Graham Philpott - Graduate Liason Executive

Looks after both graduate recruitment & development across Siemens in the UK.  Worked for Siemens for 2 years, has also worked in Financial Services, the Educational Not-for-profit Sector and a Utility.  Graduated in the Mid-Nineties with a degree in Economics from Manchester University.

Emma Ratnam - Talent Acquisition Administrator

Emma has joined us on a 12 month sandwich placement to replace Ameeta, who'll be leaving us at the end of August.  Emma is part way through her degree in Human Resource Management from Aston University.

Emma Birtles - Talent Acquisition Coordinator 

Emma supports all the graduate recruitment marketing & Siemens Commercial Academy activity in the Talent Acquisition team. Emma joined Siemens in July 2004 shortly after graduating with a 2:1 in a European Business with German degree at Nottingham Trent University. She spent a sandwich year abroad in Dusseldorf, Germany working at an International HR Consultancy company.

Monday 4th August
Again I've been very tardy in updating the blog - so apologies for that. Thank you to everyone who has applied to Siemens this year - we've had record numbers of applicants which has meant that competition for places this year has been fierce. We've just the last few roles to fill, so good luck to those of you still in the process - in fact we've an assessment centre today & I've just seen some very smart & slightly nervous people sat in our lounge area.

We'll be opening applications for next year's recuitment in October, so if you've missed out this year, you've been waiting until your degree was over or it's a little while since you graduated and are now looking at a career change, please start applying then.

One of the things that has been keeping me busy lately is the promotion of STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) subjects. The UK is in real need of people with these types of qualification, so if you are about to make a choice about a qualification, or you know someone who is, then please encourage them to take STEM subjects, be it at GCSE, A Level or degree.

Thursday 3rd April 2008 - Graham
I can't believe that I haven't updated the blog since January. Things have been pretty hectic - thank you everyone who has applied so far, we have 50 or so people who have accepted offers for graduate roles and another 20+ for undergraduate placements - go work but plenty more roles up for grabs. I'm assessing at the Finance Assessment centre next week - so I might see you there.

Any returners to the web site might not be able to tell the difference, but this is a whole new site now, so Emma R & I have been busily learning how to use the new software. From September time we'll be using the new Siemens standard for internet sites. Check out www.siemens.com to see what it looks like - our global parent site has just been awarded best corporate site by the FT - second year in a row!

We've just updated the meet us on campus page with the careers fairs that we'll be going to over the next 3 weeks, so hopefully I'll speak to some of you there.

Cheers, Graham

January 2008- Claire Berry

Hello everyone, my name is Claire Berry and I am a Recruiter within the graduate team.  I have been working at Siemens for 3 years and originally supported permanent recruitment within SIS before moving across to the graduate team in August 2007.  My job is diverse and includes screening your online applications, carrying out telephone interviews, arranging assessment centres, setting up online tests and attending careers fairs.  At the moment the team are still screening applications, this is an on going activity, and we are very pleased with the numbers of people applying this year.  If you have applied and are still waiting to hear from us, pleased be assured that your application is very important to us and we want to make sure it is given the consideration it deserves and we will update you of the outcome as soon as possible.

 Screening applications - Each day we come across some similar areas where candidates are falling down unnecessarily, I thought it may be helpful for me to share these with you.

You do not need to write essays for your answers, but a one line answer is not demonstrating your full potential to us.  Re-read you answer and check it has enough depth to explain a specific example. Please do not copy and paste the same answer for both questions – we do notice! 

Please do check your application form, constant spelling and punctuation errors look bad. 

Check your answers for duplication or any left without an answer selected, this can affect your overall score.

Not too long, but clearly capturing the details about yourself e.g. your university degree subject, grade, work experience, social activities and again spelling and punctuation thoroughly checked. 

As we continue with our selection activities in the coming months, I look forward to speaking with & meeting many of you.

 Good luck with your application!

Friday 21st December 2007 - Graham
It's 8.45am on my last day in before the Christmas holidays - and I've got a really busy day ahead of me - something wrong there, so I thought I'd update the blog with Festive Best Wishes before I get into the maelstrom of activity.

From all in the Siemens Graduate team, we wish you a Merry Christmas & an extremely successful 2008.

See you next year.

Friday 7th December 2007 - Graham
We had the first assessment centre of the year earlier this week - and as a result the first 3 offers for people joining us in Autumn 2008 have been made - congratulations you three - only another 147 to go, plus undergraduates!

