What are assessment centres?

An assessment centre is a real chance to shine amongst other candidates. It is the first time that you will come face to face with those that you are competing with, and be tasked with working together with them on various tasks and activities.

Here, you will have the chance to demonstrate a wider range of skills including teamwork and communication that may otherwise be overlooked in individual interviews.

Assessment centres can be held online or offline, where you will be asked to travel to the venue of the assessment. This year, it is likely that the majority of assessment centres will remain online.

What are the my credentials?

In order to justify the advice that I am giving here, I'll take a chance to go through my assessment centre credentials. Once again, I am no expert, I am just sharing my experiences to help others.

I attended the assessment centres of:

• Volkswagen Group
• PepsiCo
• JDE
• TOPSOIL

And out of varying numbers of candidates - progress through all four of them. I even had one perfect score [45/45] in one of my assessment centres, a score they had never given before.

What happens at an assessment centre?

The most common assessment centre structure will look like this:

• Group task
• Lunch Break
• Individual interview
• Individual/Group Presentation

This was the structure that I encountered the most and seemed to be a pattern with other candidates that I spoke to. Don't worry about this though - you should get adequate information prior to any assessment centre on the days' structure and how to prepare.

An example schedule for the day

You will often find that recruiters will run talks throughout the day - but excluding those and focusing on the most important parts, an assessment centre schedule could look something like this.

09:00 - Intros

You are normally given around 15-30 minutes to connect in case anyone has any internet issues or alike. Make sure you get there on time, if not early, and don't be afraid to start a conversation! Quite often, those introducing the assessment centre will be the ones assessing you later on. Starting building a profile for yourself.

09:30 - Group Task

After the introductions you will likely be assigned into breakout rooms, or taken to different rooms if you are lucky enough to do the assessment centre offline. Here, you will be given a group task and time to complete it with other candidates.

These normally last between 20 minutes to one hour, excluding time that may be needed for the assessors to give feedback and collect their notes on the session.

10:30 - Interviews

After the group task, you will likely be interviewed next. Again, all dependent on how the recruiter structures the day. These normally last between 15 minutes and one hour.

You may find you have some time waiting around as others are being interviewed, but most recruiters try to keep this to a minimum. If you do find you are waiting around in a room with anyone from the company, start a conversation!

12:00 - Lunch

Normally you will be given a 30 minute - 1 hour slot for lunch.

13:00 - Presentations

In the afternoon, you are likely to do presentations. You may be assigned the brief prior to the day or even on the day like some of my assessment centres.

These may be group or individual presentations.

14:00 - End of day

Assessment centres are normally no longer than 5-6 hours. Although be prepared for some recruiters that like to make the most of the opportunity and will have you essentially on camera from 9-5:30 and beyond.

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