Learn about the Assessment Centre and how to succeed – with Tony Weightman

Posted on: January 23, 2023

Last Updated on: February 19th, 2023

Post Category: Book Notes

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Before you read…

I’ve graduated from Uni now. From my Uni experience, I applied for a couple of internship/graduate programs and I had friends who did as well. Here’s what I observed:

• It is very common to come across a psychometric test and a group exercise at an assessment centre – especially for graduate programs at large corporate companies (including the Big 4 professional services firms). Appropriately, the graduate programs at these companies oftentimes do not require you to know any particular technical/hard skills.
• It is quite rare to come across writing a report and providing feedback to other candidates at an assessment centre.
• For roles that require more technical skills, you should expect to see more aptitude and skills-based tests. For example, for a software engineering or data engineering role, expect to do a coding test or a quiz on quality assurance. For a data analyst role, you may be required to do a data literacy test or write/interpret code and SQL queries.

Ultimately, the assessments you will come across will depend on what the recruiters are looking for. So, above everything else, I would recommend that you get familiar with what is expected of someone in the role you are applying.

If you want to be very confident about what to expect, reach out to someone who has received an offer for the role in the past; they should be able to give you a spill of what’s involved in the application process.

In saying that, please use these book notes as just an introductory guide to assessment centres, as not all exercises covered in the book are common.

But I do recommend you keep note of some of the tips shared here, like how to approach an individual and group exercise and how to overcome difficulties on the day, because they will be helpful for most students.

In terms of how to practice for assessment centres, some student societies at your Uni may run workshops for different assessment centre exercises; I recommend you go to those to get a feel of them.

Otherwise, enjoy the read!

Let’s kick it off!

How do most recruiters today determine the best candidates for a new role/program in their organisation? They use tests.

What kind of tests? When there is an open role, there are specific tasks, accountabilities and duties that new hires are required to fulfil in order to be successful for the role. And to test whether applicants are fit for this role, they use a series of assessments.

‘Assessment Centre Success’, by Tony Weightman, provides a comprehensive overview of the how assessment centres work, the different types of assessments candidates may come across, and strategies that can be implemented to ensure a high likelihood of success.

Tony Weightman has 30 years of experience as a HR consultant and has worked for large companies like GSK, Nestlé, Virgin Atlantic and Transport for London.

Here are 5 key insights that will help you learn more about the assessment centre, the different exercises you could encounter and how to ensure you have a better chance of succeeding.

1. Assessment centres can be broken down into six stages: invitation, start, exercises, interview, result, feedback

At the invitation stage, you are given basic information about the assessment centre, including the date, time, venue, possible content and any pre-work.

At the start stage, there will be an opportunity for you to meet/mingle with members of the organisation and other candidates, typically in the waiting areas. Following this, the host will introduce the assessors and explain what will happen during and after the event. When you arrive (on time), act confident, be friendly, smile and chat with the others while waiting for the introduction.

At the exercises stage, you are given an exercise to complete as part of the assessment process. Here, it is important that you:

• Listen to the brief and clarify any concerns with the assessors
• Take notes
• Underline key tasks
• Be clear of the allocated time limit
• Stay positive and engaged with others in the group, with a can-do attitude

At the interview stage, all candidates are interviewed – usually at the end of the event, after all exercises have been completed. After the interview stage is complete, all candidates will exit the assessment centre venue.

At the result stage, a wash-up session is performed by the assessors, where their views of each candidate are shared amongst each other. All candidates are assessed in light of the required competencies for the role – or the ‘assessor essentials’. The outcomes are then finalised, with the next steps figured out.

At the feedback stage, candidates are usually given the opportunity to ask for feedback. It is highly advised that you always ask for feedback. This feedback will be helpful for your development – regardless of whether you get accepted or not. After the event, spend some time reflecting on your performance – what you did and what you could have done better. After receiving your outcome, ask the interviewers specific questions regarding your feedback (e.g., ‘What did you see as my key strengths?’ or ‘What areas of my skills and behaviour do I need to develop – and what steps could I take to develop them?’) and request this feedback to be provided through writing or through a chat – whichever you prefer. If a chat happens to occur, you can discuss your performance using the findings/observations from your reflection. This will give you deeper insight into what you need to improve on.

