case study presentation assessment centre

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What is a Case Study Assessment

A case study assessment is a test in which candidates are presented with a scenario related to the position or the company's wider operations, followed by several questions that are designed to measure specific abilities. Through the candidate's answers, employers gain insight into their ability to handle tasks similar to those they might be responsible for in the future, thus indicating their problem solving abilities and compatibility with the job description.

Typically, a case study assessment introduces a series documents such as reports and data from recent market research, which may relate to hypothetical or real-life situations. You are asked to analyze the case at hand, make business decisions, and/or give a brief verbal or written report of your recommendations. You may be asked to complete the case study as an individual exercise or as part of a group, which allows assessors to evaluate your teamwork.

The Two Main Types of Case Study Assessment

An assessment center case study will typically belong to one of two main categories:

Subject-related Case Study Assessment

In this type of case study assessment, specific and professional knowledge of the subject is required. In cases of candidates applying for a position in which industry knowledge is essential, the content of the case study will be directly relevant to that role . In these cases, candidates are required to use their existing knowledge and experience to identify key information from the brief.

For instance, project managers may be asked to plan for the release of a new product, which incorporates scheduling, budgeting and resourcing.

General Case Study Assessment

These case studies are designed for a broad audience of candidates who are tested for various positions. Answering the case study questions does not require any specific prior knowledge , and most questions can be answered with common sense. Any information that is required for answering the case study questions is provided by the assessor, whether orally or through additional documentation.

These case studies are much more popular as they can be completed by a large number of candidates applying for a wide array of positions.

What the Case Study Assessment Measures

The advantage of the assessment center case study is that it measures a number of elements simultaneously, giving the employer a picture which combines soft skills with cognitive abilities and even personality attributes. Through your answers, the employer can learn about your:

Which Types of Companies Use Assessment Centre Case Studies

Leading companies that Use Assessment Centre Case Studies:

EY (Ernst & Young)

Tips for Approaching Your Case Study Assessment

Common Questions in the Assessment Center Case Study

There are two main types of questions that can be asked by the assessors in an assessment center case study.

Quantitative questions involve basic mathematical operations, using of the four basic operations, percentages and ratios. Qualitative questions will relate to strategic decisions, future projections, and market analysis. Popular questions would be:

Chapter 4: Presentation Exercises

A resource guide to presentation exercises.

What skills does a presentation exercise assess?

Planned vs. on the spot presentations, preparing for your presentation, giving your presentation.

What assessors look for in a presentation

Key takeaways

You will almost certainly be required to give some sort of presentation at your assessment centre. Presentation skills are important in the workplace, so the assessors want to see if you are able to deliver a well-structured, clear, confident presentation. The good news is that it is possible to improve your presentation skills through practice and following some sound advice. Chapter 5 explains all.

What is a presentation exercise at an assessment centre?

A presentation exercise at an assessment centre is a task that involves a candidate giving a formal presentation to a group of assessors on a given topic. The candidate is usually provided with a brief beforehand and given a set amount of time to prepare their presentation. The presentation may be in the form of a PowerPoint or other visual aids and is usually followed by a question and answer session where assessors can ask questions related to the presentation. The objective of this exercise is to assess the candidate's ability to deliver a structured and coherent presentation, communicate effectively, and engage the audience while demonstrating their knowledge and understanding of the given topic.

The presentation exercise is a common assessment tool used to evaluate candidates for roles that require excellent presentation skills and the ability to deliver information to a variety of audiences.

Typical competencies assessed in the presentation exercise are:

Most employers will give you information before the assessment centre about the presentation exercise, and what they expect you to have prepared in advance. This preparation time is a realistic simulation of the demands of a real job since employees rarely get asked to give a presentation off the cuff. To stretch you, assessors may interject during your prepared presentation or add a minor last-minute change to your brief, again to simulate a real-world scenario. Effective preparation will significantly improve your performance in the presentation exercise. At your assessment centre your presentation will probably be only 5-10 minutes in duration.

An effective saying goes "own the time". It's your presentation and you have the floor. There's no need to rush.

Some assessment centres deliberately reveal very little about the presentation exercise before hand, so that all the preparation has to be done on the day at the assessment centre. This type of exercise is more a test of how well you deal with being put on the spot, and less a test of presentation skills.

In one scary example of a challenging presentation exercise candidates were given a handful of topics to choose from and 15 minutes to prepare a 5 minute presentation. Few assessment centres use this shock tactic as they are more interested in how you perform in realistic situations.

You will likely be given time before your assessment centre to prepare for your presentation, so take advantage of this luxury. Walking into the room confident in what you are about to say will settle your nerves and help you present with aplomb. Aim to have rehearsed your presentation so many times that if disaster struck on the day and you lose your notes (it has happened at assessment centres before), you could get by on your memory.

failure to prepare is preparing to fail.

Establish who the audience will be and what level of knowledge they are likely to have, so that you can pitch your level of technical content accordingly. Your audience will either be just one assessor, or more likely, a mix of assessors and other candidates from the assessment centre.

What brief have you been given? You will get marks for achieving the brief as well as how well you present. Clarify with the assessment centre organisers beforehand what equipment will be available. PowerPoint slides are much better than overhead projector slides or a flip chart. Remember you are in a simulated business environment, how would it look in a client presentation if you use scrawled acetate sheets? Ask the assessors if there is time for you to familiarise yourself with the equipment before your presentation, perhaps during a lunch break. Even if it’s not possible you are showing them what you would do in a real-life situation: plan and take precautions against the common nuisance of IT issues.

Carry your presentation on two separate USBs and email it to yourself. It has been known for candidates to lose their presentation!

A common mistake made by inexperienced presenters at their assessment centre is to use too many slides. As a rule of thumb, use no more than one slide per two minutes presenting. And keep the slides sparse! The slides are meant to be a prompt for the audience to follow what you’re saying; they are not meant to be read, because you want the assessor’s attention on you, not the slides. The best use of slides is for graphically presenting numerical information difficult to describe orally, not for showing blocks of text. It should go without saying but it’s surprising how many candidates still just read what the slides say. This is a quick way to show the assessors you are not a good presenter.

If you want to stand out from other candidates at the assessment centre reduce the number of boring bullet point slides. These are a standard PowerPoint template and quickly make audiences dreary. Professionals replace bullet point lists with a simple graphic alongside text.

The best slides are clean and let the presenter be the focus of attention.

Practice your presentation out loud. You will be amazed how differently it comes out compared to reading it in your head. Record yourself and play it back. This is a great way to discover where you could inject intonation, pauses or emphasis. Practising out loud will also give you an accurate estimate of how long it takes.

Write your prompt notes on envelope-sized cards, not A4 paper which can distract from your presentation and will exaggerate any shaky hand tendencies.

When it comes to presented information, people tend to be very slow at taking it in. So use simple, clear language. Break down what you are saying into simple sentences. Tell them what you’re going to say, say it, then remind them what you said.

Look at the audience, not the slides. This is another classic mistake made by inexperienced, or nervous presenters. Don’t take your cue from the slides; keep your attention on the audience and take your cue from your note cards. This looks very professional.

Your introduction should briefly explain who you are (in the fictional scenario) and what your presentation will cover. Reiterate anchor phrases on each slide to emphasise what you're talking about. For example, if you’re talking about projected sales, title your slide “Sales Projection” and open with something like “the projected sales are increasing because…” Then end that slide with something like “…which is why we see these projected sales”.

Think about how you want to take questions. Are you the sort of person who gets thrown by interjections? If you think you can handle questions as you go along, this will impress the assessors. Whatever you decide, tell your audience at the start whether you’d prefer to take questions at the end or as you go through.

Commonly presentation exercises are being video recorded so assessors can re-watch your performance later, or refer it to someone else. The cameras used are usually discreet security type ceiling-mounted ones so they’re not overly imposing.

What assessors look for in presentation

We mentioned the skills and competencies that presentation exercises will assess, now we will look at what assessors will be looking out for during your presentation. The assessors will gain an overall feel of your presentation, but to standardise assessment amongst candidates and to justify hiring decisions, the assessors will be scoring you against a set of criteria agreed with the employer. Obviously each employer will have their own scoring criteria but an example of the type of criteria used is below:

If the assessment centre assessors enjoy your presentation they're more likely to notice and remember how you fared against their set of scoring criteria.

Here are the key takeaways on tips for giving successful presentations during assessment centres:

By following these tips, candidates can increase their chances of delivering a successful presentation and impressing potential employers during the assessment centre process.

How To Deliver A Killer Presentation At Your Assessment Centre Or Interview

Last Updated on February 22, 2023

Download our Ultimate Assessment Day & Interview Guide 2022 here . (It's packed with tips, tricks and insider-secrets to help you succeed.)

Delivering an assessment centre presentation can be tough, but this guide will show you how to create, display and deliver a world class presentation at your job interview or assessment centre. Let’s get started!

1 Important Starting Point Resource

Listen to our podcast episode on how to deliver successful presenations here .

This Free Success Guide Is Split Into 3 Parts

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Assessment Centre Interview Presentation: A Dark Art

Giving a presentation at your interview or assessment centre is a very worthwhile test. Presenting is a skill that is highly valued in the modern business environment and it’s easy to see why:

Giving a presentation can be a nerve-wracking experience, but it’s also a superb opportunity to shine. Embrace the challenge and use it as a vehicle to demonstrate your wonderful skills and experience!

Let’s start with the basics…

What Is a Presentation?

Typically a presentation is a group of slides created with Microsoft’s ‘Powerpoint’ program or Apple’s equivalent which is called ‘Keynote’. Having previously created the slides the author displays them to the audience in a ‘slideshow’ format. Hey presto, a presentation is born.

Assessment Centre Presentation Part 1: Create

A presentation that is effective and genuinely impactful must have two things:

The secret to achieving this is in your planning. It’s vital that your presentation structure has a logical, natural flow. If it does your audience will feel they are moving seamlessly along with you and there is an exponentially greater chance they will feel engaged/convinced/impressed by what you have to say.

‘I Hate Planning, Let’s Start Making the Presentation!’

Woah there cowboy. It is vital that you plan your presentation . Having a clear idea of what your presentation structure will be not only makes the presentation much more effective, coherent and persuasive, but it makes it so, so much easier to actually build. (Which saves you time and lowers stress.)

PRO TIP: Spending 1 hour to correctly plan your assessment day presentation saves you many hours later in the process and turbocharges the impact your presentation will make on the audience.

If you don’t have a clear structure in mind before you begin building your presentation you will just keep creating slide after slide in a scattergun fashion as fresh ideas pop into your mind.

This results in an unbalanced hodgepodge of ideas that don’t have a logical flow and aren’t weighted correctly in importance/relevance. (It also becomes incredibly time-consuming and difficult to edit and shape the presentation when it’s in this messy format.)

With a clear skeleton structure in place, you can build your slides in confidence knowing that you’re hitting all the important points and there is a clear and transparent way to track your progress.

How to Structure an Interview or Assessment Day Presentation in 7 Easy Steps

You need to have clarity on what your presentation is going to be about before you begin. (If you don’t have a clear brief or title in mind then consider what your desired outcome is and work back from there. It will usually become apparent very quickly.)

Remember, you can practise real exercises and psychometric tests that employers use here and here .

[Note: For most interviews and assessment centres you will be given a brief beforehand. Often something like ‘prepare a 15-minute presentation entitled “the greatest achievement of my life”‘ or ‘tell us about the most enlightening experience of your life’.]

Assessment Centre Presentation: Planning Step 1

Sit down in a quie t room with a pen and a blank piece of paper. (We strongly recommend you don’t use a PC or laptop for this stage.)

Assessment Centre Presentation: Planning Step 2

Write your central subject, title, theme or question in the middle and draw a circle around it.

Assessment Centre Presentation: Planning Step 3

Now let your mind run crazy while you brainstorm potential sub-topics and related themes. What could you include that is relevant/interesting/compelling to your central theme?

Don’t worry about which ones are best right now, or what order they should be in, just get a ton of ideas down on the page.

You should now have a piece of paper that looks something like this:

Assessment Centre Presentation: Planning Step 4

When you’re satisfied you have plenty of ideas and sub-topics on the page, write brief notes underneath each one covering the main things you would talk about in each area.

Can you see how our plan is beginning to take shape?

Assessment Centre Presentation: Planning Step 5

The next step is to review your ideas. We need to trim this list down as there are currently far too many ideas to cover. (Unless you want the presentation to last all day!)

Use a different coloured pen and mark the areas/ideas that are strongest, the most relavent & the most compelling. Cross out the weaker ideas.

Clear your mind and ask yourself:

What overarching themes or messages are there that your presentation could follow?

Slowly you will start to whittle down your list of sub-topics and what remains will be the strongest and most relevant areas that you should cover. Your paper should now look something like this:

Stop worrying! Download a 12-step assessment day cheatsheet & be perfectly prepared.

Click here to download your copy.

case study presentation assessment centre

Assessment Centre Presentation: Planning Step 6

Now we need to decide on the order that we’ll present the ideas and sub-topics that made the cut.

Grab a different coloured pen and number each one.

Assessment Centre Presentation: Planning Step 7

Now it’s time to tidy this up a little and draft your final plan. (This will be the plan you will work to while actually building the presentation.)

Jot down a new plan that reflects the changes and running order we made in the previous steps. It should look something like this:

You will notice that we’ve added the following elements to the above plan:

Time for a Break, Phew!

We now have our final structure. It’s packed with strong and relevant content that you are comfortable talking about and the presentation has an impactful and compelling running order.

You have made an excellent start and now have a fantastic foundation to deliver a successful presentation, well done!

Now would be a great time to go and grab a drink and clear your head. When you get back we’ll move on to building and delivering your presentation.

How To Create A Presentation Using Powerpoint

There’s several pieces of software you can use to build a presentation. The most common ones are:

We’re going to focus on Powerpoint here as it enjoys a 95% share of the presentation market, has over 500 million users worldwide and over 30 million presentations are created with it every day. (Source: BBC )

Mac Users (Skip This Bit if You Use a PC)

NOTE: If you have a Mac with Keynote you can save Keynote presentations in Powerpoint’s ‘PPT’ file format by going to file>export and selecting the ‘PPT’ option. Unfortunately any transitions that you created in Keynote won’t be available when opened in Powerpoint.

For Mac users we strongly recommend you buy a copy of Powerpoint for Mac to ensure 100% compatibility. (You can buy it here on Amazon USA and for UK visitors here on Amazon UK

‘Ok How Do I Actually Create Slides?’

Powerpoint is a really simple program to use and you can master the basics of giving a presentation incredibly quickly. This 5 minute tutorial video by Microsoft will get you up to speed.

Example Slide Structure

Feel free to experiment and play around with your slide structure, but here’s a proven structure that you can use:

(NOTE: A ‘contents’ slide isn’t always appropriate when giving a presentation. In a business or more formal setting it’s very common, but most marketing-focused and more conceptual presentations will leave this out. Some presentations work better if they appear to have a more organic flow. If in doubt, include a contents slide as it lets your audience know what to expect and helps them orientate themselves.)

PRO TIP: The golden rule of Powerpoint is ‘less is more’. One of the biggest mistakes inexperienced presenters make is putting too much writing/data in their slides.

