Civil Engineering Aptitude Test for hiring in the Philippines
The Civil Engineering Aptitude Test helps employers screen potential candidates to identify the most competent, who are more likely to excel in civil engineering roles and solve complex problems effectively. This test helps evaluate an applicant's technical, verbal, quantitative, and reasoning skills.
Inside This Civil Engineering Aptitude Test
What is the Civil Engineering Aptitude Test?
The Civil Engineering Aptitude Test is a specialized section of a broader aptitude tests, designed to evaluate whether candidates have the core skills and competencies required to succeed in civil engineering roles.
Civil engineers are responsible for designing, planning, overseeing, and developing infrastructure projects. Their work involves creating detailed design layouts based on client requirements, reviewing and approving technical designs and reports, and identifying risks and challenges at different stages of a project.
As part of an overall aptitude assessment, the Civil Engineering Aptitude Test evaluates a candidate's functional and technical readiness for the role. It measures proficiency in numerical calculations, data interpretation, logical reasoning, and practical problem-solving related to real-world engineering scenarios. The test helps employers and institutions assess whether a candidate can perform civil engineering duties in line with established industry standards and professional expectations.
What does the test measure?
This assessment determines the technical knowledge of a candidate in the following aspects through a set of cognitive ability and domain skills-based questions:
- Ability to analyze the site location, surroundings, and to conduct a search and investigation that ascertains the feasibility of a location for construction purposes.
- Ability to design a plan by outlining the key variables and stating what needs to be changed before construction.
- Ability to develop a detailed design layout, keeping the client's requirements in mind.
Why is it used in hiring?
Engineering colleges produce a large number of graduates each year, but many are not fully job-ready. Civil engineering roles require strong domain knowledge, problem-solving ability, project management skills, and effective communication, which traditional hiring methods alone often fail to assess accurately.
Online civil engineering aptitude tests help recruiters objectively evaluate a candidate's technical and cognitive skills. This test identifies applicants with the aptitude for civil engineering roles, reduces basic training costs, and ensures faster on-the-job productivity. As a result, organizations can improve hiring outcomes, achieve better ROI, and build a higher-quality talent pool.
Who should use it?
This test is helpful for HR teams, recruiters, and engineering managers involved in hiring civil engineering talent. HR teams can use it to efficiently screen large applicant pools and shortlist candidates based on aptitude rather than resumes alone. Both recruiters and engineering managers benefit from having a way to objectively identify qualified applicants early in the hiring process. Together, these stakeholders can make more informed, data-driven hiring decisions.
What are the skills measured in this Aptitude Test for Civil Engineers?
- Technical knowledge: Assesses a candidate's understanding of core civil engineering concepts required for professional practice.
- Engineering mechanics: Assesses the understanding of forces, equilibrium, and motion in engineering systems.
- Structural analysis: Evaluates the ability to analyze loads, stresses, and structural behavior.
- Strength of materials: Measures knowledge of how materials respond to stress, strain, and deformation.
- Hydraulics and fluid mechanics: Tests the understanding of fluid behavior, flow systems, and hydraulic principles.
- Construction materials: Assesses knowledge of material properties, selection, and applications in construction.
- Transportation engineering: Evaluates concepts related to road design, traffic flow, and transportation systems.
- Geotechnical engineering: Tests understanding of soil behavior, foundation design, and ground stability.
- Surveying: Measures the ability to interpret land measurements, maps, and survey data.
- Environmental engineering: Assesses knowledge of water treatment, waste management, and environmental protection.
- Job-readiness skills: Evaluates the practical and cognitive abilities required to perform effectively in real-world engineering roles.
- Problem-solving: Evaluates the ability to identify problems and apply logical solutions.
- Numerical ability: Tests accuracy and efficiency in performing engineering calculations.
- Spatial reasoning: Measures the ability to visualize and interpret two- and three-dimensional structures.
- Reading and comprehension of technical drawings: Assesses the ability to understand blueprints, plans, and engineering diagrams.
Who should use this Civil Engineer Aptitude Test?
This test is ideal for employers involved in planning, designing, and executing infrastructure and construction projects. Construction companies, infrastructure firms, and EPC companies can use the test to identify candidates with strong technical foundations and problem-solving abilities. Real estate developers and road, bridge, and building contractors benefit from assessing job-readiness and on-site decision-making skills. In contrast, government contractors can ensure compliance with quality and safety standards through skilled hiring. Civil engineering consultancies can rely on the test to evaluate analytical ability, technical accuracy, and practical understanding, thereby building reliable, high-performing engineering teams.
Why should Philippine companies use Mercer for the Civil Engineering Aptitude Test?
Philippine firms can significantly benefit from using Mercer for the Civil Engineering Aptitude Test, as it can help address recruitment challenges in practical, data-driven ways. It can also narrow down unqualified candidates to a considerable extent by screening and filtering them before actual employee interviews. It significantly saves engineering managers' time by eliminating the need to conduct repeated technical interviews. Mercer has assessments that help evaluate candidates based on their practical, fundamental understanding, not mere theoretical concepts. With standardized skill evaluation, companies can compare candidates impartially and consistently across roles and locations, removing guesswork from hiring decisions and leading to more reliable, job-ready engineering hires.
How do Philippine companies use this test?
Philippine companies administer the Civil Engineering Aptitude Test at various stages of the talent lifecycle to make skills-based decisions. During campus hiring, the test helps shortlist eligible candidates from a large pool of applicants. While hiring laterally, the test helps assess potential candidates' level of knowledge in their profession before the interview. During bulk hiring, the test optimizes the selection of eligible candidates, significantly reducing the recruitment process. The test is also used to make promotion-related staffing decisions in the company. Lastly, the test can be used as a pre-training tool to determine skill gaps and design relevant training to increase workforce efficiency.
