Assessment Centres

The Evaluation Conference

What happens once the exercises are over, the assessors' notes are completed and collected, the ability tests are scored and the candidates have been paid their expenses and gone home? The last stage of the assessment centre process takes place. This is where all of the information noted about the candidates from all of the assessors is pooled in what is called the ‘wrap up session’ or more properly the ‘evaluation conference’. Each observer, or assessor, should have reached an overall objective rating for each candidate on all of the exercises. This information is then pooled on a flip chart or other device, which allows an overall rating for each criterion to be arrived at by discussion and consensus. It is usual to have someone chairing the assessors’ panel to facilitate this, and one of the vital parts of this role is to ensure that particularly persuasive assessors do not dominate the proceedings. The discussions that lead to the final grade being awarded are usually helped by the assessors referring to notes they made during and after the exercises. A chart or table is then produced with these ratings, showing each candidate's competency profile.

Each profile is then compared, perhaps against a pre-agreed ‘ideal candidate's profile’, and the preferred candidate or candidates are then agreed upon. After the assessment centre is over candidates should be contacted as soon as reasonably possible to inform them of the decision. It is wise to keep a couple of candidates ‘on hold’, pending acceptance or rejection of the job offer. Opinion varies as to the preferred composition of these rejection letters. Most employers make an effort to provide positive messages to unsuccessful candidates, and the letter needs to have a personal ring to it to be effective. Bland impersonal phrases are meaningless. It is best either to make the letters personal, perhaps giving a little feedback, or to make the letter short and snappy, really doing little more than presenting facts. Remember though, that these letters are still part of your PR, so they do deserve some attention. Students will form a negative view of organisations that don't complete this stage professionally.

The final action that the assessment centre manager should undertake is to sit back and reflect on the preceding activity.

• Have we been able to recruit all the people we wanted? If not, why not, and what do we do about it?
• Are there any changes we need to make for the next process?

This is normally performed at the end of one assessment process and before the beginning of another.

The assessment centre need not be the last stage of the process and any of the assessment methods making up the assessment centre methodology could probably be used on their own. The strength of the technology is such that when all the results from the individual exercises are pulled together, the overall predictability of job performance is very high.

• What are Assessment Centres?
• Benefits of the Assessment Centre Process
• Potential Problems
• The Evaluation Conference