What is an Assessment Centre?
An assessment centre (or assessment day) is a series of exercises and activities designed to examine a candidate's competence for a role. They exhibit a wider variety of talents than in a formal face-to-face interview.
Assessment centres, which may last from an afternoon to two days, are frequently the final stage of the selection process for big graduate recruiters. Typically, six to eight applicants go through the process.
Here, the applicant must participate in various management-related tasks (tests). Some examples of typical exercises or tests:
Various types of psychological testing
Management simulations.
In-Basket exercises. The applicant is challenged to tackle several managerial difficulties.
A group discussion (GD) on various management themes.
Management subject oral presentations
Effective report writing, etc.
During these examinations, psychologists and experienced managers monitor and analyse the candidates. During the tests, the applicants are also interviewed. Then, for each candidate, an evaluation report is created. The Selection Committee receives this evaluation report. The Selection Committee uses this report to identify the best candidate for the job.
Assessment centres advantages to a company
They are significantly more accurate than traditional recruiting processes since they allow for a more excellent range of selection methods during the process.
They allow interviewers to measure current job performance and forecast future work performance.
They allow you to examine and discriminate between individuals that appear to be highly comparable in terms of quality on paper.
They provide candidates with a better understanding of the role by testing them on tasks that are typical for the position they have applied for.
They assist firms in developing an employer brand. Even if they are rejected, candidates who attend assessment centres that accurately depict the position and the organisation are generally pleased by the firm.
The cost of an assessment centre is often less expensive when compared to the possible cost of many recruiting phases and the cost of recruitment blunders.
They are a fair procedure; they supplement an organisation's diversity programme and ensure that employees are chosen only on merit.
Typical problems to avoid while setting up assessment centres
Recruits with high expectations may be disappointed if the assessment centre leads them to assume that the job or organisation aligns with their beliefs when, in reality, it does not.
If you haven't specified the essential qualities and a mechanism to quantify these competencies before the event, you'll only be able to compare applicants based on anecdotal facts.
