Assessment Centre

Assessment Centre

Assessment Centre

An Assessment centre is a technique used to select individuals with high managerial potential for their respective organization. Their abilities are assessed based on their performances on a series of stimulated managerial tasks over a period of two or three days. An assessment centres has been proven through research to be a valid predictor of managerial success. They have also been so successful in assessing managers that organizations are now using them for hiring front-line workers as well.

Other exercises include applicants participating in stimulated exercises with customers including various exercises designed to assess their listening skills, customer sensitivity and ability to handle pressure. In order for assessment centres to be valid the organization must determine the skills and competencies that are needed for the job and the exercises that must be designed in order to assess those specific areas.

Developing the list of personality characteristics to be assessed is a critical element of any assessment centre. The characteristics that are developed should be directly related to the successful performance of the particular jobs that are being evaluated for. Once these personality characteristics have been identified the exercises can be selected for use in the assessment centre. Research has proven that certain exercises are more relevant for measuring certain personality traits than others.

Assessment centres can be used for a number of purposes, one of those being employee selection. It can be used for selecting external candidates to fulfil a certain vacancy and may also be used to select internal candidates for promotions. An assessment centres comprises of trained assessors who observe overt behaviours displayed by assesses (application candidates or current employees) in complex organisational simulations. The assesses are given ratings on their performance in these complex situations, their performance is evaluated in accordance to specific performance dimensions and performance targets which have been set. The dimensions of performance are identified through various methods of job analysis or competency modelling.

When used for selection the purpose of an assessment centres is to provide an overall evaluation of a candidate's ability to successful in a future assignment. They are most commonly used for higher-level job positions or for assessing managerial capability. Assessment centres evaluate how well applicants or current employees might perform in managerial or higher-level positions.

Validity and Reliability

Research suggests that when assessment centre dimensions and exercises are based on thorough job analysis they can be held to be highly valid. The exercises within the assessment centres need to exactly match the tasks and responsibilities of the target job, but they should be as close as possible to ensure validity. The scoring system, variances in responses and the instructions given to assesses (applicants) influence the reliability of the process. When the instructions are clear and the scoring is done fairly for each assesse, assessment centres are deemed as a reliable method of selection.

Advantages

Demonstrated great utility in diverse settings such as education and public safety and also for diverse positions ranging from first-level supervisors to top-level management.

Candidates are exposed to exercises/activities that form part of the job they are applying for and they are also exposed to situations they may encounter in the job.

Provides a good indication of the capability of applicants to deal with the tasks, responsibilities and various situations they may encounter if they were to get the job.

Provides an indication of the maximal performance of a applicant

If the scoring is done fairly, allows applicants to be compared against one another which may help in the selection decision.

Disadvantages

An assessment centre is expensive and they require significant investments of resources, personnel and time.

Although they are stated to be reliable and valid there are other selection methods such as cognitive ability tests which are superior in terms of the reliability and validity, they are also much lower in costs.

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