Examples of Bad Slides

Here’s a few examples of bad slides. These images highlight some typical mistakes people make when giving a presentation. Look how ‘busy’ and unappealing they are:

How boring are these slides? They are cluttered and drab and we guarantee the only thing on the audience’s mind here is ‘when will this tedious presentation end?’.

Examples of Good Slides

How much clearer and impactful are slides like these two?

Don’t be afraid to leave white space on your slides. Your audience will appreciate it.

Remember, your presentation isn’t a script for you to read from, it’s a visual aid to underline the points you make verbally. Your audience should be focused on you, not the screen.

When giving a presentation the screen is merely a visual aid to amplify the points you make as an engaging and intelligent speaker .

(We’ll go into more detail on how to deliver your presentation, later in this article.)

Ok, so now we have a presentation with a great structure, filled with fantastic content that’s presented through engaging and impactful slides. We’re in great shape! Let’s keep trucking.

Assessment Centre Presentation Part 2: Display

Slides can be shown in a number of ways:

The third of the above options is the most widely used in a business setting and at interviews and assessment centres.

Pro Tip: Even if you’re taking your own laptop to do a presentation always have an additional copy on a USB flash drive as a backup. Technology sometimes fails so it’s wise to take precautions. If it’s a super-important presentation we strongly recommend you also print off a paper copy and email a copy of the file to yourself.

How to Connect an iPad to a TV Display

For ‘lightning’ iPads you’ll need to use this lead instead: Amazon (UK) | Amazon (USA)

Regardless of your iPad connection style, you will also need an HDMi lead which you should definitely buy online as the price markup at retailers like Best Buy and Curry’s is phenomenal: Amazon (UK) | Amazon (USA) .

Assessment Centre Presentation Part 3: Deliver

So you’ve spent hours planning and building a superb presentation that you’re really proud of?

That’s great, but remember: A presentation needs to be delivered well if it is to be received well .

A good presenter delivers their material with:

11 Pro Tips For Delivering A Perfect Presentation

Pro tip#1 – rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

Nothing will improve your ability to deliver your presentation more than rehearsing. Over and over and over again.

Do this so much that you know the order of the slides backwards, forwards and inside out. Record yourself doing the presentation and watch it back. Watch yourself in the mirror. How can you improve? This is huge and will help you iron out any tricky points or parts that just don’t work.

Most importantly this will make you comfortable with your presentation and the benefits of that are legion. You will appear knowledgable and credible and you’ll be able to deliver the presentation in a conversational and personal way, which is our ultimate goal.

Pro Tip#2 – Don’t Just Read Exactly What Is on the Slides

This doesn’t come across well and inhibits the’conversational’ tone that the best presentations all have. Avoid this at all costs!

Pro Tip#3 – Don’t Put Too Much Information on Your Slides

Overloading the slide is the single quickest way to make your audience switch off. It’s like a big meal that will give them indigestion. This is bad. Think ‘breadcrumbs’. Small portions. Feed them in tiny bitesize pieces over 20 slides rather than in 5 jam-packed slides.

Few things are uglier or less appealing than a slide with 17 bullet points and a data heavy graph. It’s hard to understand and looks awful. Avoid this!

Pro Tip#4 – Make Eye Contact With and Smile at Your Audience

This is hard to do if you’re an inexperienced presenter as you’ll probably prefer to look at the slides, your laptop or even the floor. Again, don’t do it!

Look your audience square in the eye and you’ll find that you feel more relaxed and they become more engaged.

Pro Tip#5 – Forget the Animations & the Snazzy Backgrounds

Just use a white background and a clear font. Trust us on this!

Pro Tip #6 – Don’t Stand Rooted to the Spot, Move Around

Don’t stay stood in one spot when giving a presentation. It makes you look uncomfortable and your audience will be more engaged if you’re moving around from place to place, speaking from different locations.

PRO TIP #7 – Speak s.l.o.w.l.y.

Another common mistake from a nervous or inexperienced presenter is to speak too quickly.

It can be really hard, but speak slowly, much more deliberately than you would in everyday conversation and give your audience time to digest what you are saying .

Don’t be afraid to leave pauses. They give the presentation, your audience and you room to breathe. They’re important.

PRO TIP #8 – Use Humour

Jokes can be a little risky if you don’t know your audience very well, but it can be a risk worth taking because using humour is a great tool to break down the barrier between you and your audience.

Make them laugh (or even just smile) and you will increase their engagement as well as relaxing yourself.

PRO TIP #9 – Be Passionate and Energetic

This is a no brainer. Why should your audience care what you have to say if you don’t look like you do? Believe in what your saying, express yourself, gesticulate, be conversational, tell stories and don’t be afraid to digress (just a little).

Giving a presentation should be like telling a great story. Be expressive and colourful.

PRO TIP #10 – Appear Relaxed and Happy

The more relaxed and happy you appear to be while giving a presentation, the more the audience will enjoy it. They don’t know what you are planning to say, so if something goes wrong just keep going and allow yourself a big smile. They won’t even notice the hiccup.

PRO TIP #11 – Use a Pointer & Visual Aids

Our favourite is this Kensington model which is simply perfect: Amazon (USA) | Amazon (UK)

You can also use this to draw your audience’s attention to specific points as it has a laser pointer built in. (In our experience this is best used sparingly.)

It’s fine to use flipcharts and handouts as visual aids if you like, but remember to distribute handouts at the end of your presentation . If you hand them out before or during your presentation your audience will start flicking through them and reading ahead. This is distracting for them and you and takes the focus away from your awesome presentation!

Practise, Practise, Practise

Practising interview and assessment day exercises before the big day will massively improve your performance when it counts. You can practise real exercises and psychometric tests that employers use here and here .

Thanks for Reading!

We hope you enjoyed our guide? We’d love to hear your feedback on this article and also to learn how your presentation goes, so please do get in touch and let us know. Thanks and good luck!

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Assessment Centre Case Studies Practice & Tips – 2023

Case studies are a central part of the exercises making up most assessment centres . Employers use them to provide valuable insight into the applicants. They provide a way to assess a graduate or job-seeker’s capability and their potential performance after selection. To do this, the assessment centre presents the candidate with a simulated situation that might be faced on the actual job and waits to see how the candidate will respond. The information assessors collect proves invaluable to companies as they work through the screening and hiring process with the candidates who are most likely to perform well in the job opening.

What Is a Case Study Exercise?

Case studies are simulation exercises that put a candidate into situations they might actually see while on the job. The exercises can be done as a group or individually. Which it is will depend on the employer and the assessment centre. The case studies typically provide information that includes financial reports, market studies, or competition analysis and other information that may relate to any aspect of the profession. It may also provide other company reports, consultant’s reports, new product research results, and more. This makes the exercise similar in some ways to an in-tray exercise though the documents are longer for a case study.

Key Features of Case Studies

The exercise can be presented at the end either in written report format or as a presentation, depending on the preference of those running the exam. The assessors then evaluate the candidate’s ability to analyze information with a logical approach to decision making and their aptitude for tackling difficult situations. From there, they score performance.

Case study exercises often are based on a few core topics. Some of these include:

Many times, the case study’s theme or scenario provides the stage for other assessment centre exercises, so paying attention to what the scenario is and the information provided about it can prove helpful in further exercises. If this is the case, the problem-solving case study is likely to show up as one of the first few exercises you do after re-taking the necessary psychometric aptitude assessments for score confirmation.

Competencies Required for Case Studies

The key competencies that case study exercises usually assess are:

The goal of the exercise is to review and analyze the given information to come up with solid business decisions. The assessors will look at both the decision reached and the logical justification for the recommendations. Because of this, the test is not designed to have one ‘correct’ answer. Instead, it is concerned with the approach to solving the issue as much as it is with the solution.

This is the point in the assessment and pre-hiring process where candidates should show the recruiters what they can do. Usually, the exercise lasts around forty minutes. Employers may use either fictional examples or, in some cases, even real live projects with the sensitive information replaced for fictional information.

Due to the nature of the exercise, job-seekers and graduates taking this type of assessment should possess several key skills. They must be able to interpret large quantities of data from multiple sources and in varying formats, use analytical and strategic analysis to solve problems, formulate and commit to a decision, demonstrate commercial and entrepreneurial insight on a problem, and use oral communication skills to discuss the decisions made and the reasoning behind them. Without these key abilities, case exercises may prove challenging for individuals.

How to Prepare for Case Study Exercises?

With the large amount of information presented on assessment centre case studies and the many things to consider, it can be difficult to know where to start. Particularly for those participating in a graduate assessment centre case studies with no prior experience with assessment centres, the case study may seem daunting.

However, it is possible to prepare with some case study practice and by reviewing assessment case study examples similar to the ones that will be given in your assessment centre. These tips for preparation and practice as well the day of will help those facing a case study assessment to do so with confidence.

Case Studies: Tips for Success

Review the advice below as you begin to prepare for the assessment centre:

If you follow the advice above and put in enough time practising and preparing to feel confident, you should be able to ace this portion of your assessment centre. Remember that the solution is not the most important thing about this exercise. How you work with others and the reasoning behind your answer is. So, use the time you have wisely and do not overlook anything as you work to come to a good solution. As you do this, relax and use this as a chance to show the recruiters that you really know what you said you did during the interview stage . That is what this exam is about.

Esteemed Member

Jan 15, 2021

Hey everyone! I've had a lot of messages asking about the CMS assessment centre over the past month so I figured I'd make a thread and put all the information in one place so everyone can have access to it since more AC invites seem to be going out at the moment. For reference, I had my AC in mid-December (I was fast-tracked after their First Steps programme) and got the vac scheme offer about a day later. The assessment centre consisted of a case study, a partner interview, and a group exercise. Here's a run-through of how the day went and any tips I have on how to approach each exercise: For the case study exercise, I had 45 minutes to prepare a presentation answering a question set out in the instructions. All the information you need is in the document they give you (you don't need any prior knowledge), so you just need to read/skim through it all carefully and make sure you pick up on all the key points (most of these will be quite obvious in the document so don't worry too much about missing anything major). My advice is just to make sure you leave enough time to structure your presentation in a clear and concise manner so you can be sure that you're answering all parts of the question (and so you don't end up rambling or jumping from one point to another during your presentation). One way you could do this is to have a cutoff point for yourself to finish reading so you don't run out of time trying to analyse every single sentence (which is probably what I would have done). After the case study, I had a partner interview where I presented my case study findings in the first 10 minutes, then the partner asked me some questions about my presentation. For this stage, my advice is just to make sure that if you mention something in your presentation, you know enough about it to answer any follow-up questions about it. For example, if you briefly mention Brexit, be prepared to answer any question about other impacts it may have or what might happen in the event of a no-deal Brexit in this case study (obviously the no-deal part doesn't apply anymore, but you get the point). The questions didn't seem designed to trip me up and seemed more geared towards giving me an opportunity to expand on some of my earlier points and show my knowledge. The rest of the interview was mostly competency questions (I didn't get any why CMS questions but can't speak for other people's interviews) and one or two basic situational judgment questions. The interview was quite relaxed and flowed more like a natural conversation, so I wasn't asked any difficult follow-up questions or specific commercial questions at any point. For the group exercise, your group is given a task/question at the beginning of the exercise and then you have 30 minutes to prepare a 10-minute presentation with your group answering that question. The task itself was quite simple and didn't require much prior knowledge, since the point of the exercise is mainly to see how you work with others rather than to test your knowledge. This part of the AC was pretty straightforward, my only advice (even though it's super basic) is to just remember that the assessors are in the breakout room with you to watch how you interact with others, so make sure you're being a positive influence and encouraging others throughout the exercise, while still contributing some of your own ideas/thoughts. I'd also say keep an eye on the time because it can be very easy to get carried away with your discussion and not leave enough time to prepare your parts for the presentation. That's pretty much it! This was my first assessment centre so I was very nervous and intimidated going into it, but it went by really quickly and I actually ended up enjoying it, so try not to stress over it too much (although I know that's easier said than done)! I hope this is helpful, let me know if you have any questions!

Star Member

Thank you so much for this!!

MZ said: Hey everyone! I've had a lot of messages asking about the CMS assessment centre over the past month so I figured I'd make a thread and put all the information in one place so everyone can have access to it since more AC invites seem to be going out at the moment. For reference, I had my AC in mid-December (I was fast-tracked after their First Steps programme) and got the vac scheme offer about a day later. The assessment centre consisted of a case study, a partner interview, and a group exercise. Here's a run-through of how the day went and any tips I have on how to approach each exercise: For the case study exercise, I had 45 minutes to prepare a presentation answering a question set out in the instructions. All the information you need is in the document they give you (you don't need any prior knowledge), so you just need to read/skim through it all carefully and make sure you pick up on all the key points (most of these will be quite obvious in the document so don't worry too much about missing anything major). My advice is just to make sure you leave enough time to structure your presentation in a clear and concise manner so you can be sure that you're answering all parts of the question (and so you don't end up rambling or jumping from one point to another during your presentation). One way you could do this is to have a cutoff point for yourself to finish reading so you don't run out of time trying to analyse every single sentence (which is probably what I would have done). After the case study, I had a partner interview where I presented my case study findings in the first 10 minutes, then the partner asked me some questions about my presentation. For this stage, my advice is just to make sure that if you mention something in your presentation, you know enough about it to answer any follow-up questions about it. For example, if you briefly mention Brexit, be prepared to answer any question about other impacts it may have or what might happen in the event of a no-deal Brexit in this case study (obviously the no-deal part doesn't apply anymore, but you get the point). The questions didn't seem designed to trip me up and seemed more geared towards giving me an opportunity to expand on some of my earlier points and show my knowledge. The rest of the interview was mostly competency questions (I didn't get any why CMS questions but can't speak for other people's interviews) and one or two basic situational judgment questions. The interview was quite relaxed and flowed more like a natural conversation, so I wasn't asked any difficult follow-up questions or specific commercial questions at any point. For the group exercise, your group is given a task/question at the beginning of the exercise and then you have 30 minutes to prepare a 10-minute presentation with your group answering that question. The task itself was quite simple and didn't require much prior knowledge, since the point of the exercise is mainly to see how you work with others rather than to test your knowledge. This part of the AC was pretty straightforward, my only advice (even though it's super basic) is to just remember that the assessors are in the breakout room with you to watch how you interact with others, so make sure you're being a positive influence and encouraging others throughout the exercise, while still contributing some of your own ideas/thoughts. I'd also say keep an eye on the time because it can be very easy to get carried away with your discussion and not leave enough time to prepare your parts for the presentation. That's pretty much it! This was my first assessment centre so I was very nervous and intimidated going into it, but it went by really quickly and I actually ended up enjoying it, so try not to stress over it too much (although I know that's easier said than done)! I hope this is helpful, let me know if you have any questions! Click to expand...

Jan 16, 2021

rianna2810 said: Thank you so much for this!! Click to expand...

