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Assessment Centres
What is an Assessment Centre?
The term 'Assessment Centre' does not refer to a location, but to a process which is being increasingly used
by middle to large organisations in Australia and overseas to: assess the most suitable recruits to a wide
range of positions; and to identify staff who possess strong potential for higher level positions, or who can
best adjust to changes within the organisation. Positions as varied as production line process workers,
accounts clerks, customer service officers, human resource personnel, sales staff, first and second line
managers, professional occupations, and CEOs have been filled, using Assessment Centres as part of
the selection process.
Assessment Centres allow recruits to demonstrate aptitude and general skills related to the requirements
of the job. They do not aim to test knowledge and technical skills which are unique to the job within the
recruiting organisation. The Assessment Centre develops a set of varied exercises which are designed to
simulate different aspects of the work environment. These exercises may run from 1/2 to 2 days, and are
conducted away from the actual workplace, usually in the employer's training/meeting area, or in facilities
provided by a Human Resource Consultancy, who may be contracted to design and conduct the testing.
While the process is intensive and commonly viewed as 'stressful' by recruits, it also provides additional
opportunities for those who feel that they are not able to demonstrate their abilities as strongly during an
interview. Assessment Centres enable recruits to obtain a practical working idea of what the employer
expects from staff, and may provide opportunities for recruits to network with other participants during
group exercises.
(There are 2 videos about Assessment Centres in the library at Careers and Employment)
Who uses Assessment Centres?
The expense of conducting these tests (estimated from $2,000 to $15,000 per candidate) mostly restricts
their use to bulk recruitment, where the costs can be justified in terms of preventing high expenses
associated with unsuitable personnel e.g. high staff turnover, poor job performance resulting in low
productivity and loss of revenue, and demotivated staff who do not fit into the organisation's new structure.
When are they conducted?
Assessment Centres are used after the initial stages of the selection process, due to the large
amount of time and expense in conducting this process. It may follow short listing of job applications/curriculum
vitaes and the initial job interview. Other measurements such as pen and paper psychological tests may complement
the selection process. Other recruitment activities, which are currently gaining favour, such as an expected
attendance with other hopeful recruits at a company social function, are not part of Assessment Centres.
While an employer may consider a company dinner as part of the selection process for senior specialist and
professional positions, these activities lack the carefully designed and measured outcomes which are in place
with a typical Assessment Centre.
How are Assessment Centres conducted?
Assessment Centres are highly structured in their design, application, and assessment procedure.
They are commonly conducted by outside consultants who have invested large amounts of resources
into researching and designing Assessment Centres, which will produce valid measurements and a
good predictor of future outcomes of test candidates for the business customer. In other cases,
Assessment Centres may be conducted by trained personnel within the employer company.
Each Assessment Centre is specifically adapted for the advertised position, to assess factors
such as the candidate's level of skills, aptitude and compatibility with the organisation's culture.
Each test measures a range of indicators within these factors.
How do they work?
During each test, a group of trained observers will rate individual candidates on a range of set indicators,
using a prescribed performance scale. Results are then cross compared against the same indicators,
which are measured in other tests. Following test completion, observers meet to discuss the test
results and reach a group consensus about each individual's ratings. Observers may be visible during
the test, or more commonly, may view a videotaped recording eg.telephone role play.
What can I expect?
At the beginning of the Assessment, candidates will receive an initial briefing about the timetable of
tests, location of rooms etc. Prior to each test, they will be given instructions describing the exercise,
their role, timeframes, equipment etc. They will not be informed in detail about the individual indicators
which will be measured. Recruits are unlikely to receive feedback on their Assessment Centre results,
unless they have been successfully selected. Employees of a company who have undertaken Assessment
as part of a restructuring or personnel development process, will receive detailed written feedback on
their performance and future development needs.
What types of exercises are used?
The most common type of exercises include:
- Exercises to measure a particular set of job skills
- Case Studies
- In Tray exercises
- Group exercises
- Role plays
Exercises to measure a particular set of job skills
Recruits for a car production line were tested on physical strength, coordination and
aptitude for production line work, by repeatedly fitting tyres onto wheel rims.
Accounts Clerk recruits were asked to complete tests measuring accuracy against speed.
A particular test required invoices to be reconciled against a spreadsheet ledger,
with errors being appropriately amended. Numerical tests may involve calculating hotel
accounts, goods invoices, and vehicle mileage examples, using a multiple choice answer
format. Many of these tests are not designed to be completed within the given timeframe.
Case Studies
Project Managers may be asked to plan for the release of a new product, which incorporates scheduling,
budgeting and resourcing. This type of exercise may measure the ability to: analyse complex data and issues;
seek solutions; project plan; and present findings, using a mixture of presentation skills.
