What is an assessment centre?
An assessment centre is an extended period of interviews, tasks and assessment exercises, organised and held by recruiters for small groups of graduate-level candidates. Recruiters use assessment centres to find out how candidates perform in various situations, in particular group situations, which are often modelled on real work-based scenarios.
They are most frequently used by large graduate employers who want to hire a relatively large number of people for a similar job role, such as a graduate scheme.
Why is it called an assessment centre?
The term assessment centre is used because employers usually conduct these extended assessments in a single centre, either an office of the employer themselves or at a third party venue, such as a hotel or function room. The term 'assessment day' is used because most of the time, these extended periods of assessment last for the best part of a day. Many last for 24 hours, and some even last longer (up to three days).
When do assessment centres take place?
If used, assessment centres are usually the final, or penultimate stage of the interview process for graduate jobs. This is because they can be expensive (they take up a lot of space and a lot of employees' time to organise and run) and it is in an employer's interests to invite only job applicants most likely to be hired for the job applied for.
Most job applicants have usually been rejected before the assessment centre stage of a firm's interview process, having been screened out using single phase assessment techniques such as telephone interviews, SHL tests and/or short face-to-face interviews.
What are the assessments?
Assessments will vary from job to job; each employer will develop a series of exercises specific to its recruiting needs. However, regardless of the industry or company, assessment centre tasks and tests will typically be made up of a selection of the following individual and group assessments:
Typical interviews used at an assessment centre:
- Competency interview
- Partner interview
- Technical interview
- Panel Interview
Typical individual assessments used at an assessment centre:
- Aptitude tests - verbal reasoning, diagrammatic reasoning and/or numerical reasoning
- Personality tests
- Case study
- Presentation
- E-tray exercise
- In-tray exercise
- Written exercise
- Professional conduct questions (mainly used by law firms)
Typical group assessments used at an assessment centre:
- Case study
- Group exercise
- Role play
Your performance in each exercise will be assessed against a checklist of the key competencies (abilities and attributes) necessary for the job. These competencies can include:
- Critical thinking
- Decision making
- Interpersonal skills and teamwork
- Leadership
- Numeracy
- Organisation and time management
- Verbal and written communication