Jade C said: I also attended an AC in December after being fast-tracked through First Steps and happy to answer any questions that people have- I received a VS offer Just thought I'd share some of my experience too! I defintely agree with the point to make sure you know the reason behind why you mention something like MZ's example of Brexit. I mentioned an issue that would be flagged/practice area that would be involved and the partner interviewing me then confirmed he was a partner in that area and wanted to know more about why I thought that. Luckily he was impressed enough with my answer I genuinely found the interview so much better than I thought. The partners who interviewed me were both lovely, they really put me at ease and were super friendly and engaging! I'd also recommend that you have a couple questions prepared that you may have for them. The case study was difficult virtually as you can't highlight or anything on the document but I found that bullet points and sub-headings were the best way I could note down the information I needed to form my presentation! I had a slight panic when we received a 5 minute time warning and noting bullet points of what I wanted to talk about really helped me get everything down that I needed on time! Content wise I found it much better than anticipated and the issues did stand out. I can also confirm that I didn't have any 'why CMS' or commercial questions but the partners did say they were choosing questions from a cheat sheet so you just never know- although they did specify it was a competency interview, but I just like to try and be prepared for anything that might crop up! I found the group task the hardest as with it being online it was hard not to try and speak over each other or get social ques from people, tech delays etc. I agree with MZ that keeping a track of time is super important as it was really easy to get carried away! I also managed to use some background commercial knowledge for this part of the AC to justify why I thought certain things that were relevant to the task! However, I would say that when bringing in other knowledge, make sure that it is relevant to the task you have been set and what they have asked of you. Good luck everybody Click to expand...

Legendary Member

Jan 17, 2021

Thanks MZ and Jade C! Can I ask how did you present your presentation in the individual interview? Did you just provide a overview of the case and main issues to the interviewer and did you have to provide a written response?

Jacob Miller

Thanks for this advice MZ and Jade C, super helpful! I was wondering if you had any tips on how to prepare for the case study? (its my first one) Congrats on getting the VS!

Jan 18, 2021

Lisa Lowe said: Thanks MZ and Jade C! Can I ask how did you present your presentation in the individual interview? Did you just provide a overview of the case and main issues to the interviewer and did you have to provide a written response? Click to expand...

Simrankm said: Thanks for this advice MZ and Jade C, super helpful! I was wondering if you had any tips on how to prepare for the case study? (its my first one) Congrats on getting the VS! Click to expand...

Distinguished Member

Thank you so much! This advice is brilliant and so clear to follow. Thank you for sharing!

s10 said: Thank you so much! This advice is brilliant and so clear to follow. Thank you for sharing! Click to expand...

Jan 21, 2021

Just out of curiosity, does the AC solely consist of candidates applying to the same office as you?

SBrin said: Just out of curiosity, does the AC solely consist of candidates applying to the same office as you? Click to expand...

Jade C said: My AC had a variety of applicants who had applied to different offices- although this was a fast-tracked AC from the First Steps Scheme and all the offices were Scottish so I couldn't say for sure if general AC's differ! Good luck Click to expand...

Does anyone know what percent of Academy participants secure a TC with CMS?

Lisa Lowe said: Does anyone know what percent of Academy participants secure a TC with CMS? Click to expand...

castrooo said: At one of the CMS events I attended grad rec said 90% I do wonder if there is an assessment during the academy, though! Click to expand...

Jan 22, 2021

Lisa Lowe said: I was thinking that! What more is there to assess after written app, critical thinking test, video interview, partner interview, case study, group exercise and a three week placement?! 🤪 Click to expand...

Jan 23, 2021

MZ said: Thank you!! I'm really glad I could help! Click to expand...

s10 said: I must say thank you again! I got the Academy!! Found this thread incredibly helpful in preparing Click to expand...

Assessment centre activities and examples

Are you an assessor looking for assessment centre activities to run? If so, we can help .

Our experiential learning materials are used in assessment centres all over the world , by heavyweight names like KPMG, Gatwick Airport, and EasyJet.

As an assessor, this post will guide you through the whole process and prepare you to lead a selection of effective activities.

Or if you’ll be attending an assessment centre, this post will give you an idea of the logic underpinning the activities you’re about to encounter.

Here’s what we’ll cover. Click the links to skip ahead to any section:

Key assessment centre concepts

Benefits of an assessment centre, the role of the assessor, activities for recruitment assessment centres , group assessment centre activities with examples, role-play assessment centre activities with examples, virtual assessment centre activities with examples, in-tray assessment centre activities with examples.

We’ll start by introducing some key concepts in case you’re not familiar. To skip this and go straight to the activities, click here.

Assessment centre

A methodology used to identify the candidate(s) best suited to a role or position.

Despite the name, an assessment centre isn’t a specific physical place. It’s a set of exercises to assist with personnel selection, designed to simulate the job and give participants an opportunity to demonstrate the skills required to succeed.

A person tasked with carrying out assessment centre activities, often with formal training to ensure objectivity.

Candidate / participant

A person being assessed for their suitability for a role via completion of the assessment centre.

A type of assessment centre activity in which candidates are given question-based prompts to determine the suitability of their experience and attitude.

Group exercises

A type of assessment centre activity which multiple candidates work together to complete, possibly while playing assigned roles.

Presentation exercises

A type of assessment centre activity in which individuals give a presentation on areas requested by the assessor.

In-tray exercises

A type of assessment centre activity which simulates a workflow that a successful candidate will encounter on the job, to assess their ability to perform tasks, manage time, and delegate responsibility.

Our kit for assessment centres , containing eight activities designed especially to let candidates showcase their qualities while assessors observe a whole range of skills, attitudes, approaches and behaviours that might be missed in interviews.

Assessment centres are popular for a handful of reasons:

An assessor’s role is to observe participant behaviour, assess their performance, and carry out objective judgements based on predetermined criteria.

Assessors will understand that objectivity is hard to achieve. We are all prone to bias, and special frameworks or models of evaluation are often employed to ensure that assessment on a good-bad scale is consistent for different participants and by different assessors.

The ORCE Model is a popular assessment framework. By taking care to o bserve and r ecord behaviour during the assessment, assessors have a more solid baseline to work from when c lassifying and e valuating it afterwards.

There is plenty written about such frameworks – in academic contexts and beyond – so beyond mentioning their relevance, this blog post won’t go into any more detail.

(Note that effective assessment centre activities will be designed in such a way that the opportunity for such bias is reduced , but it is not possible to remove it completely.)

Assessors are also tasked with documenting the assessment process to create a record that can be referred back to at a future date, and which can demonstrate in a legal context that the recruitment process was carried out fairly and in accordance with relevant legislation.

What makes a good assessor?

Broadly speaking, an effective assessor will possess the following traits:

These traits are relevant in all assessment centre contexts. Depending on the type of assessment centre you work in, you may need to develop one or more context-specific skills.

If you’ve been tasked with designing or running an assessment centre, you may be on the lookout for suitable activities. This section includes a few recommendations to get you started, along with information about their strengths and relevance.

The activities in this section flow nicely into each other and would work well for an assessment centre, if you’re in a hurry.

Icebreakers are best unobserved and unassessed, as it reduces the pressure on participants and lets them acclimatise to the day.

Skills assessed : the ability to listen, communication skills, presentation skills

Marshmallow challenge

To warm people up after the icebreaker, go for something fun and lowkey. One popular example is the marshmallow challenge, in which participants must build a tower as tall as possible using only marshmallows and dried spaghetti.

If you do run this activity, check out our blog post outlining how to do it properly : i.e., in a way that will actually give you something to assess. The marshmallow challenge is one of many activities which, done incorrectly, can yield little to no useful results.

Skills assessed : listening skills, valuing others’ ideas, leadership, influencing others, innovation, trial and error

Role-based scenario

Lots of assessment centres used role-based scenarios. The logic is that giving participants the opportunity to react to a scenario relevant to the role they’re applying for will prompt them to think about how they’d deal with it, and that discussing performance afterwards will allow other participants to input their ideas.

In practice though, be aware that role-play can be a hindrance to proper assessment. Participants are being asked to imagine how someone else might respond to a situation, rather than showing how they would actually respond: as a result, you may be seeing a performance rather than real behaviour.

Skills assessed : role-specific qualities, communication skills (if discussed), presentation skills

This simple activity can be useful in assessing how well participants perform under pressure. Prepare a selection of topics, then ask participants to give a 2-minute talk about their topic. Make sure to give all participants the same amount of time to prepare ahead of their talk, to ensure they’re held to similar standards.

To increase the predictive validity of this activity – that is, how well it indicates performance in the role – choose a topic that prompts thought and reflection relevant to the role.

Skills assessed : ability to perform under pressure, communication skills, presentation skills

A traditional interview where candidates answer questions about their past experience and suitability for the role can be employed as part of an assessment centre.

Constructing an effective interview is an art in itself, and one we won’t delve into here. We will say this, though: make sure questions are relevant to the role, and that they give participants the opportunity to demonstrate their suitability.

Skills assessed : ability to perform under pressure, communication skills, role-specific skills

MTa Select for recruitment assessment centres

Our MTa Select kit is designed especially for use in assessment centres.

These assessment activities can be used to evaluate over one hundred defined qualities – including leadership, influencing, customer focus, conflict management and more – making them a popular choice for assessment centres worldwide.

“MTa Select now forms an integral part of our Recruitment Assessment Centre – and has been well received by our own staff and candidates themselves”.

Constable John Ritchie, Grampian Police

If you’re looking for an assessment centre activity and would like a personalised recommendation, click here .

An integral part of an assessment centre is to see how participants interact with others, and group-based activities are a reliable way to assess this. Here are a few ideas for group assessment centre activities.

Group discussion

Split participants out into groups and give each group a topic. Ask them to discuss the topic, possibly with a prompt for different people to advocate for different stances within the discussion, then observe the ongoing discussion and interpersonal dynamics.

Skills assessed : communication skills, ability to listen, valuing the opinions of others, ability to respond to new information

Group presentation

This group activity expands on the above by requiring a presentation at the end of the discussion, to which each participant must contribute. This addition allows assessors to see more interpersonal dynamics at play.

Skills assessed : how roles emerge, leadership, how people advocate their ideas, negotiation, presentation skills

Case studies

This type of activity is a good twist on role-based activities, as they address some of the aforementioned shortcomings of role-play.

Assessors give each group a printout with details about a situation, then ask them to decide the most appropriate response from the company’s perspective. At the end, answers can be compared with company policy to determine the accuracy of their response.

This type of activity can also be done individually.

Skills assessed : knowledge of the role, group decision making, communication skills.

The NASA Challenge

This group activity puts participants in a simulated lunar mission gone awry. Together, group members must decide which items they’ll take when traversing the treacherous lunar surface between their crashed lunar module and the mission control centre.

When running this activity, be careful that you’re doing it right .

We also offer the NASA Challenge as a virtual assessment centre activity over on MTa Immersion .

Skills assessed : listening skills, valuing others’ ideas, influencing others

Perspectives

This experiential learning activity is designed to get participants thinking about the best way to fulfil a deliberately ambiguous brief. Through the simple act of arranging pictures, participants are given an opportunity to advocate their ideas, attempt to build consensus and perform under pressure.

Observing who is able to do these things, and how well, should yield useful insights.

Perspectives is available as a virtual assessment centre activity on MTa Immersion and can be customised based on your requirements.

Skills assessed: advocating ideas, building consensus, working under pressure

By asking participants to play specific roles, you can see how they behave in a wider variety of situations and within different power dynamics.

However, as we mentioned previously, you may actually be assessing how good people are at acting. Participants are not responding to social stimuli as themselves, they’re responding how they think someone playing the role should respond.

Be aware of this if you decide to include role-play activities in your assessment centre. And remember: MTa Select avoids this issue by giving you the opportunity to see how people really behave: in real situations, and under real pressure.

Here are a few examples of role-play assessment centre activities.

Bad feedback

One participant plays the role of a superior, another plays a subordinate. The latter receives negative feedback and must deal with it gracefully and constructively.

Skills assessed : ability to receive bad feedback, ability to act on feedback, identify areas of improvement

Angry customer

One participant plays the role of a dissatisfied customer, another plays an employee dealing with them. They must follow company procedure as best as possible and potentially decide how to act when the procedure stops being relevant.

Skills assessed : ability to work under pressure, knowledge of procedures, customer interfacing skills

Role-specific situations

If you’re running an assessment centre for the police, it would make sense to simulate an arrest or the search of a suspect. This increases the predictive validity of the task by giving participants the chance to show how they’d approach a situation they are likely to encounter in the role.

Skills assessed: desired role-specific skills

Given the advent of technology and remote working, some assessment centres will have online components (or be completely virtual). Here are some ideas for activities to use in this setting.

Virtual ice breaker

By using breakout rooms, you’re able to split participants into groups and give them a private environment to discuss things. Task the participants in each breakout room with finding facts about each other, then close the breakout rooms and invite all groups back to the main space to share.

Observe which participants are keen to share, how well they communicate, the type of information they share, and so on.

Virtual group discussion

Use breakout rooms to split participants into groups and give them the opportunity to discuss things in a private environment. By moving between breakout rooms, you are also able to observe and assess groups individually.

Consider not letting groups know when they will be observed: this will encourage them to discuss things naturally, rather than waiting until you arrive to begin.

Virtual group presentation

Expanding the group discussion into a group presentation, with the requirement to create digital presentation materials, gives you the opportunity to assess how well participants can use technology, collaborate on online documents, and so on.

Psychometric assessments

Many psychometric assessments are available, each offering insight into a different combination of traits. The most suitable one will depend on the situation and the nature of the role being assessed for.

These assessments can be done in person, but lend themselves particularly well to virtual.

In-tray activities place participants in simulated work environments to give assessors a chance to see how they would behave in the role. There are a couple of ways to run these activities, with examples below.

Participants are given a simulated mailbox with a number of emails of varying urgency and are asked to prioritise these tasks and delegate (where relevant) to create an example workflow.

The expectation here isn’t for the participant to complete the work; rather to show that they are able to manage their time and respond to the pressures of the role, rather than just tackling tasks one at a time as they appear in their inbox (which is rarely the most efficient way off working).

Skills assessed : ability to delegate, time management skills, ability to manage a workload, performance under pressure

A paper-based version of the above

Not all roles and workplaces lend themselves best to digital. If you’re assessing for a role where there’ll be lots of interpersonal or paper-based tasks arriving, make sure this is reflected in the assessment centre.

You could give participants a tray full of documents and memos, then have people come to their desk to add other tasks to their workflow. The objective is the same: to create an indicative workflow and showcase how they would prioritise the incoming tasks.

Just 35 Minutes

This activity from MTa Select is an in-tray exercise that utilises computer, fax and paper to simulate a busy work environment. Participants must identify the big issues and avoid getting caught up in the detail.

Skills assessed: evaluating and judging, decision making, focusing on critical issues, prioritisation

If you’ve still got questions about running an assessment centre, the following section should have you covered. And if not, drop us a message on the chat box below and we’ll do our best to help.

How should I structure an assessment centre?

Allow a full day to run the assessment centre, with time for introductions, explanations, and reviews. Remember that people’s ability to concentrate is limited, so a few hours in the middle of the day may yield better results than a whole day 9-5.

Aim for a large enough group to give participants the chance to interact with each other. Low double digits is a good size.

Leave time for lunch and other informal breaks, so that participants can interact in a natural setting: this can be just as revealing as the formal activities.

If you need a pre-made recruitment assessment centre, just run the five activities in this section .

What should an assessment centre include?

An assessment centre should include activities designed to test the competencies relevant for the role you are recruiting for.

You should also include time for review, where relevant. This gives you a mechanism to give feedback to participants and let them know next steps.

Factor in time for breaks and food, too! Participants will be at their best when they’re not under pressure for the whole day.

Some informal time at the beginning is a good shout as well, as it gives participants time to get acquainted with each other and the environment they’ll be spending time in.