In Tray Exercises
If you are asked to do an In Tray exercise, you may be asked to assume a particular role as an employee
of a fictitious company and work through a pile of correspondence in your In Tray. These tests commonly
measure Job Skills such as: ability to organise and prioritise work; analytical skills; communication
with team members and customers; written communication skills; and delegation (if a higher level
position). This type of exercise may take from several hours to a day. Try to imagine that you are
at work doing the described duties, rather than completing a test. Phone interaction will involve a
role player who has been thoroughly briefed in their respective role as a customer, manager etc.
A common example of an in tray exercise at first level management may involve: placing you in a particular
role within a work setting, where a crisis situation is developing. The situation requires you to take responsibility
for the situation. During the exercise, mail is delivered and collected each half hour. The exercise will
describe what resources are available to you: e.g. a list of internal phone contacts and who's who, a telephone,
fax, personal computer, information such as a product reference chart, data showing the work area's
performance, a calendar which notes key dates and relevant deadlines, a highlighter, pen, pencil,
eraser, ruler, internal memo pad, letterhead stationery, writing pad, envelopes, out tray, and an in
tray containing particular items. Intray items may range from requests to return calls to customers
with specific complaints and queries, comments to be provided to your manager, reports to be completed,
requests from your staff, and office social club notices. Some of this correspondence may be past the
action date, other notes may be vague in meaning.
Group exercises
Group exercises involve candidates working together as a team, to resolve a presented issue.
These exercises commonly measure interpersonal skills such as group leadership, teamwork,
negotiation, and group problem solving skills.
Group exercises may range from 'leaderless group discussion' formats to problem solving scenarios.
In a 'leaderless group discussion' you may be assigned a fictitious team member role and asked to
attend a meeting with other team members who are actually fellow candidates. By the end of the
meeting, the group will choose the best strategy to meet a future prescribed target. Your role is to
discuss the merits of your strategy (described in your written briefing), and to comment on the
weaknesses of other strategies which you suspect will be presented by other team members.
You will have some background on the other team members, including their past performance,
knowledge of the product and situation etc. Other team members' briefs may ask them to
promote the comparatively superior merits of their strategies.
One example of a problem solving scenario includes a Tower Building exercise, using play building blocks.
In this exercise, a group may be competing with other groups to design and build a tower in accordance
with a construction brief which may stipulate minimum height, time period the completed tower has to
stand 'unsupported', colour, cost of block shapes, a time limit, and a budget. There may be monetary
penalties for failing to reach particular aspects of the brief. Each group has access to a limited
number of blocks.
Role Plays
If you are asked to do a role play, you will be asked to assume a fictitious role and handle a particular
work situation. Customer Service Officers may be asked to respond to a number of phone inquiries,
including customer queries and complaints.
This type of exercise may measure: oral communication, customer service orientation, and problem solving.
Managers may be asked to provide feedback to a sales representative staff member, after viewing a
videotape of the sales representative's call with a client, or meet with a same level manager of another
section, to gain their agreement on a service delivery strategy.
These types of exercises may measure: oral communication; maximising performance, and influencing.
Role Plays usually use professional actors as the customer / staff person respondent. They are clearly
briefed about their role and how to respond when the candidate takes a particular approach in the role play.
How effective are Assessment Centres?
Assessment Centres have provided higher validity levels for test outcomes than other selection methods,
including interviews, personality tests, ability tests, and aptitude tests (Landy 1989). ie. candidates who do
well in Assessment Centres are more likely to succeed in the company. This is largely due the wider range of
skill measurements used, which other tests may lack. However, the effectiveness of each Assessment Centre
will depend on the strength of its component exercises. Work simulation tests may closely match the
expectations of the employer organisation. The assessors may be senior company employees who have
an ongoing involvement with and interest in the successful candidate, whom they helped select
(Landy 1989, Robertson, 1987). Lastly, Assessment Centres, by nature of their work simulation design,
'appear' to more closely evaluate the demands and requirements of the advertised position, compared
to interviews and psychological tests.
Nevertheless, researchers including Carless (1997), have found that there has been a tendency to generalise
results across an Assessment Centre test, rather than providing a separate score for each indicator to be
measured within the test. Carless further notes that Assessment Centre ratings tended to reflect a global
appraisal of the applicants' verbal and social skills.
Despite the above conclusions, Assessment Centres have continued to develop since their origins with
the German Armed Forces after WWI, and with the British War Office Selection Boards in 1942, and
they are currently enjoying popularity as a bulk recruitment and development strategy with medium to
large companies in Australia and overseas.
Tips for Success!
You cannot study for an Assessment Centre, although it does help if: you have some idea of what to expect
at an Assessment Centre or work simulation test; you have had some previous experience with different test
formats such as multiple choice questionnaires, data checking exercises, role plays and group exercises. Most
importantly, having a positive mental attitude about the process is invaluable.
If you have been given pre reading material prior to the Assessment Centre day - read, prepare and understand
what is asked of you.
