Management Aptitude & Skills Test (MAST):Purposes and Objectives

Management Aptitude & Skills Test (MAST) is a unique test launched by the apex body of Managemnt in India, All India Management Association (AIMA) in 2010 in order to ease the process of screening the right candidates for the right jobs. It also caters to the problems of the aspiring candidates in finding an appropriate field work.

It is a computer adaptive test which assesses the students on psychometric profile, general aptitude and domain knowledge. This essentially helps the employers in shortlisting the aspirants with the right skills.

The purposes and objectives, MAST serves are listed below:

• MAST as conducted by AIMA evaluates the B-School pass outs on Critical Thinking, Cross Functional Competence and Communication Skills, thus helps the students to know their strength as well as weakness. It is a two way process as the Marks attained by the students also convey the competency level of the aspirants to the employers. Therefore, MAST score is an important deciding factor for recruiters
• MAST is an effective tool for assessing the competitive skills of the aspirants as it examines the candidates' skills based upon their mental aptitude. Mental aptitude shows those skills in which the candidate is best at, therefore it helps the candidates as well as the recruiters to find and know each other creating a bridge between them
• MAST is an independent certification of aspirant's interest of work, knowledge of work and their capabilities regarding leadership and managing a team. Therefore, it is bias free and thus it ensures that the right candidates are chosen for the right job
• As the MAST score gives weightage to the psychometric profile, general aptitude and the domain knowledge of a candidate, it helps the employers to judge the candidate easily beforehand. It thus fastens the process of recruitment and consumes less time in comparison to campus placements
• Also it will cater to problems of the candidates hailing from smaller cities during recruitment in big organisations. It provides an equal platform for them because once they are through with the Test, they are eligible for recruitment in any big organization irrespective of their status

Though it is just a beginning, it is a positive initiative by AIMA which will prove to be fruitful both for the candidates and the recruiters.