What makes an effective assessment centre?

The best assessment centres utilise multiple exercises to assess each competency: i.e., a structured interview may assess communication, and a group exercise will give assessors another opportunity to observe participants communicating.

How many assessors should there be in an assessment centre?

This depends on the role and the organisation: we would recommend at least 2.

How long should an assessment centre last?

Again, this depends. We’d recommend not making an assessment centre longer than a workday. Ideally, a little shorter so that people can maintain concentration throughout.

Can you recommend any useful resources?

This chapter from a textbook dealing with the role of an assessor includes some useful information about common pitfalls and how to avoid them.

You can read about how MTa materials have helped a variety of organisations to run assessment centres:

Assessment centres are powerful tools for personnel selection, across a range of roles and industries.

Depending on the nature of the role you are recruiting for, the components of your assessment centre will vary. This blog post was written to connect you with some activities that might be suitable for your assessment centre.

For assessors looking for out-of-the-box activities, we have created MTa Select specifically to help you get more value from your assessment centres.

If you need help finding activities for your assessment centre, get in touch via our contact form or the live chat below and we’ll be happy to help.

Empower your assessment centres with MTa Select

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Assessment Center Case Studies Practice & Tips – 2023

Case studies are a central part of the exercises making up most assessment centers . Employers use them to provide valuable insight into the applicants. They provide a way to assess a graduate or job-seeker’s capability and their potential performance after selection. To do this, the assessment center presents the candidate with a simulated situation that might be faced on the actual job and waits to see how the candidate will respond. The information assessors collect proves invaluable to companies as they work through the screening and hiring process with the candidates who are most likely to perform well in the job opening.

What Is a Case Study Exercise?

Case studies are simulation exercises that put a candidate into situations they might actually see while on the job. The exercises can be done as a group or individually. Which it is will depend on the employer and the assessment center. The case studies typically provide information that includes financial reports, market studies, or competition analysis and other information that may relate to any aspect of the profession. It may also provide other company reports, consultant’s reports, new product research results, and more. This makes the exercise similar in some ways to an in-tray exercise though the documents are longer for a case study.

Key Features of Case Studies

Case study exercises often are based on a few core topics. Some of these include:

Many times, the case study’s theme or scenario provides the stage for other assessment center exercises, so paying attention to what the scenario is and the information provided about it can prove helpful in further exercises. If this is the case, the problem-solving case study is likely to show up as one of the first few exercises you do after re-taking the necessary psychometric aptitude assessments for score confirmation.

Competencies Required for Case Studies

The key competencies that case study exercises usually assess are:

How to Prepare for Case Study Exercises?

With the large amount of information presented on assessment center case studies and the many things to consider, it can be difficult to know where to start. Particularly for those participating in a graduate assessment center case studies with no prior experience with assessment centers, the case study may seem daunting.

However, it is possible to prepare with some case study practice and by reviewing assessment case study examples similar to the ones that will be given in your assessment center. These tips for preparation and practice as well the day of will help those facing a case study assessment to do so with confidence.

Case Studies: Tips for Success

Review the advice below as you begin to prepare for the assessment center:

If you follow the advice above and put in enough time practicing and preparing to feel confident, you should be able to ace this portion of your assessment center. Remember that the solution is not the most important thing about this exercise. How you work with others and the reasoning behind your answer is. So, use the time you have wisely and do not overlook anything as you work to come to a good solution. As you do this, relax and use this as a chance to show the recruiters that you really know what you said you did during the interview stage . That is what this exam is about.

Coping with case studies for graduate jobs

Our tips on how to prepare for an assessment centre case study exercise will help you show graduate recruiters how well you could perform in the job.

Case studies at graduate assessment centres allow an employer to see you in action. An interview is all about you telling recruiters what you can do; the case study is about showing them, and so it’s arguably one of the fairest and most realistic components of a typical assessment day.

What do graduate assessment centre case studies involve?

The case study exercise can be for individuals or groups. You will usually be given some information about a work-related scenario and invited to examine the evidence before presenting your findings and solutions – either verbally (in a presentation or case study interview) or in written form. You may also be drip-fed additional information to assess and respond to throughout the allocated time.

At virtual a assessment centre, candidates are usually sent to a part of a platform to view the case study briefing pack before joining the rest of their group in a breakout room.

Discover what virtual assessment centres involve and how best to approach them

Example assessment centre case study exercise 1

The following group exercise is a genuine investment case study. Candidates have to work together to find answers and respond to incoming news and data. They then have to make a presentation to a ‘management board’.

A publisher of scientific journals and books is looking to make a significant acquisition. It has identified a target company and approached a number of investment banks for their views on the merits of a potential deal and a target price. Based on these presentations, the publisher will decide whether to proceed with a bid and, if so, select one bank to act as their adviser.

Your team is one of the investment banks bidding to win the mandate. You need to: analyse the figures provided; to review the marketplace, your potential client (the publisher) and the target company; and to prepare a five-minute presentation giving your recommendations, eg whether to go ahead, go ahead under specific conditions etc.

Example assessment centre case study exercise 2

You are a member of marketing team at the global organisation, Choc-O-Lot Ltd. It manufactures and distributes chocolate products throughout the UK and Europe. Its flagship bar is ‘Dairy Dream’, but the business has expanded rapidly over the past eight years, launching new products and diversifying into new areas (such as running chocolate-themed experience days). The company is planning a huge brand relaunch. Just as Choc-O-Lot is about to launch a marketing campaign, an article appears in the national press alleging that Choc-O-Lot treats its workers, and members of its supply chain, poorly. It is widely shared on social media, with calls for a boycott. What would you do?

Tips for preparing for the case study exercise in advance

Get the insights and skills you need to shape your career journey with Pathways. Informed by years of conversations with recruiters, this course will give you the best tips and resources, allowing you to feel more at ease presenting to others.

Tips for approaching the case study exercise on the day

Tips for great presentations at graduate assessment centres

Related careers advice

Impress your interviewers: the case study

Management consulting +2

The graduate's guide to assessment centres

Written exercises at assessment centres: showcase your professionalism

Assessment Centres – A Guide for 2023

Updated March 26, 2023

What Is an Assessment Centre?

An assessment centre does not refer to a location, but to a process which is being increasingly used by organizations to assess staff, either as part of the recruitment process or for internal promotion and staff development (where it is usually known as a development centre ).

The assessment centre focuses on a set of varied exercises which are designed to simulate different aspects of the work environment.

It can be usefully defined as:

‘a method for assessing aptitude and performance; applied to a group of participants by trained assessors using various aptitude diagnostic processes in order to obtain information about applicants “abilities or development potential”.’

You are most likely to face an assessment centre at the critical points of your career, for example:

There are four types of assessment centre:

Elite graduate assessment centre – This type of assessment centre is used exclusively by top-flight management consultancies, Fortune 100 companies and the most prestigious government agencies. There are typically several dozen very similar candidates for each place on offer.

Graduate assessment centre – The graduate assessment centre is used by many organizations to recruit their annual intake for their graduate/management programmes. These organizations are usually high street banks, public utilities and the less prestigious government departments. Competition is not as fierce as for the elite programmes and the bar is set lower in terms of academic achievement.

Management assessment centre – Management assessment centre candidates tend to be far more diverse that those attending a graduate assessment centre in terms of age, educational achievements, personal achievements and work experience. Here, the assessment centre process is trying to determine whether candidates can demonstrate competencies at the next level up from the one they are used to.

Development centre – You will most likely take part in a development centre as you progress from front-line to managerial roles, or from a general role to a more technical or strategic role, often as part of an organization’s graduate management programme.

What Is the Origin of the Assessment Centre?

Understanding the history of how and why assessment centres were developed will help you to appreciate what the original users were trying to achieve and how they have increased in sophistication.

This knowledge will help you to prepare yourself so that you can best illustrate the required competencies as well as your knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSAs) during the exercises, thus allowing you to maximize your score.

Selecting people based on their ability to do the task required has long been established in the selection of military and intelligence personnel.

There are several examples of this throughout history but it was between the world wars that the German army developed the forerunner of the modern assessment process.

In the book Spies and Saboteurs by Dr. W.J. Morgan (1955, London – Victor Gollancz Ltd.), the author describes how a German psychologist, Dr. Simoneit, observed officers performing a variety of tasks and exercises.

The officers were rated on how well they performed and were chosen for promotion accordingly.

The successful officer needed to show the following qualities:

The virtues of this assessment system were recognized by the British Government and a Selection Assessment Board was created using its own testing methods.

American Intelligence also recognized the benefits of such selection methods and added further psychological tests and more exercises to their assessment days.

Dr WJ Morgan clearly illustrates that it is how you performed your tasks, whether as an individual or within a group, that matters, not how quickly an exercise was done.

This was reflected in the scores of participants, those who scored highest had shown the qualities, competencies and behaviors required for a role in intelligence.

Although these original assessment days had a military bias and their specific exercises are unlikely to be used in a commercial or public sector environment, it is still important to be aware that each exercise has been designed to assess your behaviors in performing a task.

No matter how trivial or petty an exercise may appear to you, remember that the original psychologist designed it to assess how well you display the required behaviors for the role.

For example, an in-tray exercise may seem boring or unnecessary for the role you've applied for, but the assessors may want to see your approach to the tasks as well as how you prioritize the items.

Why Do Employers Use Assessment Centres?

Assessment centres are seen as one of the most effective ways of identifying top candidates who'll get on well with others and fit in with the organization’s culture as well as assessing how closely their behaviors match those required for the role.

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's survey on ‘Recruitment, Retention and Turnover’, 34% of employers now use assessment centres when recruiting managers, professionals and graduates.

This figure will inevitably grow as organizations seek to make more accurate selection and promotion decisions to secure the considerable investment they make in their personnel.

Assessment centres are utilized in a variety of settings, including industry and business, government, armed forces, educational institutions and safety forces, to select individuals for supervisory, technical, sales or management positions.

You can also expect to face an assessment centre if you apply to work for one of the major financial institutions or management consultancies.

A recent survey by Employment Review magazine revealed:

More than nine out of ten employers using assessment centres believe they are a ‘very effective’ or ‘fairly effective’ means of selecting staff.

More than half believe the often-considerable costs of assessment centres are justified.

Private sector service companies and public sector organizations in the survey were the most enthusiastic about assessment centres, with almost 60% believing them to be very effective.

Only 29% of manufacturing companies thought that assessment centres were effective and valuable for money.

Two-thirds of employers using assessment centres include them as part of their graduate recruitment programs or when selecting middle or senior managers.

The expense of conducting an assessment centre is usually somewhere between 300 a n d 300 and 300 an d 5,000 per candidate. This tends to restrict their use to situations where the costs can be justified in terms of preventing high expenses associated with unsuitable personnel.

Prepare for an Assessment Centre

What to Expect During an Assessment Centre in May 2023

Your assessment centre will usually last from half a day to two full days depending on the level of position you are applying for.

It is most likely that it will be conducted at the employer's premises, their training facility or in facilities provided by the HR consultancy that has been contracted to design and conduct the testing.

Assessment centres are usually used after the initial stages of the selection process because of the large amount of time and expense in conducting them, and usually follow the initial job interview.

Other measurements such as psychometric tests may complement the selection process.

During each exercise, a group of observers will rate you on a range of set indicators using a prescribed performance scale.

Results are then cross-compared against the same indicators measured in other tests.

Following test completion, observers meet to discuss the test results and reach a group consensus about your ratings.

Assessment centres are highly structured in their design, application and assessment procedure and are specifically adapted to assess factors such as your level of skills, aptitude and compatibility with the organization's culture.

Each test measures a range of indicators within these factors.

At the beginning of the assessment, you should receive an initial briefing about the timetable of tests, location of rooms, etc.

Before each test, you will be given instructions describing the exercise, your role, timeframes, equipment, etc.

You will not be told in detail about the individual indicators which will be measured.

In addition, you are unlikely to receive feedback on your results, unless you have been successfully selected.

Types of Assessment Centre Exercises

Over the many years that assessment centres have been used as part of the recruitment process, a core group of exercises have become recognized as the best ones to assess a candidate’s competencies and behaviors.

The most common type of assessment centre exercises include:

In-Tray Exercises

If you are asked to do an in-tray exercise , you may be asked to assume a particular role as an employee of a fictitious company and work through a pile of correspondence in your in-tray.

The purpose of the in-tray exercise is to see how well you are able to deal with a typical day’s in-tray for the role which you have applied.

Assessors want to see how well your decisions match those of a good manager or executive in their organization.

You will be provided with:

For more senior positions, the in-tray exercise is often followed by a justification section which provides you with an opportunity to explain your chosen answers to the assessors face-to-face.

In most cases, you will be told in your invitation to the assessment centre if your in-tray exercise includes a section to discuss or justify your answers.

The time allocated for the in-tray exercise will vary but it is usually somewhere between 20 and 60 minutes.

You may be given an extra 5 to 10 minutes to read the overview before you receive the in-tray items, or they may all be given together.

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In-Tray Competencies:

These tests commonly measure job skills such as:

You will be judged on how well you can handle complex information, determine priorities, make decisions within time limits, display sensitivity to potential problems and communicate clearly.

You will also be assessed on how well you work under pressure and with minimal information.

Justification Sessions:

If you are asked to sit a justification session , you will be assessed on how well you explain your actions and decisions, as well as your resolve to stick with your original decision.

This may be with a small panel of assessors or a small group of the other candidates and an assessor.

The behaviors you would be expected to exhibit in a group justification are similar in terms of how you arrived at your decision, but you will also need to take into account the dynamics of working within a group.

If your prospective role requires you to have considerable analytical and evaluator skills, you may find that the justification is targeted at the most important issues raised in the in-tray documentation.

How to Succeed in In-Tray Exercises:

You do not need to have specialized knowledge of the market sector or industry as all the information required to make a decision is provided in the overview documentation.

Try to imagine that you are at work doing the described duties rather than just completing a test, but make sure that the reasons for your actions are clear and documented – even if this is just a note in the margin.

The most important aspect of the in-tray exercise is to ensure you have fully understood the role you are playing and the objectives of the organization.

Research the organization you wish to join so that you have a clear understanding of their ethos, management style and mission. Ensure that your behaviors and answers reflect these.

Only use the information you have been provided . Do not draw your own conclusions and do not be afraid to say you’d want further information before you made a final decision.

Although each question will usually pose just one issue, you must consider your answer within the context of the whole picture portrayed in your in-tray items.

Most in-tray exercises will have at least 12 items, but for more senior jobs this can increase to 30 or more. It is important not to prematurely discard ones you feel are unnecessary because many short or inconsequential items are put in to create double bookings that you would otherwise miss.

It is vital that you pay attention to the small details as the authors of the exercise have often included incorrect or conflicting dates for meetings, old correspondence, misspelled names and missing key information to test this skill.

When reading through the items, it is important to highlight or clearly mark the important information each item contains and make notes so that you can explain your decision later.

The number of questions in an exercise are designed so that you can answer them all , and it is important that you try to do so, especially if you will be expected to sit a justification at the end.

Ensure that you proportion the time you have available sensibly , using several minutes to consider more complex questions and less for simple ones.

The in-tray exercise forms the backbone of any assessment centre and this is because of the diversity of behaviors as well as the knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSAs) that can be tested as part of this exercise.

It is vital that you remember the exercise is designed to show the assessors at your assessment centre how well you perform the key tasks which they have identified as essential for the role.

