The Assessment Centre

More and more these days, clients that have multiple vacancies are favouring holding Assessment Centres as opposed to individual interviews. It enables them to get a higher volume of vacancies filled in one hit, or alternatively, to compare candidates all in one place.
So, what’s involved and what can you as an applicant expect?

An assessment centre is where all candidates are invited to attend a recruitment day. It is sometimes at the companies office but often at a hotel with business facilities. It is run by the HR or Recruitment Dept and often assisted by the recruitment agency. The line managers also attend and the idea is to get the recruitment done in one sitting. It’s a group and individual interview process. So what happens?
Well of course all companies are different, but the principles of running assessment centres tend to focus on similar themes. So for example, we are currently running assessment centres for one of our clients and the format goes like this.

9am – 9.15 – Meet in hotel foyer for coffee and meet other candidates.
9.15 – 9.30 – Welcome and introduction to the company from HR Manager. General outline of the day and identifying the different       positions to be recruited for.
9.30 – 1pm – Groups are split and begin the first of 4 sections.

• Group work. Often this is a team work exercise or group discussion / debate. It’s important here that you can show that you are a good team player. Not the one that takes over, and not the one that sits quietly and doesn’t participate. A balance is key – considered input and interaction with others.
• One to one interview with HR and / or line manager. The same as any other interview but on a tight time frame. Know your CV, know the position and know the company. See interview tips and advice section of our web site.
• Technical Test / Interview – often companies will have a written or practical technical test.
• Role play. Not always, but particularly if the position is in sales, telephone support, or customer facing, it is common for companies to run Role plays. Everybody hates them so you’re in the same boat as everyone else. The trick is not to see it as a Role play, take a moment to get yourself into your zone and nail it like you would if you were actually doing the job.

1pm Lunch – sometimes offered unless the assessment centre finishes before hand. Note, that even during lunch, you are being monitored! How are you interacting? Are you sitting over in the corner on your own or socialising? Avoid too much interaction with hiring managers etc, a little is fine but don’t be seen as a creep!
1.30pm Closing debrief. A chance for any questions and goodbyes. It’s a very good idea to personally thank as many of the recruiting team as you can before you leave and leave them in no doubt about the fact that you would love to join their company.
1.45pm Call your agency, 100% obviously!! Let us know how you got on, we are always itching to know. We’ll then do the rest and go and get that offer for you.

To reiterate, all assessment centre’s are different, but we’ve attended and organised many over the years for a wide range of different clients with different needs, and they are all very similar. So relax, and try to enjoy it if you can. Some people panic and we’ve seen people that just up and leave. But if you’re prepared, confident and focused, you’ll have a good day.

Final tip – it always amuses me to see that everybody, particularly the men are gathered together and looking exactly the same! All in dark suits, looking very smart as you should do of course, but all exactly the same. So it’s difficult for the line managers to differentiate candidates. I would perhaps suggest subtly and carefully standing out. Maybe a brighter tie (don’t get me wrong, nothing Wacky), but a red or something. Perhaps a coloured shirt. The amount of wash-ups that we’ve attended and people get referred to as “the guy with the blue shirt was good” or “the guy with the red stripy tie”. So stand out, but make sure it’s not for the wrong reasons of course.

If you would like to discuss this in more detail, especially if you are attending one of our assessment centres this week, please give Colin a call.

Good luck and enjoy it!!