Clerical aptitude tests are designed to identify candidates who can work quickly and accurately in administrative roles.

Because mistakes in accounting, billing or shipping information can be very expensive, organisations are increasingly using this type of test when recruiting for positions such as clerical jobs, bank staff, cashiers, warehouse workers and other positions requiring concentrated work with client details.

Online Clerical Aptitude ­­– Practice Test

If you are applying for a clerical position then you can expect to sit a number of sub-tests including verbal ability and numerical ability as well as the specific clerical aptitude tests.

The selection tests may also include a typing test if this is part of the job description.

There are two types of test that are specific to clerical and administrative roles.

Data Checking Tests

Data checking tests present you with number of tables of information which must be checked against each other.

This type of test is used to measure how quickly and accurately errors can be detected in data.

Concentration/Work Rate Tests

Concentration tests are used to select personnel who need to work through items of information in a systematic way while making very few mistakes.

They are most often used when selecting candidates for administrative and clerical jobs where mistakes can have serious or expensive consequences.

This includes areas like financial services, legal services and healthcare.

Both of these types of test are speed tests.

This means that given sufficient time to complete them, most people would be able to obtain a perfect score provided that they were capable of working in a systematic and careful way.

However, the time limit is usually set so that the tests are impossible to complete.

In addition, the questions tend to be similar and rather repetitive which makes it difficult to maintain attentiveness.

These factors taken together make this type of test ideal for selecting candidates who are able to process information accurately and maintain their concentration even when certain parts of the job may be repetitive.