The Managers’ Corner:

This selection process is directed at senior management positions in any organization.  It is, at once, highly predictive, daunting for candidates and fascinating for the people who design the materials for the process and for those who assess candidates.  Incidentally, it is also a very rich exercise for staff development.

The assessment centre as we know it today was originally built for officer selection in the American military.  It has been used in other sectors as well, most predominantly, in the education sector where it was supported by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Ontario’s Western University used it in its Leadership Assessment Centre.  Let’s talk about its purpose and form as a starting point.

The purpose of an assessment centre is to develop a profile of a candidate’s potential in the context of a carefully developed set of criteria and indicators.  In that, it does not differ from most instruments used to assess staff’s potential.  It is in its form, however, that the assessment differs from all others.  Let’s look at that form.

The Bendel model uses some of the same elements as the military model used by NASSP.  Using YOUR organization’s situation and criteria for selection, the assessment centre includes three exercises of 90 minutes duration:

1. a standard in-basket;
2. a one-on-one interaction between a manager and an employee;
3. a group activity involving the candidates that is based on an issue the organization is facing.

These exercises are all scheduled in a short day for the candidates (about four hours in total).  The exercises are structured so that each criterion is assessed in at least two of them.

In addition to the candidates, there is an assessment team comprised of one trained coordinator and a cohort of trained assessors in the same number as the number of candidates.  It is strongly suggested that the number of candidates to be assessed in any centre be no less than 5 and no more than 8.

The candidates complete all three exercises. In two of them (not the in-basket), they are observed by assessors who are assigned on a ratio of one-to-one.  No assessor is assigned to assess a candidate for more than one exercise to minimize bias:

1. Assessor #1 marks Candidate A’s in-basket exercise;
2. Assessor #2 observes Candidate A in the one-on-one interaction;
3. Assessor #3 observes Candidate A in the leaderless group exercise.

Each assessor prepares a preliminary report on the exercise they observed.  At the end of the day, then, we have three reports on all candidates with no candidate having a repeat assessor.  These reports are constructed in a very structured fashion and include a numerical rating system.  It’s all laid out very simply and clearly for the assessors.  Now the fun begins when the three reports are handed to a fourth assessor who has had, up to this point, no role in a assessing the candidate on whom he/she has three reports.

If you are thinking that this sounds really complicated, it’s not.  It all falls into place not long after those three preliminary reports are handed to that fourth assessor – but that’s the topic for next week’s blog (Part 2 of 3) into “the cadillac” of all selection procedures.  See you then!

Dr. Dan

Check out our Management Group Webinars for a variety of selection and appraisal methods.