We've had a really good response to the November closing date, and we are working as quickly as possible through all the applications - this is taking a little while as all are reviewed throughly, so please bear with us.

It's the Corporate Personnel Christmas lunch this afternoon - all 20+ of us are going out in Reading - if any of you see me please say hello, but bear in mind that a 3 course lunch & a glass of wine might leave me a little groggy!

Finally - my colleague, Steve Young, who is the head of HR Policy & Process, has asked me whether the speling mitsakes in the blog are deliberete - they aren't, so thank you Steve for letting me know & sorry everyone for the tardiness - it shows the benefit of typing into Word & spell checking before doing something on-line.

Monday 3rd December 2007 - Graham
I can't believe that we're now in December - where has the year gone? - it's true what they say about time going quicker as you get older. 

Even at my advancing years, I try to keep learning & tomorrow I get to spend the day in London attending a couple of seminars on the way that recruitment is changing (when I was at university all the graduate application forms were paper based & had to be completed in my best handwriting).

Even at my advancing years, I try to keep learning & tomorrow I get to spend the day in London attending a couple of seminars on the way that recruitment is changing (when I was at university all the graduate application forms were paper based & had to be completed in my best handwriting).

Last week saw the Graduate Orienatation Event for the 2007 graduates - 107 new graduates came together at a hotel in Leicestershire to meet each other, find out more about the company and talk to our CEO Tom White, and the MD of our Building Technologies business, Ian Robinson.  Feedback from the event has been excellent - hopefully you'll be one of the 150 at next year's event.

xt week is the highlight of our Calendar  the Sir William Siemens Medal - celebrating undergraduate excellence at 18 UK universities - all the 2007 winners will be updated on the site in the next week or so.  Actually I've met a couple of them already as Alastair from Sheffield has just joined Siemens, and Karishma from Brunel came to the stand at the careers fair yesterday.

Don't forget - it's the first closing date on Sunday (18th).

Wednesday 31st October - Graham
Been a while since I blogged as we're all out on the careers fair trail at the moment - it's been good to meet so many people at the stands, especially as quite a few have been on the website first.

Thank you for bearing with us while we got the on-line application form up & running - over 700 people sent us their email address for us to let them know when the form went live - I hope that you all now apply!

We're at the Birmingham NEC fair on Friday (Emma & Emma) & Saturday (Me), so please pop over to say hello if you're going to be there too.

I'm doing Mock Interviews at Bath Uni (IMML) on Friday, with Kim Beard (one of our HR Grads) - so tips time for interviews: 
- Before you start going to interviews thinks of things that you are proud of - it might be linked to casual work, volunteering, studies, sports etc - & think through why you are proud of it & exactly what you did.  These times in your life should then be the basis for answering interview questions like tell me about a time when you worked in a team, provided excellent customer service, had to solve a problem etc

- Say what really happened & what your like, not what you think the interviewer wants to hear, because either you'll guess wrong or you'll get away with it & end up in a job that isn't right for you.

Do these things & you'll do alright with the right companies for you.

Happy Halloween everyone.

Wednesday 12th September - Emma
Hello everyone. It's been a long time since I wrote a blog for the website, so please excuse me if I suffer writers block. I hope you all had great summers (despite the poor weather) and for those of you that are about to face your final year at uni - I'm sure you are itching to catch up with all your housemates and start spending this terms student loan on funding the student union bar!

For us, the summer has been a hive of activity (and we thought summer was a bit of time to relax before the October onslaught of careers fairs!). 'Change' has been the buzzword for us - as we have moved our headoffice to Frimley, Surrey, welcomed Emma Ratnam (our new placement student) to our team, said farewell to Ameeta Puni (our previous placement student) and have some great new branding for our graduate website & brochure material.

Jo Shields and her team have been busy finishing this year's selection activity for a variety of roles we were still recruiting into up until August. For Graham & I, we have had our thinking caps on, starting to plan our on-campus and online advertising/promotional activity for 07/08 graduate recruitment campaign. This has by no means been an easy task as we try to look for the best ways to promote Siemens as a graduate recruiter, using both online media (so the likes of Milkround and graduate-jobs.com) and hard copy material such as the Prospects Directory and adverts in the IET magazine for budding Engineers. On top of that, we have been organising a massive number of careers fairs across various university and conference sites across the UK. Luckily, as Graham pointed out in his last blog entry, we have had the support of our new placement student Emma (having 2 Emmas does get very confusing!) in finalising all the logistics for the fairs. She has been doing a grand job. Have a look at the Meet Us On Campus  section of the website to see when we are visiting near you.

