Thought your exam days were over when you finished your finals? Unfortunately not. If you’re looking for a new job the chances are that you’re going to be tested for it in some way. Seven employers out of ten use literacy, numeracy and general ability tests on candidates. And about half use personality tests and assessment centres, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Here is some guidance on what to avoid in a testing situation.

Go in unprepared. “You think you’ve seen it all, but then you see a mouse being rubbed on a screen to try to make it work,” says Geoff Chapman, the head of communications and marketing for Prometric, an electronic testing and assessment provider. This is an extreme example, and Prometric offers familiarisation sessions for people who don’t use computers regularly. But it does highlight the need to understand what will be expected of you in a test. There are dozens of online resources to help you here (for example, www.shldirect.com), so there is no excuse for not knowing the format of the test you’re taking. Be careful of online forums, though, says Eugene Burke, the director of science and innovation at SHL, a people assessment company. “Some of the advice you see on forums is very bizarre. People who have taken tests say that they asked these questions and they are looking for that [answer], but they have got it wrong.”

Cheat. A lot of online ability tests are done from home, says Alan Bourne, the director of professional services at Talent Q, another people assessment company, increasing the temptation to get your brainy mate to do the hard questions for you. “It does happen every now and then,” he says, “although it’s not as common as you would imagine.” He says that this is because candidates are usually aware that there will be a verification test at the next stage of selection - and that being rumbled for cheating does not endear them to their prospective employer.

Second-guess the employer. Psychometric tests are cleverly designed to notice when people are trying to put across a false image of themselves. But, more importantly, if you’re not completely honest you might end up with a job that you are not suited for. Helen Bradley, a managing consultant at A&DC, an HR consultancy, has a story about a candidate whose display of honesty might have been a bit aggressive, but at least made sure that he didn’t end up in the wrong role: “I saw a head of PR and communications at an assessment centre for a job in central government. One of the exercises was to do an interview with a reporter on a controversial topic, so we had a ‘reporter’ come in with a tape recorder – we also wanted to record them. The candidate was so aggressive about the topic that he refused to allow the tape recorder to be put on.” After the assessment the candidate, who came from a strongly commercial background, admitted that he would find it difficult to work in a government environment where the emphasis was supposed to be on openness. As extreme as his reaction was, he understood that his style wouldn’t be right for the organisation.

Forget yourself. Chapman advises against using a computer workstation as a personal gym. “A lot of people try to release tension by undertaking exercises,” he says. “We see a lot of people windmilling their arms and there are stories from our test-centre managers of mousemats going flying and people getting hit by the person sitting next to them.”

Dominate the group. “There might be a group discussion exercise and we often see people who dominate to the extent that they alienate others in the group,” Bradley says. “The other extreme is the people who sit back and don’t say anything. It’s about the balance.”

Go to the wrong city. “We had a candidate coming for a test in Newcastle upon Tyne, but headed off down the M6 and ended up in Newcastle-under-Lyme,” Chapman says. “He just didn’t read the documentation properly.”

Bring your dog. Although even this is not entirely taboo. Bringing a friend or a parent for support is fine with Chapman. “But someone tried to bring his dog along to our test centre in Glasgow,” he says. “In the end the invigilator just asked him to leave it outside.”

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