Assessment Centres : Definition
Dear all,
Assessment Centres are often described as the variety of testing techniques that allow the candidates to demonstrate, under standardized conditions, the skills and abilities most essential for success in a given job. – Dennis A. Joiner, ‘Assessment centre in public sector: A practical approach’, Public Personnel Management Journal.
2. An assessment center is a comprehensive standardized procedure in which multiple assessment techniques such as situational exercises and job simulation (business games, discussions, reports & presentations) are used to evaluate individual employee for variety of manpower decisions.
3. An Assessment Centre consists of a standardized evaluation of behavior based on multiple inputs. Several trained observers and techniques are used. Judgements about behavior are made, in major part, from specifically developed assessment simulations. These judgements are pooled in a meeting among the assessors or by statistical integration process. In an integration discussion, comprehensive accounts of behavior, and often ratting of it, are pooled. The discussion results in evaluation of performance of the assessees on the dimensions/competencies or other variables that the assessment centre is designed to measure. Statistical combination methods should be validated in accordance with professionally accepted standards. - ‘Guidelines and ethical considerations for assessment centre operations.’ - 28th International Congress on Assessment Centre Methods
4. The main feature of assessment centres is that they are a multiple assessment process. There are five main ways in which that is so. A group of participants takes part in a variety of exercises observed by a team of trained assessors who evaluate each participant against a number of predetermined, job related behaviors. Decisions are then made by pooling shared data. – Iain Ballantyne and Nigel Povah
5. Assessment centres are tools that involve assembling “recommended managerial candidates for specific purpose of assessing their potential and arriving at the decisions about their promotability.” Companies take a group of up to a dozen candidates away from work environment for several days, giving these candidates simulated management problems such as a case study, role plays and in-baskets. After a series of interviews and tests, observers (usually industrial psychologists or senior managers) collate the results to produce overall potential ratings for each candidate. – “Talent Management in an International Company”, Corporate Leadership Council
6. An assessment centre is a process in which individuals participate in a series of exercises, most of which approximate what they would be called upon to do in the future job. Assessors usually selected from higher management levels in the firm, are trained to observe the participants and evaluate their performance as fairly and impartially as possible. –‘Can assessment centres be used to improve the salesperson selection process’, E. James Randall, Ernest E. Cooke, Richard J. Jefferies, Journal of personal selling and sales management
7. A typical assessment centre requires participants to complete several simulations that test two or more performance dimensions. Job analysis is used to develop both the simulations and the performance dimensions to ensure their job-relatedness. Assessors observe the behavior of the participants, and ultimately pool their observations, evaluate the behaviors, and provide a score for related performance dimensions. – ‘Assessment Centre: Reducing inter assessor influence’, Phillip E. Lowry, Public Personnel Management
8. An assessment centre is a multi-faceted and multi-dimensional approach designed to provide reliable and valid information about a range of competencies of an individual considered to be necessary for successful performance at a target level in a specific job. – ‘360 degree feedback, competency mapping and assessment centres’, Radha R. Sharma
9. Assessment centres are means of helping an organization to identify the strengths and potential development areas of its staff in relation to a particular job or role. – Beacon consultants, ‘Assessment centres’
10. Assessment centre is a method of predicting future performance by using simulations and other techniques to measure a candidate’s ability to handle future responsibilities. – Julie Hay, ‘Assessment and Development centre’.
11. TMTC definition of AC: AC is an integrated standardized process in which a series of exercises are used to assess people on pre-defined parameters. These pre-defined parameters define job success in a given organizational context. Most of the exercises are simulation of job activities/ work challenges that the candidate is expected to perform in the next level role/job.
Definitions by Amitava Mukherji & Shishir Misra
Regards,
Jaswinder
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