Can a Sales Aptitude Test be Faked?
A sales aptitude test is the best way to hand-pick applicants who possess natural sales ability from a pool of applicants. Sales aptitude tests are affordable, convenient, and accurate, with results corroborated against actual sales performance through 20 years of research and 300,000 assessments. A large body of real-world experience and testimonials exists, including that of many of our customers who credit the APQ for revolutionizing their sales staffing efforts.
That being said, can a sales aptitude test be gamed, with applicants faking their way to a favorable impression?
The problem with some salespeople
Some salespeople can fake their bona fides and turn on the charm in order to get hired. They can negotiate a nice hiring bonus, a forgivable draw every month, and an office with a view – only to be mediocre when it comes to actual closed sales. They are experts at selling recruiters, but are lousy at selling anything else, so they move from job to job.
It’s nice work if you can get it. A good sales aptitude test can burst their bubble, however.
A well-designed sales aptitude test such as the APQ is designed to catch “cheaters” by detecting inconsistencies in their answers. This makes it extremely difficult to game the system, and the test results will indicate that there are inconsistencies. Then it is up to you whether you want to pass on the applicant or have them retake the assessment.
More honest results
If you communicate to a test taker that your sales aptitude test helps to “match” applicants to a position, rather than “filter” them, you will get more honest answers. No one wants to be filtered out; it implies they are not good enough. provokes anxiety, and leads to dishonest answers to try to look good.
In truth, no test is 100 percent fool-proof at catching cheaters, but the APQ stacks the odds in your favor. And if you use the word “match” when explaining the test, you will get even better results.
Proven correlation
What makes the APQ sales aptitude test so powerful is its ability to predict real world behavior and results. While this might sound like an outlandish claim for attest which takes 20 to 25 minutes to complete, well over a quarter-million assessments and two decades of research back it up.
No one is going to get poor test scores as an outside sales hunter on the APQ and then go out and set sales records – we’ve got the data to show it is nearly impossible. We also have the data which shows that applicants with high test scores tend to over-index as sale leaders.
So, the answer to the question, “Can a sales aptitude test be faked?” is: If it’s the APQ, not likely.
If you would like a free sample assessment, please contact me and we will get you set up right away.
