How to gain an edge at Assessment Centres

Candidates must clear many hurdles, including application forms and initial numeracy tests and interviews. The last hurdle of all is the most daunting: the assessment centre.

Assessment centres are not a place; they are a process. Investment banks (and other employers) use them to eliminate candidates in the final round of selection. So if you make it to a centre, you are tantalisingly close to becoming a graduate trainee.

What is an assessment centre exactly? Nigel Povah, managing director of Assessment and Development Consultants, a company that organises assessment centres for banks, says they are designed to demonstrate how candidates would perform if they really were an equity analyst or corporate financier:

'They are a series of exercises or simulations that recreate the demands an individual would face on the job.'

Most centres include a standard interview, as well as some form of ability test and personality test. But many also include a group discussion, a presentation by candidates and a case study. They usually take place over the course of a day and cater for up to a dozen candidates.

Fiona Sandford, head of careers at London School of Economics, said students needed to know exactly what to expect: 'If you don't prepare you're in deep trouble. It's all about knowing what sort of behaviour banks are looking for.'

Candidates were most likely to be wrong-footed during group discussions, said Sandford: 'Employers are looking for people who can exhibit team behaviour. They are not looking for highly competitive, blocking behaviour'. She said students who directly competed against others risked sending out the wrong signals to recruiters.

John Sponton and Stewart Wright, authors of 'Succeeding at Assessment Centres in a Week,' offer useful advice on how to react during the group assessment: don't interrupt others; don't monpolise the conversation; do address other members of the group by their names; and do invite them to contribute to the discussion.

Recruiters will be impressed by consultative leadership, suggest Sponton and Wright. Candidates are therefore advised to say things like: 'Shall we see what everyone else thinks before we reach a decision?'

But banking candidates say that excelling as part of a group is difficult. Jochen Kuenzel, a student at ESCP-EAP European School of Management, said: 'It's a challenge to present your best qualities, when everyone else is also trying to show theirs.'

Poor performance in the group discussion may be remedied during the case study. Here, candidates are given data relating to a problem and asked to work through it to find a solution. Case studies are often dealt with individually, although they may also be dealt with in a group.

The content of a case study cannot be second-guessed, but it will often relate to the area of the bank applied to. One student, who applied for positions in equity and fixed income research, said she was given information relating to company financials and asked to analyse the company's performance.

Most university careers services offer trial case studies. It is worth practising them.

Time-keeping keeping is crucial; candidates have a limited period in which to reach their conclusions.

It is easier to prepare for the presentation section. Banks usually provide forewarning of the presentation, and leave it up to candidates to decide the topic. Most presentations only last for five minutes, and while it may be daunting to stand up and discuss 'Chinese Walls in investment banks,' or 'The economic effects of war in Iraq', it is quickly over.

Nevertheless, the presentation should not be taken lightly. Sponton and Wright say recruiters use presentations to assess everything from planning and organising, to persuasive communication, self- motivation and resilience under questioning.

Candidates are therefore advised to structure the presentation carefully and to think all the arguments through in advance.

At some point during the day, the assessment centre is likely to adjourn for refreshment. Candidates should not be deceived into relaxing, however. Povah said those who drank too much alcohol, or who failed to socialise with others, could be judged negatively.

If assessment centres sound difficult, they are. Edward Tong, in his second year studying accounting and finance at the LSE, said the centre he attended at one international bank was tiring and nerve wracking: 'There were two interviews, a test, a group discussion and a presentation.'

But banks use assessment centers for good reason: they are the most effective way of distinguishing top candidates. They cite tests that show interviews are only 20%

effective; for assessment centres, the figure is 65%.

If you fail an assessment centre, banks will often tell you why. One student was told she had failed due to a lack of commercial awareness. She said: 'It wasn't the fact that I didn't know enough, but that I didn't express what I knew in my answers.'

The good news is that if you make it to an assessment centre, you are probably graduate trainee material. Sandford at the LSE said: 'The people who get to an assessment centre will be those who organisations would like to employ.'

This is little consolation to unsuccessful students. Unless you go on to further education, you usually only get one opportunity to apply for a full time graduate position in an investment bank. All the more reason therefore, to ensure you are well prepared.

Succeeding at Assessment Centres in a Week - John Sponton and Stewart Wright. Hodder and Stoughton.

How to Succeed at an Assessment Centre - Harry Tolley and Bob Wood. Kogan Page.