Virtual Assessment Centre Ebook- The Edge of Virtual Over Physical

Virtual
Assessment
Centre
Date Published
04/05/2020
The Edge Of V irtual Over P hysical
E

Table of Content
Introduction
Top 5 Learning’s From Deploying A Virtual
Assessment Centre
Conclusion
01
05
06
02
04
03
The Assessment Centre
• A Brief History Of The Assessment Centre
• Benefits & Limitations Of The Assessment Centre
Developing A Virtual Assessment Centre
• 10 Steps To Developing Your VAC
The Virtual Assessment Centre
• Move From Physical To Virtual
• 3 Key Focus Areas In Virtualization

Introduction
The Human Resource (HR) function has always
played a vital role in making key talent decision
processes in companies. The entire talent
lifecycle of an employee’s career is essentially a
roadmap carved by HR. Although not always the
end decision makers, one of HR’s key roles is to
implement strategies and process to enable
decision makers to make accurate judgments.
This had led to the birth of many well-known HR
tools often deployed to increase the predictive
validity of decision making.
One of the most trusted tools is the Assessment
Centre (AC). High in its predictive validity and
trusted across the globe, the practice of the
Assessment Centre (AC) has now been
revolutionized by technology to create the
Virtual Assessment Centre (VAC).
The Edge of Virtual Over Physical
This guide takes you along the journey of the
Assessment Centre’s virtualization path and
shows how to retain proven validity whilst
leveraging technological advantages.
01 Accendo | Introduction

From Military Origin
One of the most in-depth books on AC “A
Preparation Guide for The Assessment Centre
Method” by Tina Lewis Rowe cites that as far
back as the mid-1930’s, Dr.Max Simoneit, a
German psychologist who worked with the
military, wanted to find a way to overcome the
disparity between what an Officer candidates
said they would do if promoted and what they
actually did. He developed a process of
observing Officer candidates as they performed
various tasks and test, then rating them and
using the ratings to make selection decisions.
This system used to select Officers of the High
Command before WWII, at the time simply called
an “assessment” by the Germans, took two days
during which each candidate was interviewed,
participated in athletic tests, underwent mental
and manual performance test and most
importantly of all the Fuehrerprobe, the
leadership test.
This system proved to be so good that the British
and American’s Office of Strategic Services
(OSS) adopted a similar approach.
02 Accendo | The Assessment Centre

The British Oss Version Of The Assessment Centre Were
Called Selection Assessment Boards.
Similar To Today’s Group Activities, They Introduced The
Groupstacle With The Aim Of Determining To What
Degree Each Man In A Team Of Six Would Or Could
Assume Leadership Within A Group, Contribute Ideas For
Problem Solving, Cooperate With Others And Share In
The Dirty Work.

To Corporate Practice
Eventually, as more psychologists poured their
expertise into these selection processes and
more scientific rigour added, industries started
the practise of today’s AC. The American
Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) is not
only recognized as one of the first implementers
of AC but also early on showed how validated
AC are through actual career studies.
In the 1950’s, Douglas W. Bray as a director of
human resources at AT&T directed a study that
lasted over 20 years and followed the careers of
young business managers as they progressed up
the telephone company rankings. This study
showed that the assessment center method
could successfully predict organizational
achievement and was later implemented
throughout AT&T and eventually adopted by
many other companies.
In the same time AT&T created a building for recruitment of staff
which was called The Assessment Centre, perhaps the most iconic
contribution AT&T had on AC practice was the name itself.