Presentation Exercise

A presentation exercise can take a few different forms, make sure you know which type of presentation you might be asked to prepare for:

You might be asked to give a presentation on a fictitious case study that you are provided before the assessment centre . You will usually be given a topic or possibly a choice of topics in advance and will also be told the duration of the presentation, usually around ten minutes with five minutes at the end for questions. You can also expect to receive a list of the presentation equipment that will be available, usually an OHP.

If your assessment centre spans two days, the preparation can sometimes be set as an exercise at the end of the first day, or given to you on the day itself . You will be given your topic on the day, along with some relevant data and a set time, typically 30 minutes, to prepare.

The presentation can be linked to other exercises , usually the group discussion. In this instance, each candidate is expected to make a presentation detailing the group’s findings or conclusions.

Presentation exercises need to be kept fairly short as the same assessors will usually observe all of the candidates to make sure that the assessment is fair.

At the end of your presentation, the observers will ask a few questions .

Think about the sort of things that might be asked and try to have good answers ready.

If you don’t understand the question, don’t be afraid to ask for clarification and if you don’t know the answer, be honest.

If the assessor disagrees with one of your points, you will be expected to defend your reasoning, but remember to be polite and constructive.

Presentation Competencies:

Quality of research – Research the topic carefully. Make sure that your sources are credible and up to date. The internet is the easiest way to research a topic but remember to check any information that you use for accuracy and currency.

Organization – Having gathered all of the facts you need to make your presentation, you will need to put them into order. The best way to do this is to make presentation cards, about 3 x 5 inches is ideal. It is best to put the most important facts first and avoid trying to get too much information across in the limited time that you have.

Persuasiveness – You need to structure your delivery to ensure that your ideas are well organized, logical and convincing. You can use your cards for this. Write the ‘point’ at the top and summarize the supporting information underneath it.

Presentation skills – The only acceptable way to make a presentation is to speak naturally using cue cards to prompt you. You must not simply read a pre-prepared script. To be able to present in this way, you need to rehearse the whole presentation several times. Remember to speak at a steady pace and with clarity so that you can be heard. Keep eye contact with the observers and try not to refer to your cue cards other than when strictly necessary.

Time management – The assessors will be checking that you stay within the allocated time frame. There is no excuse for overrunning your time slot or for running out of material when you have been told how long your presentation should take.

Career motivation – This aspect of job selection is often overlooked by candidates, but most employers want someone who has a genuine enthusiasm for what they do. Your assessors might be listening to a whole series of presentations on the same or similar topics that day so don’t underestimate how much energy you need to put in if you are going to capture and hold their attention.

Organizational and strategic interpretation – Try to demonstrate that you can add value beyond that which the employer expects from the role. This is easier in some presentations than others, it depends on the topic you’re given, but it is often this added value that marks out the successful candidates.

Six Stages of Presentation Giving:

Whichever format a presentation is going to take, you can give yourself a huge advantage by knowing how to prepare properly.

It does not matter whether the preparation time is several weeks or half an hour, if you have a system that you have practiced, you will have far more chance of success than a candidate who just improvises and hopes for the best.

The six-point plan below is both logical and flexible. It is designed to make sure that you don’t waste time thinking about what to do, and that you spend whatever preparation time you have as efficiently as possible:

Giving a presentation offers you a much better platform than is normally available when simply answering an interviewer's questions.

You also have far more control in this presentation exercise than in any of the others.

First, you don’t need to consider other participants as you would in a group discussion or role-play exercise.

Second, you have control over how you present your given topic or theme.

So, if you are asked to give a presentation, be prepared to make the most of this opportunity to show what you can do and have to offer.

Group Discussion Exercise

Group exercises involve candidates working together as a team to resolve a presented issue.

This is usually presented in the form of a brief, which also includes a strict time limit when the result of the discussion will need to be conveyed to the assessors.

The majority of group exercises are done with a group size of four to eight people as this will give everyone the opportunity to contribute. It also makes it possible to assign one assessor to each candidate, which makes detailed observation and marking easier.

There are three basic formats that can be used at your assessment centre:

Free format – The structure of the group is left entirely to the group itself to work out. You can choose your own role within the group which best displays your strengths. Be careful not to spend too much time competing for certain roles or in over politeness in deciding how to progress. Either of these could result in your group rushing into a decision or not achieving the required goal of the exercise.

Partially structured – Each candidate is set a specific task on which they must lead the discussion. The clearer terms of reference make it easier to know when you can contribute to the overall decision or solution. It can be more difficult for you to illustrate your strengths if the role you have been given does not suit you.

Structured – A role is assigned to each member of the group. For example, chairperson, secretary, finance controller, personnel, sales, public relations or production. This can be helpful as you will clearly see how you should interact with other candidates.

Group Discussion Competencies:

You will be assessed on how you interact with others and your impact and influence when working in a team.

Types of Scenario:

The types of scenario used in group exercises varies from physical problems (for example, how to build a bridge over a stream using materials provided), to purely theoretical problems which can be solved by discussion.

The main themes of a group discussion exercise often take one of the following forms:

Critical incident – This could be operational (for example, your supplier has just doubled the price of your product’s raw materials) or strategic (for example, there has been a leak to the press on your organizations future direction). The group has to decide how this change impacts the business or organization and present their findings. You will be asked to present or prepare your group’s response and show how you would minimize the impact on the organization.

Organizational issue – You will be provided with a full brief on what the organizational issue is and a clear objective you have to meet. Your group may have to address the personnel issues of a re-organization, the financial implications of a merger or the operational impact of an acquisition. The group will have to assess what impact this particular change will have on the organization and put forward suggestions as to how to address this in the best way. The level of position you are applying for will influence whether or not you prepare a presentation or a report.

Problem solving and simulation – You will be given a detailed description of the problem you face and, as a group, you will have to agree on a form of action to resolve the problem presented. The type of problem or simulation will have a direct correlation with the role for which you are being assessed. So, technical roles will be faced with problems of a technical nature to solve, management will have a resource issue to address, etc.

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Questions may refer back to your first interview, to assessment centre activities or to aptitude or personality test results.

The assessors will usually ask each candidate the same primary questions; secondary questions will depend on the individual candidate’s responses to the primary questions and will be used to elicit more information about a particular aspect of the competency being tested.

For example,

Interviewer: “Tell us about an occasion where you have shown leadership.” Candidate: “I was captain of the university basketball team and my responsibilities included organizing the weekly training sessions. This was actually the toughest part of being team captain, once the game actually started everyone was sufficiently self-motivated to give their best performance, but persuading people to turn out to the weekly training sessions was the most difficult part.” Interviewer: “Go on...” Candidate: “I found that the best way to motivate players to train was to agree with the coach which particular skill each individual player needed to work on most – we would discuss this after each game. I’d then approach the players individually and ‘sell’ the training session based on that. I found that when players believed that the training session was going to address their own needs, rather than being just general training, they were much more motivated to show up.“ Interviewer: “Interesting, can you give me an example of how you would ‘sell’ a training session? What type of thing would you say to a player?”

How to Succeed in a Competency-Based Interview:

It is important to first identify what competencies will be assessed.

Some employers will provide this information before interview and some will not. If possible, you should ask, as this will save you a lot of guesswork.

If this information is not provided explicitly, you will need to work out the likely competencies required from the job description and the information that you have about the organization.

There are three approaches that you can take to answering competency-based interview questions:

No preparation, just answer spontaneously – Unfortunately, this approach does not work very well with CBIs. This is because you are expected to reply to questions with specific examples and, because you are under a lot of time pressure, you won’t always have time to pick the best one. This can undermine your confidence as well as failing to illustrate convincingly the competency in question.

Try to prepare a model answer for every possible question – Even if it were possible to memorize ‘ideal’ answers, there are two problems with this approach. First, memorized answers don’t sound sincere. Second, they won’t usually be consistent with the information on your CV or resume.

Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) – This method will provide you with answers which illustrate convincingly the competency in question as well as being consistent with your CV/resume.

Role-Play Exercise

For the role-play exercise, you will usually be asked to assume a fictitious role and handle a particular work situation.

The key purpose of the exercise is to again see what competencies you display and how your behavior matches those of the required role.

Role-plays usually use specifically trained individuals, consultants or professional actors who are clearly briefed about their role and how to respond when you take a particular approach.

You may need to make a conscious effort to overcome your natural responses in these exercises.

For example, the assessors are looking to see whether you can exhibit sensitivity or toughness in those situations that require it, not whether you are a naturally sensitive or tough person.

This type of exercise also allows the assessors to actually test how you respond when put on the spot or when dealing with conflict.

Role-Play Scenarios:

The scenarios will be based on the sort of situations that are very difficult to emulate in any other sort of test or interview.

They usually take a one-to-one format with an assessor observing the interactions.

For example:

If you are likely, as part of your role, to be involved with talking to journalists or fielding press inquiries, then you might face a media interview exercise .

You can view this as a unique role-play exercise designed to assess how well you perform with the press.

When you look at the likely scenarios that will come up in this type of exercise, you will appreciate that a wide variety of job positions could find themselves in the situation where they are required to speak to the press or a journalist.

The most probable scenarios are:

You can quickly see that all of these scenarios have a negative aspect, which the majority of journalists will exploit.

This exercise is designed to test how you respond to a crisis or unexpected situation.

Role-Play Competencies:

You must review this list in the context of the actual role and organization you are applying for so that you can add or amend this list accordingly.

The key behaviors you need to show are:

How to Succeed in a Role-Play Exercise:

Discern from the advertisement, job specification and your knowledge of the organization the key competencies the role requires. With this knowledge, you can ascertain which behaviors you will be required to show and which ones are most likely to be part of the role-play exercise.

Research the organization’s ethos thoroughly to give you a clear understanding of its mission and how to communicate this to others. The more familiar you become with the organization's ethos and values, the more easily you will be able to communicate as if you were already part of the organization.

In addition to these preparations focused on the organization and its activities, you should also source a host of supporting industry facts and figures to help you talk about industry issues more generally.

Social Event

If you are invited to an assessment centre, it will probably involve at least a buffet lunch or, in some cases, an evening dinner.

This is the part of the recruitment process that is not formally assessed and is meant to be an informal way for you to find out more about the organization and its values.

However, these social events do provide the assessors with an opportunity to see how you engage with your peers and what questions you ask incumbent managers and recent graduates.

They also provide an opportunity for the assessors to see how you act in an informal social environment.

The assessors need to be confident that you are going to be a good ambassador for the organization, particularly if your role is likely to involve socializing with clients or people from other organizations.

The ability to engage in polite conversation with strangers and to behave socially within the conventional norms is essential.

How to Succeed at the Social Event:

If you are being selected for a management or graduate-level position then it is a good idea to brush up on your knowledge of current affairs and global news. This will enable you to discuss any topical issues that crop up over lunch or coffee.

In addition to being up-to-speed on the latest industry and world news, being good at small talk is an impressive asset.

It creates the impression that you are a relaxed and confident person and that you would be a good representative for the organization, especially if your future role involves client contact.

If there is a coffee break or buffet then your main aim is to chat with as many people as possible to show off your social skills.

If you are being introduced to someone, first look at the introducer and then at the person you are meeting and, if offered, shake hands. Listen carefully to their name and repeat it in conversation as soon as possible to help you remember it.

If someone approaches you , you should give them your full attention. Listen for any information that you can use to formulate a question and get the conversation going.

If you wish to approach someone or a group of people, do it from the front so that they can see you coming. Say the other person’s name, if you know it. If not, smile, put out your hand and say “Hello I’m...” and then add some information that will identify you and/or outline the reasons for presenting yourself.

If you want to move on to another individual or group then you need to do this politely and take into account that the people you are with should be acknowledged before you move on. It is a good idea to indicate your empty coffee cup or glass and say ‘I think I’ll go for a refill, it was nice speaking to you’ or something similar.

If others have joined your conversation and it is not possible to move on without interrupting things it is still important to make eye contact and leave with a smile or a wave.

What Competencies and Behaviours Are the Assessors Looking For?

We need to consider what exactly is meant by the term ‘behaviors’ and how this can be related to the competencies required for the role.

To do this, we need to introduce the concept of KSAs .

This term was defined in the definitions table as the knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes that are required for competency.

Competencies are general descriptions of the behavior and underlying characteristics needed to successfully perform a particular role at the required level.

They are concerned with how an individual carries out a particular element of their role rather than merely what they do.

As you can imagine, competencies and behaviors are quite difficult things to specify and to measure accurately.

The professionals who design assessment centre exercises usually try to overcome this problem by subdividing behaviors into separate factors that are more specific and therefore easier to measure.

In each of the exercises, the assessors want to see you exhibit the behaviors that are seen as essential for the job and they will be assessing your behaviors using the following criteria:

Knowledge – Do you have the knowledge necessary for the role? This will encompass technical, procedural and organizational knowledge as well as knowledge of the market, your competitors, etc.

Skill – Can you exhibit the necessary skills at the appropriate level during the assessment day? Skills include things like written and verbal communication, negotiating ability, analytical ability, judgment, etc.

Attitude – Do you show the appropriate attitude to the situation or scenario being played out in the assessment centre exercise. This affects how you interact with others and how you are perceived by them.

Whenever you are considering your approach to a particular exercise, you should think in terms of demonstrating the appropriate KSAs.

Using the exercises as vehicles to demonstrate your KSAs will ensure that you tick more boxes on the assessor’s forms.

How Do I Demonstrate My KSAs in an Assessment Centre Exercise?

You cannot predict exactly how much information you will be given in each assessment centre exercise or whether it will be based on a real-life scenario or a fictitious one.

Neither can you be sure that you will always be given sufficient information to be certain of making the correct decision.

Many candidates are put off by this unpredictability and perceived lack of realism in the exercises and perform badly as a result.

These issues can be dealt with by asking yourself the following questions as you work through each assessment centre exercise.

To illustrate how you can demonstrate your KSAs, we have listed some examples below.

You must formally demonstrate your KSAs, either by making notes or, in the case of item 3, by what you actually say.

In-Tray Exercise Scenario

This in-tray exercise puts you in the position of a marketing manager for a fictitious company that produces solar panels for domestic hot water and heating systems.

You are expected to work through a number of items in your in-tray and deal with them appropriately.

In-tray item 1:

The first item is an email from an automotive racing team who are asking if your company would like to explore a sponsorship deal.

Knowledge – Does the company already have a sponsorship deal, if so, is it exclusive? If not, would it fit in with other sponsors, the company mission statement and the overall ethos of the company?

Skill – Use your judgment to decide if the company’s positioning in the marketplace is consistent with this type of sponsorship. For example, if the main thrust of the marketing efforts were based on green and environmentally friendly messages then it would not be appropriate. However, if the marketing messages stress the ‘high-tech’ nature of the products then it might be a good fit.

Attitude – Even if the request for sponsorship was entirely inappropriate and you are under a lot of time pressure in this exercise, your response should still be polite and businesslike. You are the public face of the company.

In-tray item 2:

This is an email from a journalist with GreenLife magazine.

It has an article attached and the journalist is asking if you have any comments before publication.

The magazine describes itself as being aimed at ‘environmentally aware people who are building or improving their homes’.

Scanning the article, you can see that it is generally positive about your products, particularly the technical capabilities, but there are some negative comments about the fact that the products are made in Indonesia.

