An assessment centre is not a long interview. It is a deliberately redundant measuring instrument: several exercises, each testing overlapping qualities, scored separately by different people and then combined. That design is the reason a bad hour is survivable, and the reason that charm alone is not enough.
What follows describes how these days are generally built. No employer publishes its own criteria, and if an invitation tells you the shape of the day, the invitation is the authority.
The shape of a day
Four to six hours, in person or by video, usually with four to eight candidates. The elements are drawn from a standard set and recombined:
- An introduction and a presentation about the employer, which is not assessed.
- A written exercise against the clock, often a letter or a note to a partner.
- A case study, prepared alone and then discussed with one or two interviewers.
- A group exercise with a task and a time limit, observed and not joined.
- A competency or motivational interview, sometimes with a partner.
- A presentation, prepared on the day or brought with you.
- An unstructured social element: lunch, a tour, a conversation with current trainees.
Each page on this site that covers one of those formats in detail is linked from the stage-by-stage guide.
How the scoring is designed to work
No employer publishes its own scheme, so what follows is how this format is built in occupational assessment generally, not a description of any firm’s day. The principle is that each exercise is scored against the same small set of criteria, and that each criterion is measured more than once by more than one assessor. So the written exercise and the case study might both be scored for analysis, and the group exercise and the interview both for working with people.
Three consequences follow, and they are the practical value of knowing any of this:
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You are scored per exercise, not per impression
An assessor marking the group exercise is usually watching one or two named candidates against written criteria, not forming a general view of the room. Which is the reason to think the loudest candidate is not thereby the highest-scoring one, though nobody publishes a figure that would settle it.
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One weak exercise is rarely fatal
Because the criteria are measured several times, a single poor showing can be outweighed. Candidates who have a bad written exercise and then give up for the rest of the day convert a recoverable morning into a lost day. Nobody publishes how often that happens, so take it as a reason to keep going rather than as a measured finding.
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The decision is made in a meeting you are not in
Afterwards the assessors meet, bring their scores together and discuss the candidates where they disagree. What carries weight in that room is a specific written note of something you did, which is why a concrete example beats a pleasant manner: the assessor has to be able to quote you.
What candidates get wrong
- Treating the other candidates as rivals. In a group exercise, undermining somebody else is recorded as your behaviour, not theirs. There is no fixed number of places to be fought over in the room.
- Going silent. Nothing said is nothing scored. If the discussion is crowded, take the structural role: timekeeper, note-taker, the person who summarises where the group has got to.
- Not reading the brief’s actual question. A good answer to the question you expected scores less than a modest answer to the one asked. Read the final line of the brief twice, and answer that.
- Running out of time on the written exercise. Plan for five minutes less than you have, and spend the last five proofreading. An unfinished document is marked as unfinished.
- Being a different person in each exercise. Assessors compare notes. Confident in the interview and silent in the group is a pattern they will name.
- Assuming the social parts are a break. Nobody publishes whether lunch is scored. The safe assumption is that it is observed, and that the trainee hosting your table will be asked what they thought.
- Arriving without a question. Every stage ends with the offer to ask something. A question about the work of a named team is better than a question about the rotation system, which is on the website.
- Treating a virtual centre as a lower-stakes version. A video assessment centre is scored the same way. Test the equipment the day before, sit somewhere you will not be interrupted and remember that in a video group exercise the person who speaks over others is far more obvious than in a room.
Adjustments, and asking for them
Under the Equality Act 2010 an employer has a duty to make reasonable adjustments for a disabled person, and that duty applies to the arrangements for deciding who to offer work to, which includes an assessment centre. Extra time, a separate room, materials in a different format, a different exercise format and breaks are all things employers are routinely asked for.
Asking is not a mark against you, and the request goes to graduate recruitment rather than to the assessors. This paragraph is information about how the process works, not legal advice: if you need to know how the Act applies to your own circumstances, ask someone qualified to tell you.
Practicalities worth settling in advance
- Travel and expenses
- Some employers reimburse travel to an assessment centre and say so in the invitation; we have no count of how many do. If the invitation does not say, ask graduate recruitment before you book, in writing.
- What to bring
- Identification if the invitation asks for it, a pen and paper, and a printed copy of your own application, because at least one interviewer will be reading it in front of you.
- What to wear
- Whatever the invitation says, and business dress if it says nothing. This is not a criterion anybody scores, and it is not worth a sleepless night.
- Feedback afterwards
- Some employers give it at this stage and some do not. Where it is offered it is the most useful thing you will get from the day, including from an unsuccessful one. Ask, once, and accept the answer.
Practising the exercises
The two exercises people can usefully practise alone are the case study and the written exercise, because both are about reading a volume of material under time pressure and committing to a position. Our case studies come with the full workings, not just a model answer, so you can see where a different reasonable reading would have led.
Timed mock exercises are in preparation and are not charged for until they exist. They will be marked against the criteria described on this page, and they will carry no predicted outcome, because nobody has measured the relationship between practising and being offered a place.
What nobody publishes
No employer in England and Wales publishes its assessment centre criteria, its scoring scale, the proportion of candidates who get through or whether the social elements count. No regulator collects any of it. Everything above is a description of how these days are built and marked in general, and where this page says a practice is common it means common as advertised by employers, not counted by us.
Back to the applications guides, or on to the tests you will sit before any of this.
Assize Careers is not a regulator, professional body, university, law school or official careers service, and it is not part of or endorsed by one. Nothing on this site is legal advice.