Outlining My FIRST Assessment Centre Experience!

Introduction:

Recently, I made it to the final round (Assessment Centre Day) for a Technology Graduate position.

I’d previously never done one before and didn’t really know what to expect. This blog post aims to summarise my experience, covering key positives as well as aspects that I can learn on/look to improve in the future.

As always, before we get into this feature, please make sure to applaud, comment and share with your friends.

Happy Reading!

About the Role (Including Prior Stages):

The role was a “Technology Graduate” position with the opportunity to work in 1 team (My favourite ones were: Platform Engineering; DevOps and Cyber Security).

Below I outline the previous rounds:

CV and Cover Letter.

Video Interview (These questions were pretty generic: “Tell us about a time where XYZ”).

Maths Test (Personally I believe there wasn’t enough time to answer all of the questions. I answered just over half of them but still made it through to the next round).

Coding Test (Surprisingly easy, it contained FizzBuzz).

Assessment Centre Day Breakdown:

Teamwork Activity:

The task was to design a game that would go alongside their existing products.

At different points of the day, team members would get taken out to complete their individual interviews.

The other significant factor is that after lunch, we had a ‘random problem’ occur during the task which impacted our approach.

Individual Interview:

I had the question’s prior to the interview however they would ask follow up questions in response to my answers.

It was meant to take 40ish minutes however mine was easily 1 hour+!!

There were a few parts where I got grilled (as is expected with any interview) but it was fairly comfortable and overall, an interesting chat.

Conclusion and Key Learning Points (Reflection):

This was my first ever assessment centre and I am genuinely happy for undertaking the entire experience. Immersing myself into this environment will definitely prove to be helpful for the future.

I think I did well enough in the group task. Perhaps I could’ve been a bit more proactive but I tried to listen and jump in with my thoughts when appropriate.

This day really got me thinking about the art of communication (when to speak, when to listen).

And of course, it was great to meet people from many different universities.

Final Things:

As always, thank you for taking the time to read this article.

All my links are here.