2. Prepare for psychometric tests

Psychometric tests are tests that are used to examine candidates’ cultural fit and/or basic competencies. There are three broad categories of psychometric tests:

• Personality or working preference profile. This type of test is used to identify your interests, values, motivation and working preferences. When doing a personality or working preference profile, be clear with the instructions and scoring method, and try to avoid selecting the neutral/middle answer as much as possible. This will help the test produce a better view of your personality and working style. For example, you may be given a series of statements, and for each statement, you may be given 5 to 7 options to select – the leftmost option being ‘Strongly Disagree’ and the rightmost option being ‘Strongly Agree’. In this scenario, opt to avoid the middle option; this will usually be labelled as ‘Neither Agree or Disagree’.
• Aptitude test. An aptitude test is often used to assess more (technical) job-specific competencies (i.e., how a person will react to a certain type of work). Industries like engineering, computer programming and air traffic control could use such a test, and during this test, you would typically be asked to identify the correct option that either (a) solves a problem or (b) continues the process. When doing an aptitude test, be clear of the instructions and leverage the trial questions before commencing the actual test.
• Evaluation of skill level. A skill-based test is much like an aptitude test, except it is used to assess your ability to work with a more general skill e.g. numeracy, interpreting data and comprehension. For a numeracy test, you may be asked to perform computations (with the help of working-out paper and a calculator) and interpret charts. And for a comprehension test, you may be given a passage containing information and be asked various questions about the content. When doing a skill-based test, practice using the sample questions provided to you, and for comprehension tests specifically, avoid making assumptions based on what is presented in the passage.

If you are a University student, practice questions/tests could be made accessible to you by contacting the careers advisor or employability department.

3. The most common exercise you will be given is an Individual exercise

There are two types of individual exercises: (1) ones that assess your communication skills, and (2) ones that assess your analytical thinking.

For the communication side, you could come across these specific exercises – note that some of these exercises could be performed in groups:

• Written report.
• Formal presentation. For the formal presentation, you could come across two types: (1) presenting facts about a known issue, or (2) developing an idea that solves a known problem. Here, assessors will examine candidates’ problem analysis, planning and organisational skills, business acumen and communication.
• Combined brief. Essentially a combination of the written report and formal presentation exercise. You will first write a report, then you will present the report back in the form of a formal presentation. Here, there is added expectation that you manage your time effectively over the two tasks.
• Providing feedback to other candidates. At the end of the exercise or event, there may a feedback session, where you provide verbal feedback to other candidates.

For the analysis side, you could come across these specific exercises – note that some of these exercises could be performed in groups:

• In-tray prioritisation. Here, you are asked to rank a series of work activities in order of priority. This is used to examine your judgement, decision making, business understanding and time management.
• Business case study. You will be provided a real work-type situation, and you will be asked to analyse information/data and make a decision. There is usually a correct answer, but more importantly, the assessors will examine your communication, business acumen, problem solving and decision making.
• Self evaluation. Here, you will be required to highlight what you have achieved and identify any areas of improvement. Observers want to see how well you can view your performance from an objective lens.
• Role play. An actor will assume the role of an employee, and they will be briefed to behave in a certain manner. For the role play exercise, observers will examine how you handle other people when it comes to everyday situations. Your communication, problem solving and interpersonal skills will be assessed here.

When you encounter these exercises, there are some things you can do to send positive signals to the assessors:

• Have a clear understanding of what you need to achieve, and manage your time by segmenting the task and allocated time into chunks. This will help you monitor your progress and ensure you deliver the correct output.
• Stay calm and positive, and build rapport with the others involved in the exercise. Before you move forward with the exercise, ensure that you considered all the relevant options/information and get others in the team involved in the discussion.
• When writing a report, plan what you are going to write, and ensure that your content follows a logical structure and basic report-writing principles (i.e., including the title and date of the report, titling and numbering sections, uses visual cues to distinguish different sections, and correcting any errors).
• When doing a presentation, plan the layout/format of the delivery, and be confident with your presentation skills – use open gestures, keep eye contact with the panel, keep hands out of your pockets, etc. When asked questions, clarify the question before answering, and if you do not have enough experience to answer a particular question, offer a practical way to remedy it (e.g., suggest a way you can enhance your skills or knowledge in that area).
• When performing a self-evaluation, or providing feedback to another candidate, be honest but positive, highlight the person’s strengths and outline any improvement areas – and ways to work towards improving them. Providing feedback to another candidate should also involve building rapport and having a two-way conversation.
• When asked to analyse information and make a decision, it is helpful use a logical approach e.g., using a table that considers all options and different criteria, or a grid (if you are considering two criteria). For example, you may be given information on three different startup companies and you are asked to decide which one you should invest in. For your decision criteria, you might look at each startup’s industry, core values, historical performance and competitors. You can then score the different startups for each decision criterion and use those scores to select the best option.

