Assessment centre tips

Share with you some tips and reflections from my recent assessment centre day with a leading FMCG company. It is more of an evaluation and feedback session for myself and I hope it is helpful to whoever reading it now and good luck to you in your assessment days!

Arrivals

Arrive early to avoid any delays due to traffic or other unforeseen reasons. Check in and tidy up everything. Have a quick shower and get changed into ‘casual’ outfit, which wasn’t too casual. Always keep smart appearance! It is okay to slightly over-dress rather than dress down. Jacket/blazer works with everything. Arrive early and ask hotel staff for directions around to familiarise yourself with the surroundings.

Meet and greet

Arrive early at the venue, wait for the others to come, think about things you would like to ask and topics to discuss with your fellow candidates. Learn from the others’ experiences. Be friend with them and get to know them by asking questions about their background. You are at the assessment centre for the same job. It is always interesting and inspiring to see what the others have done in getting into the field of interest. Discuss the sort of activities they are involved in. What are they passionate about? What books, blogs do they read? What are they good at? How have they coped with difficult situations along the way? The learning can be magnificent.

Dinner and drinks

Table manner is important. Be careful with how you eat what you eat while still actively paying attention to your neighbours and spare reasonable time for discussions. Perhaps choose some dishes that are ‘easier’ to finish? Don’t make too much noise as you’re cutting things into pieces or having soup. Of course these are all common sense but it is surprising how many people do not pay enough attention to the small bits and pieces resulting in losing points over dinner table. It is also a way of finding out more about the people working in the company – what they like, are they approachable, friendly, what do they talk about, and ask as many questions as you like about the profession, the company, the industry over informal setting. There are assessors dining with you and it can be stressful being surrounded by three pairs of eyes from the senior management of the company. The key is to be yourself and be professional. Think before you speak and listen as they do. 

p.s. know your limits, drink responsibly!

Morning

Go for breakfast early, try to check-out early and be at the venue 15 minutes early. Double check meeting time with the organisers - sometimes they do get the timing wrong. Be energetic. Breathe. Don’t stress yourself too much. Assessment days are both for you and your employer to find out if they really want to work with you on a daily basis. They are just as nervous as you are believe it or not. They fear that after spending so much time and money hunting for great talent, only to find out that you are not the one you say you are or you may not be the perfect fit with the company... or simply: they do not like you.

Exercises

-        Tests

Numerical and verbal tests are often nerve cracking. You cannot concentrate fully under time pressure and especially being in such a competitive environment, your brain is not functioning as well as it could. The key thing to remember is that everyone else who are doing the tests are in exactly the same situation as you are. They are also feeling nervous. They may not be performing as well as they wish. It’s normal. The tests are not there to trick you. Well-designed exercises explore your ability to learn a routine, or a technique quickly and to apply it in replicated scenarios. There are often various exercises in order to assess your strengths and weaknesses in a balanced way. Do you often find yourself good at certain set of exercises rather than the others? Nobody is perfect. Just try your best and stay focused. Your scores from the tests are normally compared against the average taken from all the people who have taken the test under similar constraints, rather than the absolute scores out of 100, per se. Take it easy.

-        Interviews

Be succinct. Highlight your key words in a orderly fashion. Show your trace of thoughts. Be logical in answering questions. Signpost your audience as they take notes. Help them by starting your answer with: there are three main reasons why... This helps them comprehend you better so that they can listen to your examples and illustrations with full attention. You can sense when they want to hear more about something, right? Don’t start talking about one example and get carried away. You can always speak less in the first instance and elaborate upon request if the interviewers are interested in knowing more details. Sometimes less is more.

-        Case study

Timing is absolutely crucial in case study preparation. You have one hour to read over 30 pages of materials to extract the most valuable pieces of information to put together a 10 minutes presentation with flipcharts or any visual aid that you can come up with in such a short time. You also need to tidy your thoughts and organise your words, following a clear logic, delivered in a compelling fashion and convince your audience.

Be selective in your reading, skim through the pages with your key questions in mind, otherwise you are just going to waste your precious time jotting down notes that are not going into your presentation. Waste of time. Use a combination of texts and drawings, bullet points and simple tables for easier visual illustration of what you are describing. Talk about key trends, challenges, stakeholders, specific strategies and what are the contingencies. Practice makes perfect.

