What is the difference between aptitudes and abilities

The Language Level symbol shows a user's proficiency in the languages they're interested in. Setting your Language Level helps other users provide you with answers that aren't too complex or too simple. Sign up Sign in. Russian English UK Near fluent. English US. Spanish Spain. This can be a potential within an individual that has not been fully developed yet.

In this sense, it lays dormant until the individual realizes that he has such a potential and make use of it. Aptitude tests are aimed at assessing the mental ability of people. The word aptitude can be used in the English language in the following manner. Only a small portion of it is visible outside. Only exposure and opportunities can bring out the latent aptitude.

The home environment and school environment should unearth these potentials within the individual. Because if it is not brought and trained, it lies dormant and unused. Aptitudes have to be trained and honed by training to become an ability. This is where scientific tools like Psychometric testing can be of immense value. It is an unbiased evaluation method wherein it can not only identify the various aptitudes within an individual but it can also accurately measure the levels of each aptitude present.

But a word of caution is that it is a scientific process and there is a prescribed methodology for administering the test.

You cannot do it chatting over a cup of coffee or in a noisy place where there are other distractions. Primarily check if the individual administering the test is a trained professional and secondly the test should be a standardised test. Aptitude tests are generally time bound. The logic being that if you are really good at something you should be able to do it naturally and quicker than a person whose aptitude in that area is lower.

And the analysis and interpretation of the test results should be done by a trained psychometrist. Else it can do more harm than good. A good psychometric test can measure an individuals aptitudes in different areas and the levels it is available in each area. It is very important that a persons aptitude is in alignment with the requirements of his career. Because this is one of the factors which very strongly determine a persons ability to perform on a job.

On the other hand if I have the required aptitude then even with a little training I can perform excellently. Every set of jobs requires a set of different aptitudes. For example, to be an lawyer you need to be good at analytical thinking Reasoning Aptitude , Good with language because you have to argue the case in court using language and prepare legal documents this requires Verbal Apttiude , and also most important you need to able to think differently, look at the situation from a totally different angle which nobody else has thought about and break open the case this is indicated by a high Spatial Aptitude.

So every job requires one or more aptitudes in different levels. As we discuss each career in our further issues the different aptitudes will be discussed in detail according to the requirements of the job. So to conclude it is very important to assess what are the aptitudes an individual is good at and align it with the right career.

Only interest in a particular job is not enough, one should have the required aptitude also. We have looked at Interest and Aptitude, are these two factors enough. So, in summary, we can consider that the skills of a given candidate for a position, or of an employee who already occupies it, are related to these four points:.

It includes my specific virtues, which differentiate me from others and make me stand out from them. In the business world, we distinguish between hard skills and soft skills. Both allow me to perform as a competent person in a given position. It is about what things and, above all, how many things I can cover in my duties, tasks, and responsibilities at a given moment in my professional career. When I read a job offer or a restructuring of my team is proposed, I can observe what characteristics a person must have and evaluate my closeness or lack of closeness to those requirements.

Although there is a difference between aptitude and attitude they are both necessary to perform a given job. Therefore, assuming that we are not always the perfect employee, both should complement each other so that one makes up for the lack of the other and, as a result, performance is reinforced.

There may be candidates for a role, or employees, who are incredibly gifted for a particular job and who also have the right level of motivation, charisma, and energy to perform the task.

However, it is much more likely that people will falter at some point, either in terms of the attitude with which we approach the job or in terms of our abilities to perform it. So the realistic thing to do is to look for the right combination of attitude and aptitude rather than burning ourselves out trying to be the ideal employee or looking for a perfect candidate at every level who may not turn up. When we are looking for a job -or are already employed- we tend to make a lot of assumptions about what our managers will value most , but the truth is that it is not always so clear.

In this sense, neither attitude nor aptitude is a determining factor in getting a certain position or passing the probationary period and staying in it. Many times, especially when we are beginners in a task, we feel insecure about our ability to perform adequately: we believe that we do not have the necessary skills and we are afraid of becoming expendable workers.

However, as long as our skills are not completely lacking, our supervisors often value the attitude with which we approach the task positivity, perfectionism, responsibility, flexibility more than whether or not we are brilliantly talented people for that particular task.