How to Prepare for an Assessment Centre?

Recruitment processes have become significantly more rigorous and recruiters must use traditional and new methods to filter hundreds or even thousands of applications in order to select a group of candidates to interview and evaluate their capacities and suitability with the company.

An Assessment Center is the most professional and successful method to recruit individuals that accurately fit a job position. They include processes dedicated to assuring that companies get the most qualified, dynamic and efficient individuals that meet the job requirements and that also fit the organization’s work culture.

Assessment Centers are normally the final or penultimate episode of the selection process. Assessment Centers can create assurance and confirmation for the employers that they will obtain competitive and extensively qualified individuals for the job positions. As the testing procedures undertaken by an Assessment Center can be highly competitive, several applicants can be rejected before a firm’s final selection process.

An Assessment Center focuses on a set of varied exercises, which are designed to simulate distinct aspects of the work environment. These exercises and activities evaluate how your behaviours and skills match those required for the job position.

Assessment Centers are increasingly used in different industries and businesses, government and educational institutions to select individuals for various roles such as sales and management positions, technical and supervisory roles, among others.

 An Assessment Center will usually last from half a day to two full days depending on the position applied for. Most likely it will be conducted at the employer's facilities or in case the company outsourced the third party to conduct the Assessment Center, it will take place in other facilities such as a hotel’s conference rooms.

Furthermore, to get a full evaluation from the applicants, companies complement the Assessment Center process by using psychometric and personality tests that will identify and evaluate key skills, traits and behaviours.

How to Make the Best of Assessment Centers?

1. Prepare yourself for the interviews

Competency-based interviews usually taken by the employers in Assessment Centers may include your latest work experience or some situations during your university studies. You may think ahead of concrete examples of different work experiences you had in the past, the specific tasks you were assigned, the approach you made for solving the tasks and the outcome of those. While it would be good to be spontaneous during the assessment, you should also prepare ideas that you may recall during the interview rather than wasting time by thinking.

2. Practice some mock assessment tests

You may familiarize yourself with the possible nature of questions in each type of assessment tests by taking mock exams which are available in the internet. Abstract, numerical and verbal reasoning assessments are usually conducted in Assessment Centers, and you may practice solving some questionnaires that are related or similar to these. As a result, the real question in the Assessment Center will not come as a surprise and you will be mentally prepared for it.

 3. Always remember your work etiquette

Act professionally in assessment centres and try to behave and think like the employees the recruiters are looking for. On the day of the assessment centre, choose corporate attire to look presentable and formal, and arrive at the venue on time. Smile, be confident, shake hands while introducing yourself and be comfortable with people around you while maintaining your composure and focus. Indulge in productive conversations and when appropriate, ask some intelligent questions

4. Get a good night’s sleep

You need to be in top shape, both physically and mentally, in order to meet the expectations in an assessment centre. One way to do that is to have a good night’s sleep prior to the test date. This will also help increase your focus while answering the test questions.

How to prepare for Assessment Center’s Exercises?

 1. Case Studies

Case studies may be used in an assessment centre to measure how you reason with the work scenarios or anything which is business-related, and how you explain your solutions to these scenarios. This may be done individually or by a group.

• If there is reading material available on the sample case studies or recent press releases on the company’s website, you may read them for familiarization.
• Be informed of the current news and trends in the industry that you are applying for, as it may help you explain your solution and present your facts.
• Organize your thoughts well and allocate all the points evenly to the time given for your presentation.

 2. Group Exercises

These exercises may be employed in assessment centres to find out how well you will work with a team and how you will communicate in order to solve a problem or finish a task. You have to be a good team player to do well in this type of assessment test.

• Contribute to the group and show your leadership skills, if any. However, if you are shy, try to reach out and share your ideas with the team.
• Make sure everybody gets a chance to contribute to the team and seek views from those who are too shy to talk.
• Focus on the objective and keep track of the time to achieve your goal within the time limit.

 3. In-tray or E-tray Exercises

As a candidate, you may be put under pressure by giving you multiple tasks to finish in a span of 30 minutes to a few hours, based upon the job specifications. You have to sort out all the information about different tasks given and take appropriate actions for the most urgent ones. Usually, your focus and clear thinking capability under pressure will be measured in this assessment.

• Read through the pending tasks first and identify which ones need immediate attention, which ones can be worked on later and which can be dropped.
• Respond to the tasks depending on the urgency of them and decide the next course of action for each task.
• Manage your time so that you can finish everything in your in-tray, but be careful not to miss any essential information as well.
• When required to write a business letter as a response to one of the tasks, follow formal formatting and use business tone and words.

 4. Written Exercises

These may be employed to measure your professionalism and clarity in sending your messages through email and other written means of communication that may be used by the company.

• Organize your thoughts and show emphasis on the most important parts.
• Use a formal tone and corporate or business terms.
• Go straight to the point. You may not be asked to write prose but a report, a summary or a recommendation.
• Reread your work if you have extra time to make sure there are no errors in grammar or spelling.

By following these tips, you may maximize your chances of being hired in the position you have applied for. Remember to be natural and confident while in assessment centres to be noticed by the employers.

How can Assessment-Training.com help you ace your job interview, assessment and aptitude test?

Assessment-Training.com is your number 1 online practise aptitude test and assessment provider. Our aim is to help you ace your assessment by providing you with practise aptitude tests that mimic the tests used by employers and recruiters. Our test developers have years of experience in the field of occupational psychology and developed the most realistic and accurate practice tests available online. Our practise platform uses leading-edge technology and provides you feedback on your scores in form of test history, progress and performance in relation to your norm group.

The Assessment-Training.com data science team found that through practise, candidates increased their scoring accuracy and went into their assessments more confident. Remember, you need to practice to make sure you familiarize yourself with the test formats, work on your accuracy and experience performing under time pressure.