Two issues:

1. You're passing the jQuery wrapper of the element into parseInt, which isn't what you want, as parseInt will call toString on it and get back "[object Object]". You need to use val or text or something (depending on what the element is) to get the string you want.

2. You're not telling parseInt what radix (number base) it should use, which puts you at risk of odd input giving you odd results when parseInt guesses which radix to use.

Fix if the element is a form field:

//                               vvvvv-- use val to get the value
var test = parseInt($("#testid").val(), 10);
//                                    ^^^^-- tell parseInt to use decimal (base 10)

Fix if the element is something else and you want to use the text within it:

//                               vvvvvv-- use text to get the text
var test = parseInt($("#testid").text(), 10);
//                                     ^^^^-- tell parseInt to use decimal (base 10)

Split the number from the text, parse it, increment it, and then re-concatenate it. If the preceding string is well-known, e.g., "column", you can do something like this:

var precedingString = myString.substr(0, 6); // 6 is length of "column"
var numericString = myString.substr(7);
var number = parseInt(numericString);
number++;

return precedingString + number;