Some people say the best presenters speak at 140 words per minute. If you can’t do that then do not try to speed things up otherwise you might screw your presentation by not having enough time to think through what you are going to talk about next. You can be a bit slow but accurate and fluent in your speaking, rather than trying to impress the assessors by moving fast in the beginning and losing your threads altogether later on.

-       Group exercise

Get to know your teammates before the exercise. Try to analyse their working style and figure out who is outspoken and who needs a bit of encouragement and inspiration (or delegation) to contribute some ideas. Rapport building is crucial here, which is why you should always get to know people whenever you can. Leadership does not necessarily equate to being aggressive, forcing people to follow his or her suggestions. A good leader listens, evaluates pieces of information and recommendations and has clear logic of thoughts on what is needed and what happens next. He or she also encourages the others to participate, facilitates discussions and try to include everybody in the team, contributing. Ask for volunteers, ask for time-checks (try not to do it yourself J) and ask if there is anything anyone wish to add, or if anyone has spotted anything missing in the discussions. Basically, ask you can see, ASKING, analysing and summarising.

End of the day

At the end of the (long, stressful, daunting) day, remain enthusiastic and energetic even if you are shattered and feel the urgent need to go home and run a hot bath. Keep smiling. Feel proud of yourself over the course of the assessment tasks. Reflect your learnings and think about what you would have done differently if you were to do it all over again. Talk to the others to find out how they feel about the day. (Then you will feel much better as you will find out that they feel exactly the same.) Everyone is tired and doesn’t wish to speak anymore. Summarise your takeaways from the day and thank everyone on behalf of all the candidates. Thank everyone you have spoken to with a firm handshake and sincere smile. 

Remember people’s names and write them thank you notes immediately after you go back, before preparing your cuppa and running your hot bath. Also thank those who helped you as you were doing your preparation, anyone you have contacted within the organisation when you tried to find out the culture or any specific areas within the business operation that you are particularly interested in. I know this is all common sense. It takes time. It’s tedious. But do get into the habit of doing things this way, be a naturally interpersonal person. You never know what fortunes these small actions will bring you.

Lastly, best of luck and never give up! You will meet the one. : )

Spent 3 days working and 2 days looking for work

Talking about mental toughness - from this week, my daily schedule begins at 7am, ends at midnight if not later. Meetings with supervisor for thesis, 3 days of work, lots of commuting,   interview with HP contact in the US after work. 


Knackered. Went to London yesterday to complete the biometrics enrolment at the Camden Town post office, fingers crossed that PSW visa will be granted in due course. Had one skype interview which didn't go well and a group interview at a leading publishing company and played Beyonce. Went lucky as I was queueing in Euston Station when someone gave me a seasonal ticket between London and Milton Keynes anytime, any route!! For free! :D Came back, bit of rest, straight to Bedford for house viewings - checked out three houses for rent, just to make life easier rather than wasting 4 hours precious time every day. 


Thinking now, it is a lot of sacrifice for a temp job that is not leading to anything permanent. Underpaid. Of course we say we do these for the experience. Still, at a huge cost. A lot of suffering. Have to think it through carefully.


Just wanted to share some exercises we had yesterday at the lovely publishing house. We were asked which movie character would play us. Followed by a group interview where Matthew and John (from the traditional media and digital platforms respectively) prompted us to introduce ourselves one by one, this was particularly interesting as to see how the others explain their motivations for job, how they describe their experience and make a strong case for themselves in front of a peer group. The next exercise was to prioritise one's day, which made you think which tasks are the most urgent ones and which ones the least. Then the balloon game. Each of us had to pretend to be a famous person and come up with an argument to defend ourselves why we should remain in the balloon. (I was Beyonce!)


Everyone had something rather special about themselves - an Italian who has travelled across different continents with finance and business background, a natural sales talent who  did economics and finance and was super sporty since when he was in Kenya, 2 lovely British girls, one doing masters, one just finished off gap year travelling, a Glasgow boy who was fast and funny with his lovely accent, and there was me. Never been in a group interview as such before. Really helpful experience as I picked up some jolly good techniques and learnt how to make use of every opportunity to express yourself and show teamwork. It was interesting too to hear what they have done in sales, marketing and media. Interests and hobbies were highly valued too - what people do when they're not working...need to be more sporty! : )

What am I doing to myself?

