What are assessors looking for in candidates?

An Assessment Centre relates not to current job performance, but to future performance. This is beneficial for graduates who may have not had an opportunity to work in their desired role; therefore, behaviours outside of experience can be assessed.

Before determining what behaviours to look for in candidates, assessors first decide what behaviours are important to the role. They analyse and break the role down in to specific behaviours, and assess each candidate against these criteria.

In graduate recruitment, assessors are looking for a well rounded and balanced individual. General qualities include:

• Intellectual capacity: strategic thinking, analysis and judgement, planning and organising.
• Interpersonal relations: teamwork, leadership potential, assertiveness, oral and verbal communication.
• Adaptability: versatility, resilience, creativity, dealing with ambiguity.
• Results orientation: energy and initiative, motivation to achieve.
• Social interaction: persuasiveness, confidence, multicultural .sensitivity, values and integrity.

Throughout Assessment Centre exercises, it is essential to remember that the process is more important than the content. You are being assessed on your ability to analyse information, think clearly and logically, exercise judgement, express yourself verbally and on paper, both individually and as a team. These attributes are more important then whether you get the correct answer or outcome during a case study or business scenario.