How to ace an assessment centre

An assessment centre is usually the second last stage of an application process in internships and grad roles. Having passed the initial stages of screening, psychometric test, and a phone interview, you only have 2 more steps of the application steps before you can get hired!

Firstly, what is an assessment centre? An assessment centre is a test designed to test your responses, critical thinking and logical reasoning to a given business simulation. It is designed to test a range of candidates and their ability to think analytically, problem solve and collaborate. Thus, it is highly challenging and most candidates are eliminated at this stage.

1. Prepare: Keep up to date with financial news. The case study or assessment centre could ask you about various strategies dealing with recent politics. Thus, it is important to know the context of the market and the context of the world in the present. Likewise, it is important to know what kind of strategies that you can take and answer to in the assessment centre. Going on forums such as Whirlpool can give insight into what kind of questions you run into, and specific advice on how you can tackle specific problems. Searching up the company name in the forums can give you a lot of information on how these companies conduct the tests.

2. Do past practice tests: Practice tests are readily available online especially past questions – you can find specific ones for each company. You can find them for free online, and it is a good idea to go through them, writing down answers for each scenario. While certain elements may not be similar because the assessment centres are now conducted online, practice is always useful.

3. Attend workshops for assessment centres: Workshops tailored towards certain assessment centres are geared to give you tips and tricks as well as personal advice. Usually they are run by student societies OR even companies. To take it a step further, they usually offer mock assessment centres, where you can put the knowledge you have into practice, as well as receive feedback as to how you did.

4. Get advice: Asking any recruitment employees in the company, or just in general alumni who work in that company, is greatly beneficial. They can always offer valuable insights into how they recruit people, and what kind of qualities they look for in candidates. Meeting these people at networking nights, connect to them on LinkedIn, so you can always reach out when needed!