Despite careers fairs being tiring for everyone involved - they are such a great opportunity to talk first hand to us (the grad team) but also our graduates and even their managers on occasions. We don't want to be regurgitating information you can find on the website (how many times do you hear 'you can find this out on our website) anymore than you want to hear it, so always come along to a careers fair having done at least a little bit of homework (yes we know you have lots to do already!). Just knowing which employers you want to speak to will help, or having a number of questions ready to ask will help you get the most out of your time at a fair. I am always far more impressed with a student who has already looked on our site, has an idea/specific question to ask. Even if you are completely clueless on what you want to do after you graduate - don't worry you are not alone. At least you are looking into your options - thats what counts.
I myself will be out and about during October & November at a lot of fairs, so I look forward to having informative conversations with lots of you!
 
On a final note, as I mentioned earlier on, we have a new revamped website, which you must have seen by having clicked on our team blog section. We hope you like the 'Show your true colours' theme - we thought as the summer was so dull - it would brighten our days in the office with a splash of warmth and colour. Just remember green = Engineering, blue = IT, & orange = Business and you won't go wrong! Well done Graham - who has been working like a trooper on this all summer!

Friday 7th September - Graham
Hello again.  The sun is shining and it looks like summer is here at last.  Siemens now has a new head office in Frimley, near Camberley, Surrey.  We've been in for about 3 weeks and it's a really good working environment (especially now the builders have left!).  About 1,200 of the 20,000 UK based Siemens staff work here - Corporate Functions, Medical Technologies and Information Systems and Solutions mainly, but lots of other Siemens businesses have employees here too.

Back in January my blog entry mentioned a presentation we were giving at Manchester Met - & I'm pleased to say that someone who attended it - David Leighton - has joined this week.

Have a good weekend.

Friday 16th August - Graham
Well it seems as though I'm the only one updating the blog - I must have too much time on my hands!
The A-level results were out yesterday and congratulations to everyone who did as well as they hoped, and commiserations to those that didn't.  My A-levels spelt B.A.D. on the results slip & meant that I didn't get into my first choice uni - but Manchester let me in & I never looked back.

We've had a new addition to the team this month - Emma Ratnam (pictured on the right) who's on a 12-month sandwich placement, and studies at Aston Uni.  The bad news is is that Ameeta is reaching the end of her placement - thank you Ameeta, we'll be sad to see you go.

We're reaching the end of this year's recruitment cycle - still roles left in our Metallurgical Plant business.  A big thank you to everyone who has applied to us this year (or is about to).

Friday 13th July - Graham
Well it's nearly the end of the day & Friday the 13th hasn't proven too fearsome so far - fingers crossed.

Kim Beard

It's that time of year when we start to see the new graduates join the business - Kim Beard pictured on the right - has just started as one of our HR Graduates, she's started in the Corporate Personnel Policy & Process team (the team I started in when I joined Siemens) & one of the first policies she's looking at is the Home Working Policy.I went up to Manchester yesterday to hand over a couple of awards at the School of Electronic & Electrical Engineering post-graduation buffet & was chuffed to see that 2 of our new graduates were winning awards - one of them is joining Transmission and Distribution and one Roke Manor Research.

And speaking of Roke - it was good to see that Hawk Eye went down so well at Wimbledon - really added to the drama.

Anyway, it's 4.30 & I need to get home in good time today as it's my wedding anniversary.  Whatever you are doing this weekend - have a good one.

Monday 21st May - Graham
I spent Thursday & Friday last week with 30 of our graduates at Team Dynamics near Tunbridge Wells.

They were there to learn about all aspects of Team Working, and to experience it too.  It was the third of 3 events, so now all of the graduates who joined us have been to the course.

What's really impressed me about all the graduates was the energy, ehthusiasm & openess to new ideas that they all supplied & that's the key to being a successful employee in Siemens.  I was also really pleased at just how different they all are - the worst thing for a company is for all the recruits to be the same - to think the same, act the same, talk the same - true diversity comes from a recruitment process that spots potential rather than clones.

If you are/have been studying then I hope that your exams are going well.  However you're spending May I hope that you're getting your applicaitons in - we've plenty of roles still available.

