Assessment Days For Recruitment | Recruitment Assessment Day

Game changing assessment days that properly and fairly assess candidates in a challenging and realistic environment.

Why Invest in an Assessment Day?

Assessment days, if properly designed and facilitated, can be a very robust way of assessing candidates for one of a number of purposes, which include:

Recruiting new talent to your organisation from external sources
People moves and promotions within your organisation so as to be a true meritocracy
Making key decisions on development investment timing and scale as part of the precursor to a learning & development programme
Measuring the effectiveness of a development investment by assessing demonstrable competence development and growth

How Do Our Assessment Days Work?

Assessment centres typically take place over one day and require meticulous planning & preparation beforehand and effective choreography and facilitation during the day.

We work with our clients to properly understand your objectives for running an assessment centre and your candidates who will be taking part. We then design challenging and appropriate exercises and mechanisms so as to robustly assess the candidates and ensure you the client get the outcomes you want.

For clients where it is practical to run the event at our Nottingham based development centre, we can add extra value by tapping into some aspects of our unique behavioural development model. We simulate scenarios that candidates would typically find themselves in so as to allow them to demonstrate their ability to manage these situations.

Furthermore, these scenarios are typically viewed remotely by assessors via our state of the art AV technology to add further realism for the candidates.

Most clients choose a mixture of client assessors and PDW assessors to balance the day and the assessment perspectives and the mix is completely flexible so as to fit with each client’s situation and budget.

What Activities Can Be Included?

There are many activities and exercises that we can use, but a typical day would consist of some or all of the following:

Competency and/or strength based interview
Simulated scenarios that are relevant to the candidates being assessed (such as people management or customer meetings, etc.)
Formal presentations, either pre-prepared or as part of an exercise on the day
Data analysis and case study work
Written technical or financial tests
Psychometrics and personality/behavioural profiling
Problem solving exercises
Group activities and discussions

For internally focused assessment centres some clients include a 360 degree feedback survey prior to participating and make the 360 report available for use on the day. This can be another highly robust mechanism to add to the mix allowing candidates to obtain feedback from a broad array of people in their own organisation and add to their self awareness.

Many clients also invest in a thorough face to face debrief of all candidates on a 1:1 basis. Our aspiration here is that the assessment experience will trigger the single best personal feedback experience the candidates have ever had. As such, this will add huge value to them personally regardless of the individual outcome.

I often hear myself say “Great opportunity to use your PDW skills” – or, in shorthand, just “PDW!” This has been the most effective training I have done in my career – and to call it training downplays it.

Vicky Sandry General Counsel

Particularly good feedback from the team on all the practise sessions as this really brings the theory to life – and a great team helping to do that.

Steve Howarth CEO

Good structure, very well facilitated and the combination of project and personal skills training meant that it was easy to see how the personal skills could be practically applied.

Richard Cheatham Project Manager

Vicky Sandry General Counsel

Particularly good feedback from the team on all the practise sessions as this really brings the theory to life – and a great team helping to do that.

Steve Howarth CEO

Good structure, very well facilitated and the combination of project and personal skills training meant that it was easy to see how the personal skills could be practically applied.

Richard Cheatham Project Manager

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We know that reading about PDW isn’t the same as seeing the impact our training has on your team, or taking part in a session, yourself. To help you get a feel for what’s really involved, and better understand how our approach could benefit your business, we’re talking to Sarah Cox, an MD who’s already taken the positive step of working with PDW.

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Success Story Endorsement from Richard Bugler - Albert Goodman

At PDW we recently had the honour of receiving this glowing testimonial from Richard of Albert Goodman. He explains below how his partners thoroughly invested in our leadership development training and reaped the numerous rewards. Read on to find out more, in Richard’s own words…

Success Story What Coaching Did For Me

Coaching can significantly help your day-to-day work and have a positive impact on how you operate.

We talked to Sandra about her journey with PDW Group and her realisation of why coaching was the next step for her.

Coaching enabled Sandra to see some of the specific blockers that were preventing her from being the type of partner she wanted to be how it lead her to be a happier person.

Testimonial Fisher German

Fisher German’s partner of the future needed a more innovative and robust approach in order to be different. They wanted their partners to be suited for partnership. This means having the right skills and leadership ability, both internally and externally.

Testimonial Openfield

As a leading agribusiness, Openfield are one of Britain’s most successful and enduring cooperatives, committed to putting their members’ needs first.

Openfield are realising their vision to be an integral part of their farmers’ and customers’ businesses, building unique relationships that create value.

Testimonial Robson Laidler

Robson Laidler are a leading accountancy firm in Newcastle – upon- Tyne. They approached PDW Group to develop the leadership ability within the senior teams in the firm to improve overall performance and employee engagement.

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Assessment Days