Why Invest in an Assessment Day?
Assessment days, if properly designed and facilitated, can be a very robust way of assessing candidates for one of a number of purposes, which include:
- Recruiting new talent to your organisation from external sources
- People moves and promotions within your organisation so as to be a true meritocracy
- Making key decisions on development investment timing and scale as part of the precursor to a learning & development programme
- Measuring the effectiveness of a development investment by assessing demonstrable competence development and growth
How Do Our Assessment Days Work?
Assessment centres typically take place over one day and require meticulous planning & preparation beforehand and effective choreography and facilitation during the day.
We work with our clients to properly understand your objectives for running an assessment centre and your candidates who will be taking part. We then design challenging and appropriate exercises and mechanisms so as to robustly assess the candidates and ensure you the client get the outcomes you want.
For clients where it is practical to run the event at our Nottingham based development centre, we can add extra value by tapping into some aspects of our unique behavioural development model. We simulate scenarios that candidates would typically find themselves in so as to allow them to demonstrate their ability to manage these situations.
Furthermore, these scenarios are typically viewed remotely by assessors via our state of the art AV technology to add further realism for the candidates.
Most clients choose a mixture of client assessors and PDW assessors to balance the day and the assessment perspectives and the mix is completely flexible so as to fit with each client’s situation and budget.
What Activities Can Be Included?
There are many activities and exercises that we can use, but a typical day would consist of some or all of the following:
- Competency and/or strength based interview
- Simulated scenarios that are relevant to the candidates being assessed (such as people management or customer meetings, etc.)
- Formal presentations, either pre-prepared or as part of an exercise on the day
- Data analysis and case study work
- Written technical or financial tests
- Psychometrics and personality/behavioural profiling
- Problem solving exercises
- Group activities and discussions
For internally focused assessment centres some clients include a 360 degree feedback survey prior to participating and make the 360 report available for use on the day. This can be another highly robust mechanism to add to the mix allowing candidates to obtain feedback from a broad array of people in their own organisation and add to their self awareness.
Many clients also invest in a thorough face to face debrief of all candidates on a 1:1 basis. Our aspiration here is that the assessment experience will trigger the single best personal feedback experience the candidates have ever had. As such, this will add huge value to them personally regardless of the individual outcome.
Here’s what Sky TV had to say about PDW
“I often hear myself say “Great opportunity to use your PDW skills” – or, in shorthand, just “PDW!” This has been the most effective training I have done in my career – and to call it training downplays it”
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