Tuesday 24th April 2007 - Graham
5 more businesses within Siemens have recently asked me to recruit then graduates, so we are in the process of adding these to the website - if you haven't applied yet, don't worry we still have quite a few vacancies.

If you're about to start filling in our on-line form please make sure that you've completed all the sections before you submit it - you'd be surprised how many people 'forget' to complete parts, or write 'Not Applicable' against the competency questions - they don't get very far with that!

If you're having a break from revision at the moment then good luck with the exams - I've always said that there was only so much revision that you cantake in, and that you need to maintain a balance, but then I did get a 2:2 so maybe you should take my advice with a pinch of salt!

Finally - we have a couple of assessment centres in Derby this week for people to join our Power Generation business - I won't be there, but Joanne Shields will be, so if you see her please let her know you've read the blog (Hywell, our Sales Graduate, was recognised in a night club from his picture on the website last weekend!).

Thursday 29th March 2007 - Ameeta
Hello, I've just joined the Graduate Liaison Team, I'm just settling in this week and I'll be looking after the website from now on. So I will be keeping you posted with what's going on in the Siemens world of graduate recruitment.

Bye

Ameeta

Friday 16th February 2007 - Graham
Valentines Day has been and gone & yet again the postman was completely untroubled at my house.  I spent the 14th sitting in on one of the Graduate Presentation Skills courses hopefully picking up tips for the next time I'm presenting on Campus.  I reckon that many of you will be pulling together presentations over the next couple of months for assessment centres, to finish projects or maybe as part of a viva, so I thought I'd share one of the key maxims the trainer talked about on the course - namely, structure your presentation according to 'Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you've told them'.  That way you'll be sure that you message gets across loud and clear.

Have a good weekend.

Thursday 18th January 2007 - Graham
I've just got home after sitting in on one of the Graduate Development Programme's modules - Business Writing (so I'm feeling a little self-conscious writing this!).  I make sure that I sit in on at least one course of each module both to quality control them, and more importantly to meet the current graduates.  With nearly 200 employees currently going through the GDP it's really difficult to get to know them otherwise.

A big tip I picked up was the importance of the title.  If you are writing an email the title determines both whether someone bothers to open it & their frame of mind when they do.  So if you're giving good news make sure that the title indicates it. 
If you're writing a report or a dissertation, the title will again set the tone - so if you're striving for objectivity in the text make sure that the title is objective too.

Back in the office tomorrow preparing for visits to UCL & MMU - maybe I'll see you there.

Tuesday 9th January 2007 - Joanne
Happy New Year!  Today has been really busy, as deadlines are now looming for some of the vacancies and recruitment activity across the programmes is getting hectic!  All of the planning and theory before Christmas is now being implemented so it is a really interesting time for the Graduate Recruitment Team.

I’m sure for yourselves you will be getting back to campus and trying not to panic over the impending exams and deadlines.  I’m sure you have heard all of the advice, so I’ll just say good luck & try your best!

Lisa Anthony joined us just before Christmas as our new Graduate Recruitment Officer; she is responsible for managing a number of our graduate opportunities, working closely with both the businesses and the candidates.

I think it is fair to say that Lisa has enjoyed the start of her induction here at Siemens, she has attended a number of events to introduce her to both her local team and the larger picture of Siemens.  I believe that the investment that the company makes in a person’s first few weeks is indicative of the approach across your career within Siemens.  It has been a pleasure to watch senior managers making a point of introducing themselves and ensuring she is enjoying the experience so far. 

At Siemens you are expected to add value early on, to integrate yourself as part of the team and really get involved.  However, it is such a two way process; you are mentored and supported within your role and given every opportunity to thrive and develop. 

Applications have really increased across all of the roles, so it looks as though lots of you utilised the opportunity of the festive holidays to make some applications.  We will be in contact with you as soon as possible if you have made an application.

Please remember, if you don’t see a specific role on the graduate website, all you need to do is register your interest under the “my page” option.  This takes all of two minutes and then enables us to do the hard work & contact you as & when suitable vacancies get released to the Recruitment Team.

Best wishes for 2007!

Tuesday 9th January 2007 - Emma
Happy New Year to you all! I hope you all had a relaxing Christmas and a good start to 2007! Unlike me, back at work counting the calories (!), I’m sure many of you are still at home eagerly awaiting the start of university and blocking out dreaded exams/coursework deadlines from your minds.

