The mock assessment center was an exciting opportunity to experience an aspect of finding a job that I hadn’t before reflected upon. It had not occurred to me that employers would want to observe potential recruits in a social setting as they interact and cooperate to solve tasks, in addition to individual interviews. It was interesting seeing what could be expected of me in such a situation, where the link between the tasks presented and the desired job is not immediately obvious. Indeed, the tasks are designed to show skills and limitations in broader domains and help evaluate more general abilities, rather than specific theoretical or practical knowledge.

In our case, we had to demonstrate two things. First, our ability to work in a team was evaluated by having us develop a survival plan based on a set of objects, by sharing ideas with the group, explaining, listening and compromising. We were then asked to face another group and justify our choices, testing our ability to hold a debate and communicate ideas. We were observed individually, of course, but primarily as members of a larger unit, and our contributions to the team were the focus of the task.

Most importantly, the examiners weren’t there to seek out what some could view as more desirable character traits, such as more outgoing personalities in a team-building exercice for example, but how well different people were able to capitalise on there own personalities to complete the task at hand. Assessment centres aren’t about judging the qualities of a person, they are about judging the qualities of an employee.

At the end of the assessment activities, we also participated in mock interviews, which were of great help in preparing for the type of questions we could be asked, but the feedback was often too nice, coming from our peers.