A few years ago I attended an event at some large software company. That event was The Assessment Day. I still recall the images from that day. It was totally new to me then and I was rather curious about it. The event didn't live up to my expectations though. It was somewhat bizarre, artificial and as far as the intended goals were concerned just a bad idea. It was a play, it was also a game, but above all it was a lie. Essentially a lie given by the organizers to themselves without even realizing it.
So what is an Assessment Day exactly?
An Assessment Day is a spectacle held by certain software companies wrongfully convinced it is a great idea to screen a group of candidates and identify the best ones. You are there a comedian (or perhaps a tragedian depending on how it goes for you) so you must choose a role, put on a costume (with a tie otherwise they won't take you seriously) and go acting your part.
The play is supposed to provide the interviewers with an insight into individual capabilities of candidates and especially to provide them with a genuine feedback as to how a candidate would perform and behave in a real world situation. So arrangements are made to simulate a real world situation by putting the candidates into a pack and making them do a micro-project in a mini-teamwork under a close observation. That is meant to make candidates behave like they were doing real work in real world. In theory.
In theory as we know theory should not differ from practice. In practice it does differ and very much so. Therefore the clever experiment utterly and totally fails for a few simple reasons professional interviewers and psychologists should easily see.
- The situation is not real by any stretch of a definition. Neither the tasks nor the environment distantly resemble real world conditions. More, the reward and the penalty are nowhere close to their real world equivalents.
- The people in attendance are not chosen yet to become part of a team nor do they even know each other personally, or at least by face or name. They essentially make up a random bunch potentially incapable of ever forming a working team speaking less of a friendly and a harmonic collective.
- Contrary to genuine team work among supporting colleagues all having the single goal in mind (like performing their work at their best) the spirit of competition fills the air. Everybody knows that some will win and some will lose so they're all trying to look smarter and better than the others. It destroys the relaxed friendly atmosphere and generates stress.
- Everybody knows their fate is being decided so they take even more stress
- Everybody knows they're on clock and is therefore stressed the third time
- Everybody understands they are being closely watched and is therefore stressed again. The fourth time.
- Everybody believes they know what act the interviewers want to see and is therefore wearing a particular mask and playing a respective role which dismantles the very idea of unveiling their true personality and behavior model
- Since everybody is behaving non-genuinely they must watch to keep their act consistent. Because of this everybody is stressed. The fifth time.
- Because everybody is stressed several times over nobody is capable of behaving naturally, even if they sincerely wanted
In addition to this play a round of multiple individual interviews with different managers awaits a candidate, about 3-4 conversations. That is another terribly ineffective approach, since most people would only find energy to commit to the maximum of two quality discussions. Beginning with the third one you're beginning to lose track of what you have already told at this interview in progress and what you have already told in earlier interviews but not yet in this specific one. You also get tired so your answers get shorter, lazier and dry. You're fighting an inner urge to just respond: "Already explained this three times today, why don't you play the tape back?". In full accordance with the common wisdom of having just one interview per day your following interviews (beginning from the second but especially the third and the fourth) will suck.
Like said good interviewers and psychologists should know better than try this ridiculous experiment. However this is common practice, typically with either large companies or arrogant shops. Why is it so loved is a very good question. Perhaps this form of entertainment is simply in fashion. A plausible explanation. But I believe it is more likely that psychologists and human resource managers see it as one of those offerings for which many companies readily fail so it just helps them greatly to sell their services otherwise not really needed in that amount. So they push for it. This is where a hiring manager works against the best interests of a company.
At the end of the assessment day the interviewers select those baboons who guessed the desired behavior model correctly and successfully imitated it. Perhaps they got the good feel of the role or possibly the stress made them do random actions which conveniently shaped their perceivable scenic image. Who cares really? Not the interviewers that's for sure.
I have attended such events myself. Once I was in a group of young graduates who apparently lacked any practical development skills. As it was closing to the end of a team work session we still hadn't figured out a solution to show. Trying to save the day I took a more active role and gave them a working solution. It was new to everybody but I managed to quickly explain it and everybody seemed to understand. So we had a result and we presented it as a team. Sadly I was told later I was being authoritative and pushed my solution on the team. Nice.
At the next event I recalled my first experience and tried to constrain my participation not to exceed the typical involvement of an active team member. So I listened to the others ideas, gave mine and was reaching for a compromise. After the event I was told I was passive and not showing initiative. Go figure.
A few tips to help you make it through if you must:
- Show initiative. Propose your own ideas, don't be passive and only listening. Talk at the slightly above average team rate.
- Be active. Show it in your body language and speech intonation when talking to the interviewers and especially in interactions within your team.
- Demonstrate enthusiasm about solving a problem as opposed to seeing it as a burden to carry
- Show involvement. Aim for above average but see that you don't shout out the other's input.
- Show admiration for the company. Keep shining eyes about the things around, be fascinated bordering crying of happiness about being granted an invitation to the event.
Otherwise it's a show, a spectacle as it is. A Day at the Circus. Play, watch, enjoy, have all sorts of fun you can find.
They even offer free drinks, courtesy of the establishment. Unfortunately you're not allowed pop-corn.