4. The second most common exercise you will be given is a group exercise

For the group exercise, you could come across these specific exercises:

• Group discussions. The group gets given some information and a brief, and then all members will be given time to prepare ideas to share with the rest of the group. After this, the group discusses and agrees a way forward.
• Practical problem solving. Here, the group is required to make, construct, or perform a practical task. The brief will have a problem or task that will need to be delivered in a specific timescale, with various constraints attached. Some examples include:
  • Transporting an egg to the ground from a height without breaking it.
  • Building a structure that spans a gap.
  • Transporting a ball from point A to B without it touching the ground. Whenever the ball touches the ground, you restart, but you have a limited number of tries.
• Theoretical problem solving. The group is presented with different options and is tasked to select the best one. Some examples include:
  • You are given the information of candidates’ work history and skills, and, as a group, you are required to select who to hire for a new open role.
  • Choosing a charity to donate to.
  • Life or death decision making. For example, each group member is given a unique profile of a person, and there may be a catastrophic event where everyone but one person can be saved. As a group, you are asked to decide who survives and who dies.
• Follow up exercises. Follow-up exercises build on an exercise you have already worked through; you may be asked to repeat an exercise, or improve on what you have proposed for your final decision previously. It will be the exact same exercise but with added conditions, constraints or complications you need to work around. For example, initially, you may work with a scenario where you are allocating resources to a project, but then suddenly the budget gets slashed.

The assessor essentials for these group activities are generally the same. Assessors are looking for candidates who:

• Are aware of the expected outcome
• Share views freely with the group
• Listen to others’ views and act when necessary
• Encourage others to take part
• Lead the group at times
• Get the group to listen whenever they express an idea
• Plan the task
• Are organised

Regardless of what specific exercise you are given, there are some things you can do to send positive signals to the assessors:

• Ensure that you are clear of the objective (i.e., what is required) and that the rest of the team is clear of the objective. If unsure, ask relevant questions to the assessor.
• Plan what needs to be done to achieve the objective and allocate appropriate time for each task. Keep a close eye on the time to ensure that you have sufficient time to produce the required output.
• Sell your ideas with confidence by outlining your views and the benefits, but be willing to listen to and support others’ ideas. If another idea is preferred/adopted by the group, be flexible and show your support for the new way forward.
• Actively listen to the other candidates whenever they contribute, and ensure that everyone is involved in the planning/discussion. If you notice that a member is being quiet, or not getting enough time in the spotlight, ask for their ideas and involve them in the discussion.
• Take a positive approach. Demonstrate confidence in your team to succeed, and maintain a positive can-do attitude whenever something goes wrong.
• Use the criteria approach to evaluate/compare different ideas that could solve the problem. As mentioned in the previous section, when it comes to arriving at a decision, it is best to follow a logical approach, like using a table that considers all options and different criteria. When using this approach, ensure that your team agrees on the decision criteria being used. This will show assertiveness, collaboration skills, and that you have applied a logical approach with a good breadth of factors being considered.
• Don’t focus on getting it perfect, focus on the process. Sometimes you may not complete a task because of the time constraint, but remember that the observer is mainly looking at the process you adopt and the interaction between members of the group. Even If it is obvious that you will not finish, start to replan how you could make the project a success. This will show the observer that you don’t give in to pressure and that you are focussed on the task.

5. Know how to deal with difficulties on the day

No matter how much you prepare for an assessment centre, unexpected challenges may still pop up.

Below are some of the challenges you might come across at an actual assessment centre, with some recommended courses of action to overcome them:

• You are given an unclear brief. Clarify the brief with the assessors while they are still in the room. Getting clarification will ensure that your approach to the exercise produces the required output.
• There is a dominator in your group. The dominator produces all the ideas and does not listen to others. Oftentimes, they will pick apart and reject others’ ideas. When met with a dominator, manage the conversation; ask other members of the group if they have ideas, or thank the person for their views and state that it’s always good to have more than one option to consider.
• There are conflicting views in your group. When there is conflict, involve the other group members in the conversation to decide the best way to move forward. Even if the decision goes against your view, be a team player – be cheerful that the group agreed on a new way forward and put your energy into it.
• Your group does not have the required experience or skills to do the best job possible. Employers recognise candidates will have varying skill level, so regardless, try to do the best job possible. If your group lacks the required skills, let the team spend more time on planning and preparation to try overcome the lack of skill.
• There is an innovator or rebel in your group. The innovator or rebel will share an idea with the group that simplifies the exercise (e.g., an idea that will allow the group to complete the exercise in 5 minutes, when the group was assigned 30 minutes). Typically, these ideas breach the constraints of the exercise and should not be actioned. Clarify the constraints with the assessors before progressing.
• Time mismanagement. Sometimes time will slip away. When this happens, take some time to quickly re-plan your approach – to deliver as many of the requirements as possible.
• You make a mistake. Do not let your mistakes throw you off and lower your confidence – let go of your mistakes and move on quickly. If it’s possible, correct the mistake. If not, do not dwell on it.

And those were the 5 key takeaways!

For more key takeaways and other posts about personal/professional development, see more of my posts at jason-khu.com,  follow me on LinkedIn, or see the rest of my ‘Uni for students’ guide here.