Specifically, the article is critical of the conditions in the factory and the amount of energy consumed in the manufacture and transport of the products.

Knowledge – Are the readers of this magazine part of the target market for the products? Is the magazine influential? This will influence how much priority you give this item. Does the organization have a full-time press officer? Is he or she likely to have a working relationship with the journalist? Has the company had an environmental audit?

Skill – You can display judgment by prioritizing this item as well as outlining and ranking the options available to you.

Attitude – Your attitude will be apparent from how you deal with this item. Did you approach it in an analytical way and are your decision options the result of clear thinking?

In-tray item 3:

You will also receive a telephone call from an actor who is playing the part of a subordinate. He is at a trade exhibition representing the company. He is upset and concerned because a member of the public has tripped over on the exhibition stand and broken their wrist.

Knowledge – There is not really any opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge with this item. It is exclusively an opportunity to display your skill and attitude.

Skill – You can display your communication skills by dealing with your subordinate in such a way as to calm him down and outline an action plan for dealing with the incident.

Attitude – The challenge is to deal sympathetically but efficiently with a subordinate who is obviously upset whilst you yourself are under time pressure.

As you can see, even simple items like these three examples give you ample opportunity to demonstrate your KSAs.

Who Are Your Assessors?

Tina Lewis Rowe provides an excellent definition of an assessor:

An assessor is an individual trained to observe, record, classify and make reliable judgments about the behaviors of those being assessed.

Source: Lewis Rowe, Tina; A Preparation Guide for the Assessment Center Method; (2006) Charles C Thomas Publishers Ltd, Illinois, USA.

They are usually people one level above the position you have applied for.

They will be ambitious and successful individuals within their own departments.

These people will have a very clear idea of the qualities they expect to see in an individual performing the new role.

Many agencies have a preferred list of assessors they like to use and the human resources department will have key people they call upon for the assessment centre days.

For senior roles, assessors who are external to the organization may be used to bring a broader perspective to the assessment.

The training an assessor receives, whether they are internal or external to the organization, will equip them with the skills to observe, classify and record candidates’ behavior during the exercises.

They will also have a thorough understanding of the requirements of the role and will have studied the job specification.

From this knowledge, a list of key behavioral areas will be drawn up, each having a more detailed description to ensure consistency among the assessors when scoring candidates.

There are three things you need to remember about the assessors:

Your key objective is to find out what behaviors the assessors see as essential, desirable, adequate and a liability.

For many organizations, their human resources department will have drawn up their own specific scoring sheet which they will modify as appropriate for the role in question.

This scoring is usually from 1 to 10; 1 being poor or unsatisfactory and 10 being totally capable and suited to the role.

The assessors will follow each exercise with a discussion.

This discussion will give them all an opportunity to say what they observed and how they've marked this behavior and then to gain a consensus from the group to award the candidate a final score for an exercise.

This ensures that each candidate is judged fairly and that the company or organization has a thorough record of how a final decision was made.

Many organizations like to include an exercise where they use multiple assessors, usually a minimum of three people, and they will be at least one level above the position you are applying for.

In these exercises, the panel will be made up of diverse individuals, some may be external to the organization or department.

So you will need to be mindful of assessors who may have different priorities and adapt your behaviors accordingly.

How to Prepare for an Assessment Centre in 2023

If you are a graduate, your most influential factor to success will be your preparation for the assessment centre and how you ensure that your behavior and language matches that of the organization.

As your career develops you will acquire competencies that you did not possess as a graduate so you will be able to differentiate yourself from the other candidates because of these experiences. As part of your preparation, you will be able to bring out how these additional competencies increase your compatibility with those of the role and organization.

Here are our top tips for success in an assessment centre:

Step 1 . Know the Competencies Required for the Job

Always remember that the assessment centre exercises are designed to judge how well you exhibit the required behaviors of the job you are applying for.

Step 2 . Research the Organisation and Sector

Make sure you have good background knowledge of the sector, the organization and its products and services.

Step 3 . Keep Up Your Knowledge of Current Affairs

If you are being selected for a management or graduate level position then it is a good idea to brush up on your knowledge of current affairs and global news.

The international publication ‘The Economist’ is probably the most useful publication to study for this purpose.

You should also read the most recent copies of any relevant industry-specific magazine or newspaper. This will enable you to discuss any topical issues that crop up in the panel interview or over lunch or coffee.

Step 4 . Be a Team Player

When working in a group, remember that the observers are usually looking for candidates who show evidence of being team players and fully commit to the tasks they are set.

Be adaptable in your thinking and recognize other candidates' good ideas but remember that talking people round to your point of view will demonstrate good communication skills provided that it is done in a positive and inclusive way.

Step 5 . Don’t Take Over

You can't afford to appear too introverted but you must avoid interrupting others or taking over the discussion.

Don't try to outmaneuver other candidates or dismiss opposing points of view in a negative or aggressive way.

Step 6 . Participate Fully and Encourage Others

Try to express your views clearly and concisely and make an effort to encourage participation from quieter candidates where applicable.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are assessment centers.

Assessment centers are a recruitment process used by many large companies.

They allow recruiters to assess your skills and personality in real-life situations such as:

Assessment centers typically last one day and always include a group interview and a project or presentation. You may have to complete aptitude tests, additional activities, role-plays and an individual interview, depending on the role.

They are commonly used for graduate programs, when moving to a managerial role or when a company is mass-hiring.

How do you introduce yourself in an assessment center?

When introducing yourself in an assessment center , you want to be confident but not obnoxious.

With a firm handshake (if appropriate), state your name, your current position and the position you are applying for. If it is a graduate role, state your school and major.

In some cases, the assessor might ask you to mention something specific as an icebreaker, such as a hobby or favorite movie.

In this instance, try to think of something that will help you stand out from your peers.

If they want to know what you do in your spare time or as a hobby, choose something that also demonstrates the skills needed for the role you are applying for.

How do I pass an assessment center?

Assessment centers are designed to be challenging, but it is possible to pass with the right preparation.

Before the assessment center, ensure you have:

On the day of the assessment, remember to be confident and engaging. Show the assessors that you are someone they want to work with and that you have the appropriate skillsets.

Is it okay to reschedule an assessment center?

In most circumstances, it is not okay to reschedule an assessment center . The recruiters will assume you are not serious about the role or are unreliable.

However, if there is an emergency, contact your recruiter ASAP. Explain that you are serious about the role, but this emergency takes priority, and what is the earliest you can reschedule.

It might be that you will have to wait until the next recruitment drive.

What happens after an assessment center?

Following an assessment center , you should send a thank you email to your recruiter and any follow-up emails to the people you met.

This will remind them of who you are and help you stand out from the other candidates.

Depending on the company, you will be called in for a final interview or offered the position.

Towards the end of the assessment day, the recruiters will inform you of the next stages and approximate timelines.

It is also common for companies to only communicate with successful candidates, so ensure you do have that timeline. This way, if you are unsuccessful, you know when to start applying for other roles.

How can I best prepare for an assessment center?

The best way to prepare for an assessment center is to do as much research as you can.

Research the company values and culture, company updates, industry news and trends, assessment center procedures, and past assessment centers.

How do you stand out at the assessment center?

The best ways to stand out at an assessment center are to be prepared, act professionally, be honest, be respectful, listen just as much as you speak, remember that you are being assessed from the moment you step in the room and look the part.

What’s usually asked in assessment centers?

Assessment centers involve various activities designed to assess your skills in real-time. The activities include group interviews, role plays, presentations, case studies and projects.

You can expect to be asked common interview questions such as “Why do you want to work for this company?", “What is your ideal working environment?” and “What is your biggest weakness?”.

Depending on the role you are applying for, you may be asked to demonstrate technical knowledge or leadership style.

How many assessment centers are there?

There are four different types of assessment centers :

What is the purpose of an assessment center?

The purpose of an assessment center is to find the best candidate or candidates for the role a company is recruiting for.

All the activities allow assessors to see your skills and personality in action. They can see how you carry yourself and how you interact with others.

As well as testing your skills, this information allows the assessors to assess how well you fit in with the company culture.

Are assessment centers effective?

While some people struggle with confidence in assessment centers , they are an effective tool in the recruitment process.

Assessors can assess your skills and behavior over a longer period with different activities.

All the information they gather during the assessment center gives them a clearer idea of who you are as an employee.

What happens in an assessment center?

Each company will have specific requirements and activities at its assessment centers . However, as a guideline, you can expect there to be:

Your recruiter will most likely place you in pre-assigned groups for the assessments and ask you to follow a schedule.

Again, depending on the structure, your day might be full-on and compact, or you may have time to chat with the other candidates.

What is more important – an assessment center or an interview?

Both are equally important. However, an assessment center allows the recruiter to gather more information and hire the best possible candidate.

For the candidate, an assessment center gives you the chance to show exactly what you have to offer. You can show more of your personality and demonstrate more skills in a less forced environment.

Interviews are often very formal and structured, with little room to show your personality.

The assessment center assessments require you to work with others, demonstrate multiple skill sets, and show creativity.

Some candidates prefer being in large groups as it is less intimidating and informal.

An assessment centre is an important and often nerve-wracking part of the recruitment process. It is important that you feel fully prepared so that you can perform your best on the day.

We recommend using JobTestPrep 's practice packages to help you pass.

How to Prepare for a Law Firm Assessment Centre

Introduction to training contract assessment centres

Law firm assessment centres are daunting events, but they are the final hurdle that you need to clear to secure a vacation scheme or training contract.

This article explains how to prepare for the two most common assessment centre exercises at commercial law firms. We will cover:

You may encounter additional tests which form part of the recruitment process at your assessment centre (e.g. group exercises, written exercises, psychometric tests or negotiation exercises). We plan to release other articles covering common topics like how to succeed in group exercises at assessment days shortly.

Competency / Motivational Interview

This interview is by far the most common kind of assessment you will face at law firm assessment centres. Although they vary in time, length and structure, most candidates will have to answer competency and motivational interview questions.

Many candidates find these kinds of questions challenging. They are personal in nature and require preparation in advance. It’s unlikely that you can improvise an answer of sufficient quality on the spot. The aim is prepare so effectively that your answer ticks all of the boxes on your interviewer’s marking scheme while sounding completely natural.

Preparation

It's worth over-indexing on preparation before your assessment day.

The first step is to prepare a table of competency/motivational questions: write down typical questions on the left-hand side and leave space for your answers in the right-hand column.

You should write out your answers in full. However, we would suggest putting a word limit of 400 words per answer. The average person speaks at approximately 150 words per minute. This means that a 400 word answer would take you just over 2.5 minutes to get through. It’s important to speak at a pace that is easy to follow, so a 2.5 minute answer should take about three minutes to deliver at interview.

By writing out your answers, you are able to formulate a strong, logical structure and provide yourself with a safety net should your mind suddenly go blank in the interview.

For illustrative purposes only, it may look something like this:

Example of format to use when preparing answers for interview

Naturally, your table will have far more rows that the one above. We would recommend that you prepare answers for the following basic competencies:

After you have prepared your answers, you may then want to transition to flashcards. Write the question on one side, and a bullet point version of your answer on the other side. Mix up the cards and test yourself on them until you can confidently answer the questions with responses that range from one to three minutes long.

Application

When you are in the real interview, it is unlikely that it will be a robotic question-and-answer process. Your interviewer is likely to adopt a conversational tone and expect that you do the same. Notwithstanding your thorough preparation, it is important that you deliver your answers in a natural manner

Once you know your answers off by heart, you should take some small liberties with the script you have prepared. This will allow your tone to be more natural and appear more spontaneous. This is an old actors’ trick: you must know your lines so well that you are able to act as though that they are coming to your head in the moment, just like the character in the scene would have happen to them.

Some interviewers will ask you direct questions, whilst some will amend the questions, which will force you to change your answer in the moment. However, so long as you have done your preparation, you need not worry – you already have the answers in your head. All you need to do is shuffle the content around to provide an appropriate response.

For example, your interviewer may ask you ‘tell me about a time when you have demonstrated strong organisational skills’. You may give your response, and the interviewer replies with, ‘that is great – but what about when that does not work out? How do you deal with that?’. This question is technically a follow-up question about your organisational skills but alludes to your ability to deal with set-backs and failure.

Consequently, you should answer with a response that transitions from your organisational answer to your set-backs answer. Again, if you have done your preparation, this will come naturally as you will not be trying to quickly make up a retort on the spot.

Case Study / Presentation Exercise

Pen on paper with the words "tackling case studies"

One of the most challenging assessments that candidates face at assessment centres is the case study/presentation exercise. This assessment is a test of your comprehension skills, commercial awareness and your application of technical knowledge. It differs to group exercises because it's usually 1-1, rather than alongside other candidates.

The exercise will usually involve you receiving a bundle of documents to review over the course of 30-45 minutes. You will probably receive some prompts and questions within the documents and, at the end of the allotted time, you will relay your findings to a partner over the course of a 5-15 minute presentation.

Like mock exam papers, the best way to prepare for a case study is to carry out practice tests before your assessment day. The NCL practice case study is our own custom case study that covers many of the areas that law firms will assess you on. By itself, though, that’s not enough – you need feedback on improvement points and visibility of what the best answers involve. Our case study therefore includes step-by-step commentary with a model answer and an explanation of the concepts employed.

Other than the NCL case study, there are some other ways to supplement your knowledge. Crucially, you should be looking to build your technical knowledge. By technical knowledge we mean your financial, commercial, and legal knowledge. This includes topics like:

Alongside this, you will also need to have broader commercial acumen. You will be expected to analyse a situation and consider whether it makes good commercial sense. For example, you may be asked whether your client, an e-commerce business, should acquire a high-street retailer who only has bricks-and-mortar stores. If your client only wants to expand its online presence, the acquisition seems like a bad idea. Furthermore, bring in your knowledge of current affairs: the pandemic has accelerated the decline of the high-street. Hence, even if your client wants to have a physical presence, you may want to advise them on the risks of pursuing that objective.

Building your commercial awareness and technical knowledge is a staightforward but time-consuming process. We recommend the following actions:

Once you have amassed a decent amount of knowledge, it is vital that you put it to the test in a practice case study/presentation exercise. Testing yourself against a practice case study exercise is the best way to know whether you at the appropriate level to succeed or if more work is required.

After you have used the practice case study materials, you will be able to identify gaps in your knowledge and thoroughly prepared for the actual assessment. Then, all that remains is to do the real thing!

This article has summarised the two main kinds of assessment you are likely to face at a law firm assessment centre. The first is the competency/motivational interview. To prepare for this, we recommend drafting a question-and-answer table, writing flashcards, and rehearsing answers.

The second assessment is the case study/presentation exercise. To prepare for this, we strongly recommend getting a hold of our practice case study exercise and practicing. We also recommend, in tandem, building your commercial awareness and technical knowledge by reading, listening, and watching a variety of media that is designed to educate you on a broad range of commercial and financial concepts.

Get your copy of case study/presentation assessment here . Remember, unlike others, our case study exercise comes with a detailed commentary which walks you through the exercise, provides model answers, and explains the relevant commercial concepts.

We hope you found this article useful – if you did, please share it with other candidates who might find it helpful!

You can learn more about how we can help you secure a training contract here .

How to Answer "Why Commercial Law?"

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Should You Re-Apply to a Law Firm that Already Rejected You?

