Assessment Centres

What is an assessment centre?

An assessment centre is a place where you get a group of people together who are all potential candidates for a particular role. They are taken through a series of tests, both individual and team-related. The idea of the assessment centre is to provide an extended interview.

Why would I be put through an assessment centre?

If you've been invited by your interviewer to attend an assessment centre, you are normally competing for a role up against other individuals who will be on the same assessment centre. There are two things that your interviewer wants to see in that assessment centre. They want to see how you interact as a team, whether you rise to the surface as the team leader, and indeed, how you compete pretty much on a one-on-one basis.

What will be expected of me?

If you go along to an assessment centre, you'll be expected to work with groups of people. You'll be asked to go through various tests. They will be both behavioural and, normally, psychometric, looking at your trainability in the workplace. You will also be expected at the assessment centre to take part in team activities, and sometimes you may even be involved in a one-on-one competition with another candidate, to see why you're better than someone else. The idea of an assessment centre, from an interviewer's point of view, is to see how well you integrate with groups of people.

What will the employer be looking for?

In an assessment centre, your potential future employer will be looking at your leadership skills and how you behave under extreme pressure with some of the exercises that you have to complete. They'll also look at your one-on-one skills and how you integrate with other members of the team present at the assessment centre. It provides employers with a bit more of a clue about who they're dealing with.

Will I be in direct competition with the other candidates?

You won't necessarily be in direct competition with the other people at the assessment centre. It may be the case that, especially if it's a larger employer, they've got all these people together in the assessment centre on the same day, but looking at putting them into different jobs. However, that's not always true. You could be actually competing with a group of up to ten people for the same role.

Is there any way to guarantee success?

If you attend an assessment centre, all you can do is your very best. You can't guarantee that you're going to get the job. There may be other candidates present at the assessment centre who are much stronger than you.

What are the golden rules to surviving an assessment centre?

The golden rule to surviving an assessment centre is to be yourself. Don't try to be someone that you're not. If you're integrating with other members of the team at the assessment centre, try to think about what the interviewer is looking for. Are they looking for you to demonstrate leadership skills? Is it communication skills? Is it the ability to cope under pressure? Is it one-on-one communication? Is it the ability to solve a problem? Think about what the role contains and try to work towards the goal of the role to survive the assessment centre experience.