We don't have much time left. We're losing time. Thesis. Job-hunting. What is going to happen after September 9th 2011 seemed like a futuristic question a while ago. But not any more. Kitchen party was getting serious. People were talking about jobs, blogs, Linkedin groups. Who has got a job, who has not. Who is struggling with their thesis, who has great supervisor with great interviewee contacts ready for them. Who is going for another interview or assessment centre. Who is moving back to their home countries after studies.


Personal development training day was on June 24th, when I clapped my hands like crazy, got completely wet in a dragon boat race and got a cold straight after - and was not appreciated in any way for what I did for the team. Which is fine. If we expect for returns and recognition for everything we do for others, we're only going to be very, very disappointed from time to time. No one will truly appreciate what you contribute. Self-motivation is what keeps me going all these years. Can never do good enough, or shout loud enough about your own achievements or what you have been doing altruistically for others. Sometimes perhaps one should be more selfish. I enjoy though, organising things for people, preparing surprises, cooking and sharing. While no one ever asks to contribute a little bit to all the money I spent on preparing those little treats or big meals for 10, I mean it's okay - it's for friends sharing, enjoying each others' company. I'm not from a rich family otherwise I wouldn't care - I have always worked so hard every single holiday while I'm in this country to earn some extra money for subsistence. I work very, very hard to achieve what I have to achieve. But really, not everything you're doing for them is ever being appreciated. I was just really upset every now and then. Obviously it is going to be the same, if not worse in the real world. Mental toughness. Have principles. Say no. Be mentally strong to cope with all the unfairs and storms in life. I will have to move on and learn from lessons.


Almost 11 months in the village of Cranfield. The moment of truth is near. Soon enough we will say goodbye to each other and move on in our lives. Whatever we do, wherever we will be, it's gonna be a brand new page and Cranfield is going to be archived in our memory. A rather emotional time, really. I can't imagine the day when we all meet up in Grad Admin or wherever to submit our carefully binded theses, nervous and relieved. Before that day, we just have to keep going.


Work placement. I know I should not be compromising too much given the skills, knowledge and experience I have had for what I am capable of doing. Having got used to being paid 8 pound per hour on some jobs, this work placement is not ideal at all. But still, when an opportunity knocks, after a long and difficult debate with myself, I said yes. What I am putting myself through is an incredibly busy summer all the way to October. 


No more freedom. No more leisure. Lots of struggle. 3 hours of bus travelling by the often fashionably late Stagecoach buses - Venus 1 from Cranfield University to Bedford then Mars 3 between Bedford and the business park - then a 7 minutes walk into the office. Buses in the village are not as frequently as we would like them to be. There is just one bus heading as far as Cranfield University from Bedford, which is understandable - not many students are travelling in between very much during the day. But what this implies is: if you missed that very bus going into the university, you have to wait for another hour in the middle of Wooton Village. Taxis are available at 12-15 quid. I just went to the company for a 2-hour induction but I started travelling on the bus at 8.40am and came back to uni at 15.00 sharp... 


Why do I have to put myself through difficult tasks? Why do I always challenge myself too much? I mean after all the hard work I know I will be pleased for the experience and what I have learnt by then. But it is painful. 3 hours a day on the bus, makes it 180 hours over the course of three months! I can do so much with that time. A Megarider day ticket costs a shocking GBP10.30. At my own expense which is supposed to be covered by the allowance which is nothing compared to my previous roles. On top of time and money, I have my terrible motion-sickness to overcome along the wiggly country roads in and out of every single village, trying not to think about the dizziness after the long journey. As I was waiting in the middle of a village, I even wrote Cranfield Uni on a notebook, waving to the cars approaching,  hoping that someone would be kind enough to give me a lift for that 4-mile trip which I had to wait for 1 hour. Could have walked actually, if there was a safe pedestrian path...Basically I was just a bit upset, feeling a bit stupid for everything I am doing to stretch myself and to enrich my CV with some responsibilities directly relevant to what I would like to do in my future career. Just that I am pushing myself so much and paying a lot for what they are.


Michelle, be strong! You can do it. Just don't give up. Love yourself. Have faith in yourself. You will do great stuff!