The Complete List of Law Firms Which Recruit on a Rolling Basis for Training Contracts

Comparing oral case presentation formats on internal medicine inpatient rounds: a survey study

BMC Medical Education volume 23 , Article number: 377 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Oral case presentations – structured verbal reports of clinical cases – are fundamental to patient care and learner education. Despite their continued importance in a modernized medical landscape, their structure has remained largely unchanged since the 1960s, based on the traditional Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan (SOAP) format developed for medical records. We developed a problem-based alternative known as Events, Assessment, Plan (EAP) to understand the perceived efficacy of EAP compared to SOAP among learners.

We surveyed (Qualtrics, via email) all third- and fourth-year medical students and internal medicine residents at a large, academic, tertiary care hospital and associated Veterans Affairs medical center. The primary outcome was trainee preference in oral case presentation format. The secondary outcome was comparing EAP and SOAP on 10 functionality domains assessed via a 5-point Likert scale. We used descriptive statistics (proportion and mean) to describe the results.

The response rate was 21% (118/563). Of the 59 respondents with exposure to both the EAP and SOAP formats, 69% ( n = 41) preferred the EAP format as compared to 19% ( n = 11) who preferred SOAP ( p < 0.001). EAP outperformed SOAP in 8 out of 10 of the domains assessed, including advancing patient care, learning from patients, and time efficiency.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that trainees prefer the EAP format over SOAP and that EAP may facilitate clearer and more efficient communication on rounds, which in turn may enhance patient care and learner education. A broader, multi-center study of the EAP oral case presentation will help to better understand preferences, outcomes, and barriers to implementation.

Peer Review reports

Excellent inter-physician communication is fundamental to both providing high-quality patient care and promoting learner education [ 1 ], and has been recognized as an important educational goal by the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education [ 2 ]. Oral case presentations, structured verbal reports of clinical cases [ 3 ], have been referred to as the “currency with which clinicians communicate” [ 4 ]. Oral case presentations are a key element of experiential learning in clinical medicine, requiring learners to synthesize, assess, and convey pertinent patient information and to formulate care plans. Furthermore, oral case presentations allow supervising clinicians to identify gaps in knowledge or clinical reasoning and enable team members to learn from one another. Despite modernization in much of medicine, oral case presentation formats have remained largely unchanged, based on the traditional Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan (SOAP) format developed by Dr. Lawrence Weed in his Problem Oriented Medical Record in 1968 [ 5 ].

Given that the goals of a medical record are different than those of oral case presentations, it should not be assumed that they should share the same format. While Dr. Weed sought to make the medical record as “complete as possible,” [ 6 ] internal medicine education leaders have expressed desire for oral case presentations that are succinct, with an emphasis on select relevant details [ 2 ]. Using a common SOAP format between the medical record and oral case presentations risks conflating the distinct goals for each of these communication methods. Indeed, in studying how learners gain oral case presentation skills, Haber and Lingard [ 7 ] found differences in understanding of the fundamental purpose of oral case presentations between medical students and experienced physicians. While students believed the purpose of oral case presentations was to organize the large amount of data they collected about their patients, experienced physicians saw oral case presentations as a method of telling a story to make an argument for a particular conclusion [ 7 ].

In accordance with Dr. Weed’s “problem-oriented approach to data organization,” [ 6 ] but with an eye toward optimizing for oral case presentations, we developed an alternative to SOAP known as the Events, Assessment, Plan (EAP) format. The EAP format is used for patients who are already known to the inpatient team, and may also be utilized for newly admitted patients for whom the attending physician already has context (e.g., via handoff or review of an admission note). As the EAP approach is utilized by a subset of attending physicians at our academic hospital, we sought to understand the perceived effectiveness of the EAP format in comparison to the traditional SOAP format among learners (i.e., medical students and resident physicians).

EAP is a problem-based format used at the discretion of the attending physician. In line with suggested best practices [ 8 ], the EAP structure aims to facilitate transmission of data integrated within the context of clinical problem solving. In this format, significant interval events are discussed first (e.g., a fall, new-onset abdominal pain), followed by a prioritized assessment and plan for each relevant active problem. Subjective and objective findings are integrated into the assessment and plan as relevant to a particular problem. This integration of subjective and objective findings by problem is distinct from SOAP, where subjective and objective findings are presented separately as their own sections, with each section often containing information that is relevant to several problems (Fig. 1 , Additional file 1 : Appendix A).

Overview: comparing EAP to SOAP

Settings and participants

We surveyed third- and fourth-year medical students, and first- through fourth-year internal medicine and internal medicine-pediatrics residents, caring for patients at a large, academic, tertiary care hospital and an affiliated Veterans Affairs medical center. Internal medicine is a 12-week core clerkship for all medical students in their second year, with 8 weeks spent on the inpatient wards. All student participants had completed their internal medicine clerkship rotation at the time of the survey. We did not conduct a sample size calculation at the outset of this study.

Data collection methods and processes

An anonymous, electronic survey (Qualtrics, Provo, UT) was created to assess student and resident experience with and preference between EAP and SOAP oral case presentation formats during inpatient internal medicine rounds (Additional file 2 : Appendix B). Ten domains were assessed via 5-point Likert scale (1 [strongly disagree] to 5 [strongly agree]), including the ability of the format to incorporate the patient’s subjective experience, the extent to which the format encouraged distillation and integration of information, the extent to which the format focused on the assessment and plan, the format’s ability to help trainees learn from their own patients and those of their peers, time efficiency, and ease of use. Duration of exposure to each format was also assessed, as were basic demographic data for the purposes of understanding outcome differences among respondents (e.g., students versus residents). For those who had experienced both formats, preference between formats was recorded as a binary choice. Participants additionally had the opportunity to provide explanation via free text. For participants with experience in both formats, the order of evaluation of EAP and SOAP formats were randomized by participant. For questions comparing EAP and SOAP formats directly, choice order was randomized.

The survey was distributed via official medical school email in October 2021 and was available to be completed for 20 days. Email reminders were distributed approximately one week after distribution and again 48 h prior to survey conclusion.

The primary outcome was trainee preference in oral case presentation format. Secondary outcomes included comparison between EAP and SOAP on content inclusion/focus, data integration, learning, time efficiency, and ease of use.

Statistical analyses

Descriptive statistics were used to describe the results (proportion and mean). For comparative analysis between EAP and SOAP, responses from respondents who had experience with both formats were compared using the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test to evaluate differences. All statistical analyses were done using SAS V9.4 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC). We considered p < 0.05 to be statistically significant.

The overall response rate was 21% (118/563). The response rate was 14% ( n = 62/441) among medical students and 46% ( n = 56/122) among residents. Respondents were 61% ( n = 72) female. A total of 98% ( n = 116) and 52% ( n = 61) of respondents reported experience with SOAP and EAP formats, respectively. Among medical students, 60% ( n = 37) reported experience with SOAP only while 39% ( n = 24) had experience with both formats. Among residents, 36% ( n = 20) and 63% ( n = 35) had experience with SOAP only and both formats, respectively (Table 1 ). Most students (93%) and residents (96%) reported > 8 weeks of exposure to the SOAP format. Duration of exposure to the EAP format varied (0 to 2 weeks [32% of students, 17% of residents], 2 to 4 weeks [36% of students, 47% of residents], 4 to 8 weeks [16% of students, 25% of residents], and > 8 weeks [16% of students, 11% of residents]).

Of the 59 respondents with exposure to both the SOAP and EAP formats, 69% ( n = 41) preferred the EAP format as compared to 19% ( n = 11) preferring SOAP ( p < 0.001). The remainder ( n = 7, 12%) indicated either no preference between formats or indicated another preference. Among residents, 66% ( n = 23) favored EAP, whereas 20% ( n = 7) and 14% ( n = 5) preferred SOAP or had no preference, respectively ( p < 0.001). Among students, 75% ( n = 18) favored EAP, whereas 17% ( n = 4) and 8% ( n = 2) favored SOAP or had no preference, respectively ( p < 0.001).

Likert scale ratings for domains assessed by trainees who had experience in either format are shown in Table 2 . In general, scores for each domain were higher for EAP than SOAP, with the exception of perceived ease of use among students. Among those with experience using both formats, EAP outperformed SOAP most prominently in time efficiency (mean 4.39 vs 2.59, p < 0.001) and encouragement to: focus on assessment and plan (4.64 vs 3.05, p < 0.001), distill pertinent information (4.63 vs 3.17, p < 0.001), and integrate data (4.58 vs 3.31, p < 0.001) (Table 3 ). Respondents also ranked EAP higher in its effectiveness at advancing patient care (4.31 vs 3.71, p < 0.001), its capacity to convey one’s thinking (4.53 vs 3.95, p < 0.001), and its ability to facilitate learning from peers (4.10 vs 3.58, p < 0.001) and one’s own patients (4.24 vs 3.78, p = 0.003). There were no significant differences in the amount of time allotted for discussing the patient’s subjective experience or in ease of use.

Evaluation of trainee free text responses regarding oral case presentation preference revealed several general themes (Table 4 ). First, respondents generally felt that EAP was more time efficient and less repetitive, allowing for additional time to be spent discussing pertinent patient care decisions. Second, several respondents indicated that EAP aligns well with how trainees consider problems naturally (as a single problem in completion). Finally, respondents generally believed that EAP allowed learners to effectively communicate their thinking and demonstrate their knowledge. Those preferring SOAP most often cited format familiarity and the difficulty in switching between formats in describing their preference, though some also believed SOAP was more effective in describing a patient’s current status.

Our single site survey comparing 2 oral case presentation formats revealed a preference among respondents for EAP over SOAP for those medical students and internal medicine residents who had experience with both formats. Furthermore, EAP outperformed SOAP in 8 out of 10 of the functionality domains assessed, including areas such as advancing patient care, learning from patients, and, particularly, time efficiency. Such a constellation of findings implies that EAP may not only be a more effective means to accomplish the key goals of oral case presentations, but it may also provide an opportunity to save time in the process. In line with SOAP’s current de facto status as an oral case presentation format, almost all respondents reported exposure to the SOAP format. Still, indicative of EAP’s growing presence at our academic system, more than one third of medical students and more than one half of residents also reported having experience with the EAP format.

While limited data exist that compare alternative oral case presentations to SOAP on inpatient medicine rounds, such alternatives have been previously trialed in other clinical venues. One such format, the multiple mini-SOAP, developed for complex outpatient visits, encourages each problem to be addressed “in its entirety” before presenting subsequent problems, and emphasizes prioritization by problem pertinency [ 9 ]. The creators suggest that this approach encourages more active trainee participation in formulating the assessment and plan for each problem, by helping the trainee to avoid getting lost in an “undifferentiated jumble of problems and possibilities” [ 9 ] that accumulate when multiple problems are presented all at once. On the receiving end, the multiple mini-SOAP enables faculty to assess student understanding of specific clinical problems one at a time and facilitates focused teaching accordingly.

Another approach has been assessed in the emergency department. Specifically, Maddow and colleagues explored assessment-oriented oral case presentations to increase efficiency in communication between residents and faculty at the University of Chicago [ 10 ]. In the assessment-oriented format, instead of being presented in a stylized order, pertinent information was integrated into the analysis. The authors found that assessment-oriented oral case presentations were about 40% faster than traditional presentations without significant differences in case presentation effectiveness.

Prior to our study, the nature of the format for inpatient medicine oral case presentations had thus far escaped scrutiny. This is despite the fact that oral case presentations are time (and therefore resource) intensive, and that they play an integral role in patient care and learner education. Our study demonstrates that learners favor the EAP format, which has the potential to increase both the effectiveness and efficiency of rounding.

Still, it should be noted that a transition to EAP does present challenges. Implementing this problem-based presentation format requires a conscious effort to ensure a continued holistic approach to patient care: active problems should be defined and addressed in accordance with patient preferences, and the patient’s subjective experience should be meaningfully incorporated into the assessment and plan for each problem. During initial implementation, attending physicians and learners must internalize this new format, often through trial and error.

From there, on an ongoing basis, EAP may require more upfront preparation by attending physicians as compared to SOAP. While chart review by attendings in advance of rounding is useful regardless of the format utilized, this practice is especially important for the EAP format, where trainees are empowered to interpret and distill – rather than simply report a complete set of – information. Therefore, the attending physician must be aware of pertinent data prior to rounds to ensure that key information is not neglected. Specifically, attendings should pre-orient themselves with laboratory values, imaging, and other studies completed, and new suggestions from consultants. More extensive pre-work may be required if teams wish to employ the EAP format for newly admitted patients, as attending physicians must also familiarize themselves with a patient’s medical history and their current presentation prior to initial team rounds.

Our findings should be interpreted within the context of specific limitations. First, low response rates may have led to selection bias within our surveyed population. For instance, learners who desired change in the oral case presentation format may have been more motivated to engage with our survey. Second, there could be unmeasured confounding variables that could have skewed our results in favor of the EAP format. For example, attendings who utilized the EAP format may have been more likely to innovate in other ways to create a more positive experience for learners, which may have influenced the scoring of the oral case presentation format. Third, our findings were largely based on subjective experience. Objective measurement (e.g., duration of rounds, patient care outcomes) may lend additional credibility to our findings. Lastly, our study included only a single site, limiting our ability to generalize our findings.

Our study also had several strengths. Our learner participant pool was broad and included all third- and fourth-year medical students and all internal medicine residents at a major academic hospital. Participation was encouraged regardless of the nature of a participant’s prior exposure to different oral case presentation formats. Our survey was anonymous with randomization to mitigate order bias, and we focused our comparison analysis on those who had exposure to both the EAP and SOAP formats. We collected data to compare EAP with SOAP in 2 distinct ways: head-to-head preference and numeric ratings amongst key domains. Both of these methods demonstrated a significant preference for EAP among learners in aggregate, as well as for students and residents analyzed independently.

Our findings suggest a preference for the EAP format over SOAP, and that EAP may facilitate clearer and more efficient communication on rounds. These improvements may in turn enhance patient care and learner education. While our preliminary data are compelling, a broader, multi-center study of the EAP oral case presentation is necessary to better understand preferences, outcomes, and barriers to implementation. Further studies should seek to improve response rates, for the data to represent a larger proportion of trainees. One potential strategy to improve response rates among medical students and residents is to survey them directly at the end of each internal medicine clerkship period or rotation, respectively. Ultimately, EAP may prove to be a much-needed update to the “currency with which clinicians communicate.”

Availability of data and materials

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, AG, upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Jason M. Engle, MPH, who helped edit, prepare, format, and submit this manuscript and supporting files.

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Contributions

Conceptualization: BA SS AG. Data curation: BA DR AG. Formal Analysis: BA SS DR AG. Funding acquisition: SS AG. Investigation: BA SS AG. Methodology: BA SS AG. Project administration: BA SS AG. Resources: SS AG. Software: DR. Supervision: SS AG. Validation: BA SS DR AG. Visualization: BA SS DR AG. Writing – original draft: BA AG. Writing – review & editing: BA SS DR AG. The author(s) read and approved the final manuscript.

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All methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. The need for ethical approval was waived by the ethics committee/Institutional Review Board of the University of Michigan Medical School. The need for informed consent was waived by the ethics committee/Institutional Review Board of the University of Michigan Medical School.

