The debate about Assessment Centres and their predictive validity is still strong, but despite this, the utilisation of Assessment Centres in graduate recruitment continues to increase as organisations endeavor to achieve the cost savings of group assessment.

Assessment centres gives you the opportunity to see many different facets of a graduate’s behavior and personality in a compressed timeframe and in a captive environment. Assessment Centres are often viewed as a less threatening environment than interviews, enabling you to gather a more accurate prediction of a candidates natural abilities.

For Assessment Centres to be successful, you must ensure that:

• Assessors are appropriately trained
• Core competencies of the positions well defined
• Exercises are accurately mapped to the core competencies of the position
• Reporting and recording methods are consistent
• The environments (if run in different locations) are consistent
• A full evaluation of the assessment centres is done upon completion of the project

When designing Assessment Centre exercises, be sure to remember who your target market is for participants, and the types of positions you are recruiting for. There is no value in using a work sample test that is more closely related to a demonstrable trade capability if you are recruiting for a finance clerk. The exercises need to be relevant to the position and appropriate for graduates.

The assessment process begins as soon as the graduates walk into the room and not at the start of the first exercise, so be sure that your processes are in place from the start. A failed Assessment Centre can lead to reduced predictive validity, significantly increased program costs and will also reflect very poorly on your organisation.

To find out more about how GPA can assist you to design, implement or assess the usefulness of Assessment Centres for your organisation, please download the GPA Assessment Centre brochure, or contact us.

GPA Assessment Centre brochure