{"id":23,"date":"2015-10-13T10:43:52","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T10:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/careerdevelopmentservice\/?p=23"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:26:42","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:26:42","slug":"assessment-centres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/careerdevelopmentservice\/2015\/10\/13\/assessment-centres\/","title":{"rendered":"How to ace the assessment centre&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You\u2019re at an assessment centre. It\u2019s been a long gruelling day already, and it\u2019s only lunch time. You\u2019ve been up for hours, you\u2019re wearing your smartest clothes, you arrived early to make a good impression and you\u2019ve been concentrating hard on being at your best all morning. So far, so good. But now that it\u2019s lunch time, you\u2019re ready to relax. You join a couple of the other candidates you\u2019ve been getting on with throughout the morning and take the opportunity to take a load off your mind&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow annoying was that guy in the group activity? I hope he doesn\u2019t get the job!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know, did you see the way the assessor was looking at him? She did <em>not<\/em> look impressed! But she doesn\u2019t really look impressed with anything\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know. It\u2019s so stressful having her breathing down our necks. I can\u2019t wait to hit the pub straight after this. I\u2019ve got a big night out planned at this new bar in town. I went there with my mates last week and I couldn\u2019t move the next day, I was so hung over!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2026 And then you realise the assessor is behind you and is listening to your every word.<\/p>\n<p>We get it. You\u2019re under pressure, it\u2019s competitive and you were taking the opportunity to relax with the other candidates. But unfortunately the damage is done. No matter how well you\u2019ve performed throughout the exercises, if you make a bad impression, there\u2019s no coming back from that. Here are some top tips for making a good impression:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Be friendly to everyone you meet, including reception staff, catering staff, cleaning staff, as well as your fellow candidates and assessors. The way you treat other people can say a lot about how you will fit into a team.<\/li>\n<li>Think about the impression you\u2019re making when the attention is not on you. For example, if other members of your group are talking or presenting, try to look engaged and interested instead of slouching away in the background.<\/li>\n<li>Remember you\u2019re being watched at all times, not just in the parts that are formally assessed. It\u2019s ok to relax during the breaks but try to maintain a certain level of professionalism. Pick \u2018safe\u2019 topics to talk about (university, hobbies etc.) and take care not to say anything that might offend or create a bad impression.<\/li>\n<li>Use networking time to your advantage. Striking a rapport with other candidates can create useful allies in the tasks you will face throughout the day, but they may also be your future colleagues.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Need help with assessment centres? Why not come along to a Mock Assessment Centre to find out what it\u2019s all about? Book your place on <a href=\"https:\/\/mycareers.le.ac.uk\/home.html\">MyCareers<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You\u2019re at an assessment centre. It\u2019s been a long gruelling day already, and it\u2019s only lunch time. You\u2019ve been up for hours, you\u2019re wearing your smartest clothes, you arrived early to make a good impression and you\u2019ve been concentrating hard on being at your best all morning. So far, so good. But now that it\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19,23,2,21,20,22,7],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-assessment-centre","tag-career-develpoment-service","tag-careers-advice","tag-graduate","tag-interview","tag-job-search","tag-university-of-leicester"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/careerdevelopmentservice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/careerdevelopmentservice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/careerdevelopmentservice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/careerdevelopmentservice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/careerdevelopmentservice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/careerdevelopmentservice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/careerdevelopmentservice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/careerdevelopmentservice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/careerdevelopmentservice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/careerdevelopmentservice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}