I got an opportunity work with an expert HR group for conducting assessment center for about 900 students in one of the prestigious universities of Pune. I have been part of such an exercise about ten years back as an assesse and got it conducted for some of the senior executives for assessing suitability for promotion. But being part of team, carrying out this exercise was a new experience.

Now what is assessment center:

 

Assessment Center

 

An assessment center has often been defined as a variety of testing techniques designed to allow candidates to demonstrate, under standardized conditions, the skills and abilities that are most essential for success in a given job.

 

There are some basic considerations for running an assessment centers which is again the corporate adaptation of an army process. Assessment centers need to have clearly defined competencies with behavioral indicators and scales for evaluation and the techniques used for assessment should assess these very competencies and behaviors. There are several techniques used and multiple assessors are involved to assess candidates in different simulation and exercises.

Simulations exercises are an integral part of assessment centers. They basically are situations, exercises and conditions which imitate the real life working scenario of the assesse. They find a special place in assessments because they allow opportunities to observe and assess the assesses behavior pertaining to each job related competency.

You can expect a combination of the following:

·        Information session. ...

·        Group ice-breaker exercise. ...

·        Aptitude and psychometric tests. ...

·        In-tray or e-tray exercise. ...

·        Group exercise. ...

·        Presentation. ...

·        Written task. ...

·        Interview.

These activities are taken up to give an exposer of real life work situations. Normally such assessment centers run by companies for assessing the suitability of employees for current assignments, promotion etc. But it was heartening to see that institutes are running assessment centers for student to make them aware of their strengths and weaknesses.

 

In the end of the session a feedback session is held to give feedback to assesses. Feedback after any form of assessment or evaluation helps in mirroring the information regarding their performance to the candidate and also initiates the learning process in them.

An objective, transparent and respectful conversation needs to be conducted during feedback to drive home the points which the participant needs to work upon.

The feedback should aim that the participant gets aware of both the areas of strength and areas of development. It should encourage introspection, help participants draw inference and reach conclusions.

Hence, a lot of planning is required before the feedback session. It helps if the assessor can know the profile of the participant before-hand as it later helps in navigating the feedback discussion appropriately. It is important to link feedback to the everyday work of the participant and how improving can have positive effects on their work also can be outlined. This helps in greater acceptability of feedback.

 

If we really see that when an employee is working he or she must possess certain skills like :

·       Communication,

·       Ability to understand,

·       Analytical skills,

·       Planning and set priority,

·       Ability to decide that best option

·       Leadership

·       Must be a good performer

·       Must be a good team player

If we see one by one, normally people take communication for English speaking ability. In our kind of system, English has practically assumed the role of language for communication. But in work situation, one is not being recruited for his or her English speaking skills. In work situations one has to communicate about the work assigned. For that understanding of the work becomes extremely important. To succeed in life, wherever one is, this understanding is important. This understanding comes if one has knowledge of the core subject. If you understand, you will be able to speak. Normally we avoid discussions, not because of poor English, but because of poor knowledge /understanding. You will speak if you have got something to speak. If you have self-doubt, how can you raise your hand, take initiative and lead.

So the bottom line is, each and every student must try to make his / her knowledge base strong, by acquiring knowledge for which their parents are spending loads of hard earned money.

Second, in most of the cases the acquired knowledge is not eternal. In fields like Finance, marketing, international business and even H.R., rules, policies, figures keep on changing. One has to learn to update his/her knowledge bank through newspapers, business journals. You may not be able to memorize everything, but you must know the source of the information. If you know the source, your information retrieval time will be less and you will be able to provide the desired information to your seniors and juniors fast. That improves the performance of the team, team moral and your acceptance as a good team leader and a good team player.

They have to read relevant articles in newspapers, journals to hone their analytical skills.  

These learning improve your understanding and you are able to analyze and plan better . Even your decision making improves .

 

So for new recruits, success mainly roams around knowledge and personal performance. Knowledge and hard work are two wheels of a success vehicle everyone should rely upon.