Top candidate selection with an assessment centre
When hiring either in volume, or at pace, assessment centres can be incredibly valuable.
People Business designs and delivers bespoke assessment centres to help organisations make fairer, more informed recruitment decisions. We create realistic assessment exercises around the skills, behaviours and capabilities required for success in the role, combining methods such as interviews, group exercises, role plays, presentations, case studies and psychometric assessment.
From graduate and volume recruitment through to specialist and senior appointments, we can support the complete process, from defining assessment criteria and exercises, to facilitating, evaluating candidates and providing feedback.
We’ve worked with clients to run post-graduate and MBA assessment centres and have a honed approach that has helped them to whittle down large numbers of high-calibre candidates using a series of online and in-person assessments.
Designing an effective assessment centre requires careful planning to ensure it accurately evaluates candidates’ competencies, behaviours and potential. Our assessment centres are structured to incorporate multiple exercises, measuring candidates’ suitability through both directly applicable case studies and gamified scenarios, which assess more than just intellectual horsepower and proficiency in technical acumen.
We know how important it is that the assessment centre should emulate the experience of working with the organisation, and while it’s always our objective to put candidates through their paces it’s also critical that they have a good experience. Individuals perform at their best when they feel at ease so we aim to hit the right balance of comfort and rigour, facilitating the assessment centre in a way that gives applicants a taste of the culture and expectations, often including key business stakeholder in delivering the day.
How we design a successful, innovative assessment centre
While we work with stakeholders to design our assessment centres, we bear in mind the following key points.
Frequently asked questions
People Business works with organisations to design and deliver bespoke assessment centres around the roles they are recruiting for. We can help define competencies, design exercises and case studies, incorporate psychometric or ability assessments, prepare scoring frameworks, support assessors, facilitate the assessment process and provide feedback and evaluation.
An interview primarily relies on candidates describing their experience and how they might respond to situations. An assessment centre allows employers to observe candidates completing practical exercises and responding to realistic situations. Combining different assessment methods can therefore provide a more rounded picture of capability, behaviour and potential.
Assessment centres can support fairer and more objective recruitment by assessing every candidate against clearly defined criteria and using several sources of evidence. Structured exercises, trained assessors and standardised scoring also help reduce reliance on individual judgement or interview impressions.
Assessment centre exercises can include competency-based interviews, group exercises, role-plays, presentations, case studies, written exercises, psychometric assessments and cognitive or ability tests. The exercises should be selected according to the requirements of the role rather than using the same format for every recruitment campaign.
Assessment centres are particularly useful when recruiting several candidates, making high-impact appointments or assessing roles where behaviours and interpersonal skills are important. They are commonly used for graduate recruitment, management and leadership recruitment, volume hiring and roles where employers need to distinguish between several strong candidates.
An assessment centre is a structured recruitment method that uses several exercises to evaluate candidates against the skills, behaviours and competencies required for a role. Activities can include interviews, group exercises, role-plays, presentations, case studies, psychometric assessments and ability tests. Using several methods allows employers to gather a broader range of evidence than an interview alone.
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