Psychometric tests for training contracts are extremely important. Within a week or two of submitting your application form online, your firm will send you a link to an online psychometric test (or two) for you to do strictly under exam conditions on your own. It is critical that this is your own work, and your law firm may even wish you to do a test at their main offices to verify any test result you have reported as having done by yourself.
‘Legal Recruit’ is my relatively new, innovative platform for law students to practice online verbal reasoning test skills in advance of their training contract application. It is nothing to do with BPP, although a small group of us in the student society, the BPP Legal Awareness Society, have designed it from scratch this year. Its location is here.
The deadline for the current set of applications is in 13 days’ time from the publication of this blogpost; that is, midnight on the evening of July 31, 2012 (i.e. before August 1, 2012).
You can attempt a full length practice test of 30 questions, requiring answers of either ‘TRUE’, ‘FALSE’ or ‘CANNOT SAY’, similar to the SHL test. You will then get a detailed report on your performance, giving an indication of the %ile in which you would fall based on our sample of 200 graduates who’ve taken the test. All you need is to supply an email that works – you can submit a fake name if you wish, and none of us are able to look up individual performance test scores.
The practice test is situated here; I do not suggest you register for a subscription at this late stage, just look at the free videos and materials on the website which will provide you with a complete explanation of the online verbal reasoning test. We should emphasise that we do not know any of the SHL questions; and the only way to practise SHL questions is to look carefully at their practice materials.
For nearly all firms, you will have to do an online verbal reasoning test within about a week of submitting your online application form. The most common suppliers of this test are SHL and Kenexa, and we hope that practise using the ‘Legal Recruit’ platform will be beneficial.
You might find these free resources useful in preparation of this test:
A factsheet of free worked examples
December 2010 free book of 150 worked examples for online verbal reasoning tests
April 2011 free book of 150 worked examples for online verbal reasoning tests
Book 1 (verbal reasoning) book sample
Book 2 (situational judgement) book sample
Background to verbal reasoning tests
Background to situational judgement tests
Background to competences (the critical abilities all law firms look for)
Background to difficulties and online assessments
How to complete the online application form for training contract applications
How to write a cover letter for training contract applications
I genuinely wish you the very best of luck for your application! It’s a very important thing to do.