Refamiliarise yourself with the job description, duty statement and other background reading material
about the organisation. This will provide some clues as to what type of employee they are seeking.
Get a good night's rest before the big day.
Arrive early so you do not feel rushed. Perhaps your waiting time in the reception area can provide you
with a 'feel' for the environment - i.e. the written material in the reception/waiting area, other candidates
you may see.
Read all test instructions carefully. Are all the resources, which are listed on the test instructions available and working?
Be yourself - bring your own personality and experience to the Assessment Centre.
Take the tests seriously - the hypothetical scenarios will require you to 'suspend your belief' and go along with
the exercise. The tests are not designed to match the employer's real life workplace.
Do not guess what is being measured as this may affect your participation and assessment eg. quoting the
employer's Mission statement, verbatim, may have no relevance to your assigned role as 'project manager of ACME Ltd.',
when required to discuss a hypothetical problem with other 'ACME' team members.
Treat your attendance as a day at the workplace.
View the Assessment Centre as an opportunity to learn about the employer and the advertised position
Consider the process as a positive learning experience.
Ask for feedback if you were not successful so that you can improve your performance in the future.
References:
Byham, W.C. (1997). Landing the Job You Want - How to have the best Job Interview of Your Life,
Pennsylvania, USA, DDI Press
Carless, S and Allwood, V. (1997). Managerial Assessment Centres: What is Being Rated?
Australian Psychologist, 32, pp.101-105
Development Dimensions International (DDI). (1994), Sample information from the 'Fundamentals of Leadership
Assessment System', North Sydney, Australia
Landy, F.J. (1989), Psychology of Work Behaviour, 4th edition, California, USA, Brooks/Cole Publishers
Newton, T.J. (1994), Discourse and Agency: The Example of Personnel Psychology and 'Assessment Centres',
Organization Studies, 15/6, pp.879-902.
Robertson, I, Gratton, L, Sharpley, D (1987). The Psychometric properties and design of managerial
assessment centres: Dimensions into exercises won't go. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 60(3),
pp187-195.
Woodruffe, C. (1990), Assessment centres: identifying and developing competence,
London, Great Britain, Institute of Personnel Management.
The following videos are available in the library of Careers and Employment:
The Assessment Centre
Assessment Centres and Panel Interviews
Thanks to: Mr Rob Atkins, Development Dimensions International (DDI), North Sydney, Australia, and Ms Vanessa Lansdown.
Prepared by Debbie Lee, for Careers and Employment UNSW
A Student's Perspective
Q) What organisation invited you to attend the assessment centre?
Rail Infrastructure Corporation
Q) At what stage of the application process did you attend the assessment centre (had you
been for an interview or a psychological assessment)?
An initial screening of written applications had been performed, but no interviews or tests had been performed.
Q) Were you given any information on what to expect? How useful was this?
We were told to expect an interview, group exercise and some multiple choice tests. They though
were not too specific on what the group exercise would involve, other than it would involve a team
based exercise. Since I had been to other assessment centres before this, I guessed this would involve
solving problems as a team.
Q) How long was it?
About four hours, but this included everything. The interview was about one hour long, the group
exercise about another hour, and the tests another one and a half hours.
Q) How many students were there?
There were twenty applicants for the session I was in.
Q) How many observers were there? Or were you videoed?
For the group exercise, there were two observers, both I think were HR people. In this case, the exercise
was not videoed.
Q) What types of activities did you participate in? What skills do you think they were looking for?
The group activity involved solving a business problem, first individually, then as a group. In this case, our group was
given the task of solving a problem faced by a computer consultancy firm. Only one staff member was available, but
three clients were asking for assistance in fixing their problems. Each client faced various problems and we were to
decide which client should be scheduled first to have their problem solved. One of the clients was financially important
to the firm, another client had a problem which was causing great financial loss to itself, while another client had a
close relationship with one of the staff of the firm. Since there was clearly not one correct answer, group members
were forced to prioritise certain values over others. Ideally, this would expose to the observers how the participants
solve problems, what values the participants consider important, how participants work in teams and put forward a
case in a team setting. Problem solving, verbal communication and teamwork skills were the skills most closely
examined in this activity.
Q) Did you ask for feedback? Did the organisation offer feedback on your performance? If so, was it helpful?
I did not receive any feedback from the firm, but I did not ask for any feedback.
Q) What was your overall impression of the experience?
With the individual interview and the tests included in the assessment centre,
it was a quite lengthy experience. A presentation on the firm also gave me
greater insight into the role a graduate is expected to perform in the Rail
Infrastructure Corporation.
Q) What advice would you give students on how to prepare?
Research the firm you are applying for to find out what sort of company
they are and what they are looking for. Make sure in a group exercise
you make a sizeable contribution to any discussion, though of course
you don't completely dominate the meeting.
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