actually be a higher percentile ranking (depending on weighting of questions/whether you get negative scores).
happy to discuss this more generally for your article, if that helps?