Civil Engineer Aptitude Test sample question and answers
1. A simply supported beam carries a uniformly distributed load over its entire span. Where will the maximum bending moment occur?
a) At one-third of the span
b) At the mid-span
c) At one-quarter of the span
Correct answer: b) At the mid-span
2. Which type of stress is induced in a structural member subjected to a compressive load?
a) Compressive stress
b) Tensile stress
c) Shear stress
Correct answer: a) Compressive stress
SKILL LIBRARY
Civil Engineering Aptitude Test competency framework
Get a detailed look inside the test
Civil Aptitude Test competencies under scanner
Cognitive ability
Domain ability
Competencies:
This test assists employers in recruiting candidates by allowing them to work with the information presented in a number-based format to make business decisions and analyze the commercial impact of how good a decision is.
This test helps hire candidates who can understand and analyze the fundamental elements, phenomena, and parameters of electronic and magnetic circuits, which govern the electrical system's development, design, and subsequent performance.
It assesses candidates' ability to manoeuvre the terminologies and supervise power plants involving various power generation techniques, renewable and non-renewable energies, transmission and distribution modes, and power management.
It measures candidates' potential to master and engineer the circuit configurations for power conversions and control using semiconductor devices and their deployment for various drive applications involving prime movers.
This test section uses JC Raven-based questions to analyze candidates' abstract reasoning skills.
It helps employers hire candidates who can understand electrical and electronic terminologies and administer the design and development of autonomous and intelligent systems.
This section of the Civil Engineering Aptitude Test includes several questions and covers a range of subskills, like linear and ranking arrangements, syllogism, misc: reasoning, coding-decoding, and directions.
This section of the Civil Engineering Aptitude Test assesses candidates' verbal abilities. The questions included in this section cover several subskills, such as spot-the-error, sentence formation, sentence correction, sentence completion, reading comprehension, etc.
This test part assesses candidates' ability to work with numbers and calculations. Averages, percentages, ratios and proportions, and tables and graphs are some of the top subskills covered under this section.
Competencies:
This test section has been designed to effectively evaluate candidates' ability to apply different tools and techniques for creating and surveying construction projects.
This section of the Civil Engineering Aptitude Test has been designed to gauge candidates' ability to understand mechanics in solids and structures and apply the principles of mechanics in construction projects.
This test section evaluates candidates' ability to understand the workings of soil, concrete, foundations, and supporting materials and their applications in building reinforced structures.
This section of the Civil Engineering Aptitude Test focuses on assessing candidates' domain skills in understanding and managing various aspects of construction projects and their ability to apply learned principles in transportation engineering and related projects, like airports.
Under this section of the test, candidates are evaluated on their understanding of the mechanics of fluids and the governing equations of fluid flows so they can effectively design pipe systems. The section also evaluates candidates' knowledge of hydraulics and hydraulic machinery basics. Candidates must also demonstrate their skills in efficiently managing water resources by building hydraulic structures.
Customize this Civil Engineering Aptitude Test
Flexible customization options to suit your needs
Choose easy, medium or hard questions from our skill libraries to assess candidates of different experience levels.
Add multiple skills in a single test to create an effective assessment. Assess multiple skills together.
Add, edit or bulk upload your own coding questions, MCQ, whiteboarding questions & more.
Get a tailored assessment created with the help of our subject matter experts to ensure effective screening.
The Mercer | Mettl Civil Engineering Aptitude Test advantage
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Yes, it is possible. We can benchmark applicants as per the client’s requirements. Please write to us for assistance.
The Civil Engineering Aptitude Test by Mercer | Mettl has been designed to help recruiters assess candidates for essential competencies that civil engineers require to succeed in their job roles. Apart from evaluating candidates’ aptitude for civil engineering, the test also covers functional and cognitive skills, like numerical ability, logical reasoning, and critical civil engineering concepts.
The Civil Engineering Aptitude Test by Mercer | Mettl has been designed to help recruiters assess candidates for essential competencies that civil engineers require to succeed in their job roles. Apart from evaluating candidates’ aptitude for civil engineering, the test also covers functional and cognitive skills, like numerical ability, logical reasoning, and critical civil engineering concepts.
The Civil Engineering Aptitude Test by Mercer | Mettl has been designed to help recruiters assess candidates for essential competencies that civil engineers require to succeed in their job roles. Apart from evaluating candidates’ aptitude for civil engineering, the test also covers functional and cognitive skills, like numerical ability, logical reasoning, and critical civil engineering concepts.
The Civil Engineering Aptitude Test by Mercer | Mettl has been designed to help recruiters assess candidates for essential competencies that civil engineers require to succeed in their job roles. Apart from evaluating candidates’ aptitude for civil engineering, the test also covers functional and cognitive skills, like numerical ability, logical reasoning, and critical civil engineering concepts.
The test covers core civil engineering subjects, including engineering mechanics, hydraulics and fluid mechanics, surveying, transportation engineering, and environmental engineering. It also assesses job-readiness skills, including problem-solving, numerical ability, spatial reasoning, and the ability to read and interpret technical drawings.
Yes, the test is suitable for site engineers, as it evaluates their practical understanding of on-site concepts, material behavior, drawings, and the problem-solving skills required for day-to-day work.
Yes, the assessment can be customized based on client requirements.