Since I’ve been back, I’ve noticed a real increase in our application numbers over the xmas break – which is really great news. Our recruitment team will be busy screening applications over the next month or so, so if you have applied to us – you will hear from us shortly.

Christmas & the New Year are a great time to apply, as many Companies will have deadlines coming up and websites like Milkround.com and Totaljobs, as well as university careers service bulletins are great at letting you know about upcoming deadlines for a whole range of roles across many areas.

 At the moment, I am thinking about our marketing activities on campus over the next few months. I have organised a presentation to the business school at Manchester Met university for 24^th Jan (if you’re at MMU – be sure to sign up with the careers service!). Over the past few years, we have seen a real increase in the number of business related roles (as opposed to of an engineering bias) across Siemens.

Many of our current opportunities are still advertised on our website at the moment – so we are making a point of whetting the appetite of commercial minded students through some more targeted on-campus marketing. It’s certainly not too late to apply!

We are also expecting further roles to arise over the next few months, so please keep an eye on the website over the course of the next few months, as we are beginning to book a lot of dates in the calendar to follow up from the Careers Fair craze of Oct/Nov last year. We look forward to speaking to some of you over the next few months.

Good luck with your applications!

Tuesday 9th January 2007 - Graham
Happy new year - I hope that 2007 treats you well.
It was my first day back after Christmas yesterday - nearly 500 people applied to Siemens over the festive period, but there's still time for you to apply to all but our Finance & HR programmes.

We're organising campus visits at the moment and I've just updated the  Meet Us page with the things that are already arranged.  Please come by & say hello if you are at the MMS Conference in Southampton on Saturday - I'll need someone to help explain the content of the conference to me!

Friday 15th December 2006 - Graham
It's my last day in the office until the 8th January - I hope that you have a very Merry Christmas & the 2007 holds all you want it to.

Thursday 7th December 2006 - Graham
Emma & I took part in an online chat last week as part of the Prospects Virtual Careers Fair.  It was a first for both of us and we were pleased that there were other people sat at their computers wanting to communicate with us.  Most of the things asked were checking if we mean what we say on our website, and I'm pleased to say that we do - my mantra is to be as open & honest as possible, and to help with that I've just asked a clutch of the 2006 graduate recruits to start doing blogs too - hopefully new blogs will be going live in about a week.

Monday 20th November 2006 - Emma
Today is my first day back in the office, and feels like the first ‘normal’ working day I have had in ages! The emails have been stacking up, so first priority is to plough through a few of those.

Most of October & November have been out and about with Careers Fairs and planning one of our most prestigious events on our calendar – The Sir William Siemens medal event. This event awards an engineering student from each of the top 18 engineering universities in the UK to receive a Sir William Siemens medal from our Chief Executive, Alan Wood. We invite each winner and their tutor to a presentation day – this year it was held in the Science museum’s Directors Suite, to celebrate their achievement. It really is incredibly humbling when you hear from their tutors citations how incredibly talented these students are. (You can read more about this programme on the University Links section under ‘About Us’)

Needless to say, this kind of day has taken a lot of planning, and a lot of team effort. Both myself & my colleague Anna, one of the HR graduates who is currently seconded to our team, have been busy booking hotels, writing programmes, and co-ordinating with the museum to get things right on the day.

Aside from the medal day, I have been out and about at various careers fairs talking to graduates about opportunities at Siemens. When I was at university we were constantly told to go to careers fairs and do our research. Now I am preaching the very same advice!

Careers fairs are the kind of activity I really enjoy as they does make you feel proud to work at such a large company when you have queues of people waiting to talk to you (autographs available upon request!).

I find it always helps when graduates come prepared when they go to fairs. Often the best conversations are with graduates who have ear-marked Siemens in their fair guide before they arrive. Having some idea about who Siemens are beforehand (e.g. through our website) and having the confidence to ask questions, not just making a beeline for the brochure, will ensure you get the most out of your time at a fair.

One of my ‘unofficial’ responsibilities is organising our Talent Management Xmas meal, so my next job will be to book a venue for that. This year is going by so fast – Christmas 2005 seems like only yesterday!

Bye for now. Emma

Friday 17th Nov 2006 - Joanne
Today is an early start with a 7am train into London.  The Recruitment Team are attending a careers fair at the Barbican & I am going along to represent the graduate team & hopefully meet lots of candidates interested in a career with Siemens.