Competing interests

Dr. Saint, Mr. Ratz, and Dr. Gupta are employed by the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Saint reports receiving grants from the Department of Veterans Affairs and personal fees from ISMIE Mutual Insurance Company, Jvion, and Doximity. Dr. Appold, Mr. Ratz, and Dr. Gupta report no conflict of interest.

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Supplementary Information

Additional file 1:.

Appendix A. Exemplar Transcripts (EAP, SOAP).

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Appold, B., Saint, S., Ratz, D. et al. Comparing oral case presentation formats on internal medicine inpatient rounds: a survey study. BMC Med Educ 23 , 377 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-023-04292-3

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-023-04292-3

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Early careers
Assessment Centre

Virtual Assessments

On this page, you’ll find everything you need to know about our Virtual Assessment Centre.

We’ve designed our Virtual Assessments to help us find out as much as we can about you, your skills and abilities, and your experience. But there’s a lot to know (and prepare) before the day to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible.

So, we asked some of our team to share some tips and advice to help you make the most of the experience. From getting prepared, to understanding what we’re looking for, to being your best in presentations, role plays and interviews.

We asked some of our team to share their tips and advice to help you make the most of the experience, and you can hear what they had to say here…

About the virtual assessment centre, how to prepare, group exercise, case study presentation, and you can find out more about what to expect after the virtual assessment below....

What happens next?

We’ll be in touch soon after your Assessment Centre to give you detailed feedback on your performance. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask any questions you have about the day, and about your assessment.

Your interview will be on a 1-1 basis via a Google Meet call. We’ll ask you questions about why you think a Morrisons Graduate or Degree Apprenticeship is right for you, and we’ll talk about your background and other experiences, both in and out of work.

Do your homework

Before the day, think about why you’re passionate about joining Morrisons. We want you to demonstrate that you have a solid understanding of our ways of working and what we stand for as a business. Take a look at the rest of our website, follow our social media feeds, and visit our stores. You should be aiming to show your interviewer that you’re serious about being part of our business.

Make a good first impression

Virtual interviews bring their own challenges, but as with face to face interviews, it’s important to make a good impression in those first few seconds. So, be on time, smile confidently, introduce yourself clearly, and try to stay relaxed.

Use the STAR technique

Using the STAR method (Situation/Task/Action/Results) to answer your interview questions is a great idea. It will help you tell an easy-to-follow and factual story with each answer, that begins with a clear purpose and ends with a well defined resolution. Don’t forget that you’re here to demonstrate why you’re the best choice for the role.

Bring lots of examples

We’ll ask you questions based on the things you’ve done in the past, so it’s a good idea to think about lots of examples of previous successful experiences in education or in work. As before, you’re here to show us why we should choose you, so your examples should be geared towards this and you should tailor them to fit the question.

More tips for making your interview a success…

One of the most successful interview techniques is to build rapport with your interviewer - and this even works with virtual interviews. So, think about your body language - use your hands, but don’t overdo it, avoid fiddling with jewellery, don’t slouch in your chair, and maintain eye contact. Remember to try to control your nerves too - staying calm will help you answer questions confidently. And listen carefully but don’t forget that you can pause to think before answering, and even come back to questions later if you need to.

Before your role play exercise, we’ll send you a brief that contains all the information you’ll need to be able to take part effectively. You’ll then have a short time to prepare, before joining the role play situation via a Google Meet call.

Read the brief carefully

Your role play exercise will replicate a real-life situation at Morrisons, and you should take the time to fully understand the brief without rushing. Above all, you should know what role we’ll expect you to play, along with the roles that others are playing, too.

Prepare some open questions

Remember that most role play exercises don’t give everything away in the brief, and some details are often left out on purpose to give the exercise space to develop, and to encourage you to think on your feet. So, try to uncover information that isn’t included in the brief by asking open questions (that don’t have a yes or no answer). For example, you could start your questions with: “Tell me about…”, or “Can you expand on…”, or “Could you talk to me about…”.

Have a structure in mind… but be flexible

We’ll expect you to have a clear plan, but you should also be ready to let the exercise unfold and flow naturally - just like a real conversation. This is often the sign of a successful role play exercise. So, don’t be too rigid in how you approach it as things could change at a moment’s notice. And remember we’re here to find out how you react to unexpected circumstances, so your assessor could drop a curveball into the exercise at any time.

Don’t overdo your notes

Making notes is important and can help you a lot, but don’t forget that too many notes can have the opposite effect and be confusing. A good rule of thumb is to have just one piece of paper for your notes, and you should also organise your notes into bullet points for easy reference.

More tips for making your role play a success…

You’ll only have a short time to prepare, so try to do this as efficiently as possible. We’re looking for an ability to stay relaxed during the exercise and we’ll expect you to be confident and natural throughout. And the last thing to bear in mind is that the assessment will begin as soon as you enter the exercise!

Case study presentation

One of your virtual sessions will be a case study presentation. We’ll share some information and data with you and give you time to review and analyse before asking you to prepare a short presentation on your findings.

You’ll join a Google Meet call along with an assessor for your case study presentation, and we’ll want to hear about why you made your choices and the data you used to make them. We’ll also ask questions about your approach and rationale, too.

Think about structure

Before your case study presentation, there’ll be a planning stage which will give you the opportunity to think about the structure of your presentation. What should you consider? Should you talk about financing, or regulations, or how to engage employees or other stakeholders? What about marketing? Or customer needs? The best place to start is to put some rough headings together, and the rest should flow from there.

Plan your presentation well

Your case study presentation will be a 1-1 discussion with an assessor, but you will have time to prepare. Remember, there are no right and wrong answers when it comes to planning your exercise. What’s most important is that you decide on your stance or position, before developing your presentation and use powerful supporting evidence around it.

Demonstrate a strong commercial awareness

As you give your case study presentation, we’ll be trying to find out how well you understand how our markets impact us, and what our key aspirations are in those markets. That means knowing what’s going on right now in food retail, and how that has driven the choices you’ve made while planning your presentation.

Be confident

Try to keep you poise during your presentation - we know it’s a tough challenge to complete, and we don’t expect you to be right 100% of the time. One way to do this is to communicate clearly, and it’s a good idea to spend time on your introduction and ending so you can start and finish strongly. And remember to keep smiling as this goes a long way towards building rapport with your assessor.

More tips for making your case study presentation a success…

Don’t panic if you think there’s too much to read in terms of supporting materials - it’s better to have a good overview of everything, rather than an in-depth understanding of part of it. The most important thing is to make sure you understand what you need to do to complete the task itself - and if you need to pause to think about an answer, that’s ok. And as always, try to enjoy the experience - successful candidates often tell us that they thought these exercises were fun.

During the day, you’ll take part in a group exercise. We use these to make sure you’re able to work effectively as part of a team and you’ll take part with 4-6 other candidates.

Before it begins, we’ll share a brief with you and you’ll have time on your own to prepare. When we’re ready to start, you’ll join a Google Meet call with your assessor and other candidates, and then it will be up to you to make an impact.

We want to see effective communication skills

During the day, you’ll take part in a group exercise, and we’ll be looking for an ability to listen to everyone’s opinion and respond to what they have to say. We’ll also expect you to be able to share your ideas clearly and confidently too, and give everyone else the chance to have their say without dominating the discussion.

Show us you have an ability to spot great ideas… and build on them

Your group exercise will give you the opportunity to contribute your own ideas while building on others’, and we want to see and hear you using positive language to promote them. It’s all about thinking outside of the box and suggesting new and innovative ideas. And you’ll also need to take a democratic approach to making decisions on which ideas are the best, too.

We’re looking for a commitment to being part of our team

You should be prepared to work as part of a team during the exercise, and that means being able to engage with and talk to everyone in your group. Remember to ask everyone for opinions, encourage others to take part, and make sure everyone is able to take a turn in getting their points across.

We want to know if you have a good understanding of the brief

You should think about how you’ll demonstrate that you understand what we need - we may ask you to summarise your understanding before we get started. So, don’t be afraid to listen to what others think and ask questions if you need to - it’s important that everyone’s on the same page.

We want you to be able to keep everyone on track

Remember, you’ll be working as part of a team, so we’ll be looking to you to stay positive and help keep everyone moving. Motivational language will make a big impact here, so try saying things like “well done everyone”, “that was brilliant”, and “we’re nearly there… let’s get this finished”. It’s also partly about keeping an eye on time effectively too, and we might even ask you to be the person who manages timekeeping for the whole session - so be ready for that.

Getting prepared

Throughout the day, you’ll complete a range of virtual exercises including a group exercise, a case study presentation, a formal interview and a role play exercise (depending on the scheme). And, you’ll have the chance to meet with lots of different people from across our business.

You can expect a busy day, which means you’ll have a lot to prepare. You’ll be able to do much of your preparation before the day, but there will also be opportunities to prepare for individual exercises before they begin.

The following videos can help you make sure you’re ready for the day.

Know what will happen - and when

No two Assessment Centres are the same, so we’ll be in touch before yours begins to make sure you’re up to speed with what will happen on the day.

Assessment Centres on different days often have different start times, but we’ll send you a Google Meet invite for each session you need to attend. There’ll also be an introduction at the beginning of the day so you know what to expect and what you’ll need.

Find the right space

It’s important to find a quiet space for all of your sessions, and you should make sure the wifi signal is strong there, too. We recommend somewhere quiet with no distractions - especially behind you - as these could distract you and your assessor.

Make sure you have everything you need

We’ll be in touch to let you know what you’ll need for the day, and you should make sure you have everything we suggest close to hand. The kind of things that might be useful include a pen, paper, calculator, and some water or something else to drink.

Dress to impress

Even though this is a virtual assessment, it’s still important to make a good first impression. So, treat it like a face-to-face interview, and think about what you’d wear to one of those - a smart top or shirt is essential.

More tips for being prepared…

We recommend clicking on your invite links before your sessions to make sure they work, and double checking that both the microphone and camera on your computer are ok. You should also think about ways to keep track of time and maybe even set an alarm to let you know when time us up while you’re preparing for your assessment exercises.

And finally, remember to relax and enjoy the experience as much as you can - working at Morrisons is fun, and we want your assessment to be the same.

About the Assessment Centre

We believe our Graduates are our future leaders, so we’ve designed our Virtual Assessments to help us find out as much as we can about you, your skills and abilities, and your experience.

On the day, you can expect to take part in a group exercise, a case study presentation, a formal interview and a role play exercise (depending on the scheme). But we’ll give you a call before your assessment to go through the details and make sure you have all the information you need about what will happen - and when.

We hold all our virtual assessments via Google Meet and we’ll send you an invite for each separate session. And our assessors could be Senior Managers, members of our Leadership Team, or a combination of both.

Click through to check out our videos now to find out what you need to do to get prepared, and to discover what to expect during each session…

slovenščina

JRC news and updates

Jrc news and updates (1630).

General publications
23 May 2023

Forests can store less carbon than previously believed

Reducing the intensity of forest management increases carbon sequestration in forests. However, even if forest management were removed altogether, the mitigation potential of this strategy is limited.

22 May 2023

Performance requirements for metal detection equipment in public spaces

New voluntary EU performance requirements for metal detection equipment will help ensure protection from security threats in public spaces across the EU

News announcement

New study on invasive alien species pinpoints patterns of invasion across European ecosystems

Invasive alien species are a major threat to native biodiversity and ecosystems functioning, and can affect negatively human health and the economy.

Drought conditions threaten the economy and ecosystems in South America

Precipitation deficits, above-average temperatures and recurrent heatwaves are causing one of the worst droughts in decades.

News article

Crop failures due to drought in the Maghreb

The May edition of the JRC MARS Bulletin - Global outlook for North Africa - describes one of the worst droughts in recent decades in the Maghreb area.

Strongly contrasting weather conditions in Europe affect crops in multiple ways

Strongly contrasting weather conditions in Europe affect crops in multiple ways According to the May 2023 issue of the JRC MARS Bulletin - Crop monitoring in Europe, the weather observed during the review period (1 April to 14 May) was marked by strongly contrasting patterns of drier- and wetter- th

17 May 2023

Last update of the EU list of common COVID-19 antigen tests

How the JRC contributed to developing the EU common list of COVID-19 antigen tests that has allowed millions to safely travel during the pandemic. A great example of how the JRC’s science benefits everyone in Europe!

10 May 2023

ASAP assessment - April 2023

The April edition of the JRC's Anomaly Hotspots of Agricultural Production (ASAP) assessmentshows poor cereal yields expected in the Maghreb region, southern Angola and northern Namibia. Early season drought affects Haiti.

Food crises worsen in the wake of conflicts, economic shocks and weather extremes

The number of people battling acute hunger and suffering from malnutrition is the highest in the last seven years.

The EU 2022 wildfire season was the second worst on record

Last year, wildfires in 45 observed countries burnt an area about the size of Montenegro.

COMMENTS

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Assessment Centre Guide: Case Study Exercise
Case study exercises are a popular tool used by employers to evaluate candidates' problem-solving skills, analytical thinking, and decision-making abilities. These exercises can be in the form of a written report, a presentation, or a group discussion, and typically involve a hypothetical business problem that requires a solution.
Deloitte Assessment Centre & Study Guide (2023)
The Deloitte assessment centre written exercise lasts for 1 hour and takes the form of a case study. They will be looking for the following things: Your ability to extract and identify the most important points. The clarity of your writing and how you present your ideas. Your tone and ability to write appropriately for the given audience.
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A case study assessment is a popular tool used in assessment centres for evaluating candidates by presenting them with complex and previously unknown scenarios.After analyzing the information and identifying the most relevant parts, candidates answer questions that provide the employer with insights regarding important aspects of the candidate's knowledge, cognitive abilities, and personal ...
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Case study exercises are proficient predictors of role performance as they will resemble the work being done on the job. Therefore, case study exercises typically tilt highly on an assessment centre rating for candidates. Likewise, if a presentation exercise is required after the case study, based on details brought up during the case study ...
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A presentation exercise at an assessment centre is a task that involves a candidate giving a formal presentation to a group of assessors on a given topic. The candidate is usually provided with a brief beforehand and given a set amount of time to prepare their presentation. The presentation may be in the form of a PowerPoint or other visual ...
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How to Prepare for Case Study Exercises at Assessment Centers
How to Prepare For the Exercise. Just as you would prepare before a job interview, it is always in your best interests to prepare before facing a case study exercise at an assessment center. Step 1. Do the Research. There is a whole range of research you can look into to prepare yourself for the case study exercise:
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An assessment centre should include activities designed to test the competencies relevant for the role you are recruiting for. You should also include time for review, where relevant. This gives you a mechanism to give feedback to participants and let them know next steps. Factor in time for breaks and food, too!
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The key competencies that case study exercises usually assess are: Analytical thinking and assimilation of information. Commercial awareness and Innovation. Organization. Decisiveness and Judgment. The goal of the exercise is to review and analyze the given information to come up with solid business decisions.
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Assessment Centre
On the day, you can expect to take part in a group exercise, a case study presentation, a formal interview and a role play exercise (depending on the scheme). But we'll give you a call before your assessment to go through the details and make sure you have all the information you need about what will happen - and when.
JRC news and updates
ASAP assessment - April 2023. The April edition of the JRC's Anomaly Hotspots of Agricultural Production (ASAP) assessmentshows poor cereal yields expected in the Maghreb region, southern Angola and northern Namibia. Early season drought affects Haiti. News announcement. 3 May 2023.