Assessment Centre - Essay Example

The intense competition among business organizations in a challenging external business environment has intensified the role of the HR function and compelled professionals to use various techniques and procedures to fully assess a potential candidate before his / her selection and offering of a job contract. This paper will first discuss the definition and importance of assessment centers. The researcher will then throw light on the purpose, value, and aim of assessment centers that are widely used by contemporary HR executives during employee recruitment, selection, and development process.

Leivens (2001) has pointed out the fact that assessment centers have gained popularity and fame in the last 4 decades as they have become a very useful source that facilitate in recruitment and selection of employees. In general, the assessment centers refer to a development center or a one-day workshop where Human Resource Professionals evaluate the qualities, personality traits, and attributes followed by decision–making and problem–solving skills of potential candidates. For instance, these centers are created for the purpose of facilitating HR executives in the recruitment and induction of smart candidates, who will then contribute their abilities and knowledge cotton facilitatessurthe vival, expansion, and sustainable development of an organization. Among the major benefits of assessment centers (ACs), the most important is that they are quite effective in tbehavioralesting behavibehavioraloural issues/issues/problemsoblems, psychology, mental strength, tests and attitudes of potential candidates. For instance, the assessors make observations, and recordings and use psychological tetests/tissues/problemsoolssts / tools/scales to check locus of control, openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, pressure assimilation, willpower, and other factors after which evaluations and feedbfeedbackacks are provided. In this way, the recruiters draw conclusions about the emotional stability of an employee coupled with his / her underlying strengths and weaknesses (Leivens et al, 2001).  

As far as the objectives of assessment centers are concerned, it is worthwhile to mention that assessors tend to have case studies, debates, open and group discussion sessions, group exercises, and presentations to test the level of creativity, personal drive, critical thinking, communication, and interpersonal skills in a candidate. For instance, the assessors also orgrelationship-buildinganise randomly selected candidates into work groups and teams, which are then assigned various situations and real–world scenarios in order to test team-building skills, relationship building, flexibility, analytical capabilities, l, leadership styles and mutual cooperation/coordination among members. These mediumediummedium medium-duration-duration duration exercises help provide a relatmentionedively better analmention, mentmentioningioned ofaforemmentionedenthe tioned qualities in candidates compared to observations and responses during face-to-face interviews.

It should be highlighted that another advantage of assessment centers is to judge conflict resolution, crisis handling, and contingency plan development abilities either through individual or group tests. In addition, candidates may be assigned responsibilities to develop a realistic business plan to judge vision, strategic planning, forecasting, risk identification, analysis and measurement, marketing, adaptability, innovation, differentiation, and other capabilities as a whole. For instance, assessment centers also evaluate and testify how honest, moral, and ethical a candidate is through the assignment of certain ethical scenarios, dilemmas, and lapses. The aforementioned enabled HR executives to get an insight into the importance that an applicant could have for the Code of Conduct, Organisational Cons, and Rule of Law. In addition, the candidates are scrutinized for assessment of competitiveness, task – orientation, performance approach, employee centredness, and relationship – orientation so that they could be prepared to assimilate pressure in an unpredictable and complex business environment (Kolk et al, 2003).

It is justified to argue that the actual aim of assessment centers is to identify who are the smart workers (versatile and innovators having proactive approach) and who are the laggards (inactive and outliers). Indeed, the in-depth critical examination would help reveal the differences between the right and wrong candidates after which it becomes easier for HR professionals to narrow down their lists of candidates. For instance, the resulting short-listing then facilitates the further assfurtheressments of the top candidates with optimal performances so far. For instance, these centers not only benefit during the selection process but also help formulate/design appropriate training programs for employees, who need additional tutorials and training sessions for enhancement in some areas.

In a nutshell, it should be recalled that ionization will never find perfect candidates; rather they entice talented workers who need counseling, mentorship, training, guidance, direction, grooming and polishing to foster organizational mission, vision, goals, and objectives. However, the effectiveness of assessment centers will reduce if judges and assessors have any biases as well as when they lack strong experience, professionalism, and glib expertise to assess candidates in the right manner.