One of my Team members, Angela, is holding the fort back at the office.  She is really busy dealing with candidate enquiries & organising telephone interviews for a number of our programmes.  She is also trying to resolve an invoice issue that we have from one of the hotels that we use to accommodate candidates for assessment centres, when they have to travel to join us for the event.

We have had a steady response since opening our 2007 recruitment campaign in October, & some of our deadlines are looming already!  Don’t worry though, we have many more vacancies due to be released over the coming months.  That said, I would always recommend that you apply to a role as early as possible – Siemens, like many other graduate hirers, works on a “first come, first served” basis.  For example our HR programme is due to close in early January, but we are already progressing successful candidates through to telephone interview stage (part two of typically a four stage process).

The Graduate Recruitment Team grows next month with the addition of a Graduate Recruitment Officer.  I hope to use this opportunity to give you an insight into the Siemens induction process so you can get a general feel for what you could expect in your first few weeks as a Siemens employee…so look out for more details in my next blog… 

Friday 3 November 2006 - Graham
Yesterday was one of those days that makes everything worthwhile.  80-odd (all but 10) of the new Graduate Recruits met up at our offices in Manchester for their Orientation Day.  After a year of working on graduate recruitment it's such a good feeling to see all these eager and intelligent new recruits getting together in one room.  The day's about getting to know Siemens & the Graduate Development Programme - but even more importantly it's about the graduates meeting each other.  Connections made during a graduate programme are often invaluable in getting things done later in your career - indeed one of our MD's was telling the group that he has kept one friendship going from his Siemens graduate induction 32 years ago.

So, tip for the day is to keep in touch with the people you meet - or to use the business speak - actively maintain your networks - because you don't know when you'll need a helping hand or just a friendly voice at the other end of the telephone.

Tuesday 17 October 2006 - Graham
Again I'm sitting typing this during an assessment centre - this time for Graduate Consultants to enter our Business Process Outsourcing business.  I'm leading this one because Anna's now moved onto the next part of her placement.  This will probably be the last assessment centre of 2006, so lets hope we get a good result.
 
Careers Fair season is upon us, I was at UCL yesterday & I'll be at Queens in Belfast tomorrow, my colleague Emma's at Sheffield today for the Yorkshire fair.  The careers advisors are telling me that the careers services are full of finalists this autumn - one hypothesis is that the higher debt levels are focusing minds more than in recent years.  One thing I would say is that people should accept the role that feels right for them, not the first one that helps to pay the bills - I made the wrong choice when I left University, and whilst it all worked out well after a couple of years, my 12 months at work was a bit of a nightmare, so try not to make the same mistake I did.

Friday 6 October 2006 - Graham
I've been supporting an assessment centre today - which is strange because I've spent most of the summer leading them.  I've been relegated to a supporting role because one of our new HR Graduates (Anna Scott who joined in July) has stepped up to the lead role after successfully supporting a number of events over the last couple of months.  It must be strange for Anna because she was in the candidates' position at the beginning of April.  I think this goes to show how really good performance leads to early responsibility in Siemens - I certainly didn't expect Anna to be the face of Siemens to aspiring applicants when she started helping me out in July, but she's done brilliantly, and deserved the chance to put all she's learned into practice today. 
 
It's strange today too because as well as supporting one of the last assessment centres for graduates joining us in 2006, the first of the roles with an October 2007 start date have also gone live this week.  Hot on their heels are my first campus presentation next week, and then careers fair season is upon us.  The Graduate Recruitment process actually lasts about 18months from the business first putting requirements into the business plan to the graduates walking through the door for their first day, so it's always a case of juggling the immediate with future needs.

As I'm writing this I'm also administering a numerical reasoning test to 3 unlucky candidates (what a way for them to spend a Friday afternoon).  I know that these kinds of tests aren't particularly liked by candidates, but they are an invaluable, entirely objective, recruitment tool.  So he's my tips for doing as well at them as you can:
- Keep your mind agile and alert; do puzzles, computer games, read different types of things, mentally challenge yourself everyday;
- Always practice if you can, even having a go at something similar will get your brain working;
- I you're doing them on-line, make sure that you do them at the time of the day you'll be the most successful;
- Don't worry if you don't complete the whole test, but don't dawdle either;
- Apply your exam technique - if you find a question that you don't understand, don't waste time on it, move to the next one;
- If you sit a test always get feedback on how you've done, it's the only way to learn.
 
Have a good weekend, Graham.