Corporate Adoption
Post the AC method being used for selection
much like in the case of military scenarios
and the early days of AT&T, practisioners
realised the results from this method could
also be used to identify training needs.
Hence, the traditional assessment centre
process started being used in professional
growth and referred to as Development
Centres (DC).
This paved the way for HR being able to
deploy this assessing method across the
talent lifecycle. General rule of thumb is
deploying this pre-hire such as hiring and
graduate programs were called Assessment
Centre’s (AC) and post-hire such as
promotions and high potential programs
were called Development Centre’s (DC).
*As this guide focuses on the practice and not the distinction,
for ease of the reader both AC and DC will be referred to as AC.
Although the effectiveness of AC have been
well proven and recognized, the adoption of
AC vary across industries. Consulting
companies were early adopters by
implementing AC into their recruitment
process followed by the majority of large
private sector companies especially FSI’s
whilst the manufacturing sector is slowly
embracing the process as of late.
Of course, with adoption growing,
companies also started stretching the
creativity of the activities they deployed in
their AC’s.
Some interesting stories include activities
that:
• Stretched overnight like a military boot
• Were done blindfolded
• ncluded Lego (actuarial science role)
• Were done in dirt (dress code was suits)
camp

9 out of 10
employers using Assessment Centers believe they are a
very (47%) or fairly (48%) effective means of
recruiting staff to fill vacancies.

Clearly Defining AC
To proceed on this guide, we first need to have a
common understanding of the Assessment
Centre (AC) method. When it comes to making
talent decisions, the definitive way to evaluate
an employees’ potential for a role is to directly
observe their behaviour and capability in their
first few months of probation. However, this has
a huge risk and cost factor attached to it hence
hardly any companies do this.
This is where AC’s come into play as it replicates
as close as possible, in a simulated environment ,
the daily task, culture and expectations of the
role.
In essence, an AC is a rigorous process for
assessing a candidates behaviour and fit to a
role. Usually designed and conducted by field
experts or trained HR professionals, it can be
deployed for any job role at any job level.

Key Element
An AC is a combination of multi-dimensional
objective assessment methods used to measure fit to
a job and operate on a “cross reference” approach – a
group of candidates take part in multiple exercises and are
observed and evaluated by a team of qualified assessors
against a number of job-related behaviors and
competencies, which leads to the talent decision-making on
all the collated data.

Why Assessment Centres
Assessment Centre’s bring a lot of benefits to hiring and development processes which can
be categorized to 3 main areas; Realistic Job Preview, Rigor, Validity & Objectivity and
The Employer Brand.
1. Realistic Job Preview 3. The Employer Brand
2. Rigor, Validity and Objectivity
Glimpse into potential environment
Preview into future job
Preparedness for change of strategy
Contextualising any environment
Slice of life in your company
Build talent attraction strategy
Employee retention
It’s a talent market
Multiple assessors
Multiple activities
Set criteria; competencies and behaviours
Evidence based

Understanding the Limitations of
an Assessment Centre
Whilst Physical Assessment Centre’s Are Highly Valid And
Reliable, Companies Are Finding The High Cost And Time
Investment To Be A Limitation When It Comes To Scaling
Their Use Of Assessment Centre’s.

Limitations
Assessment Centre’s done physically also carry some limitations that has hindered
companies from using them across the organization. These limitations are often why
companies reserve AC’s for only 5%-8% of the organization.
1. Resource and Logistical Hassle 3. Scale Limitations
2. Commitment by Stakeholders
Man-days on assessment build
Assessors/Management/Runners
during AC
Location setup and planning
Cost of setup
Geographical limitations
Cost increase as complexity increase
Becomes learnt
Co-design with external/internal parties
Involvement by multiple businesses
Securing budgets

The Virtual
Assessment
Centre
03

Move From Physical
To Virtual
Due to the limitations of the physical AC, the
birth of the Virtual Assessment Centre (VAC)
came to place. Leveraging on technology,
companies can now enjoy the realibilty of
assessment centres yet save time and money by
deploying virtually. Just like physical assessment
centres, virtual assessment centres have multiple
tools mapped to behavioral competencies.
VAC’s provide holistic understanding of a
candidate without compromising on the quality
and standard set by physical assessment
centres. The tools are administered online,
followed by automated reports, thus eliminating
the hassle of logistics, reducing manual effort
and curbing the overhead costs in conducting an
extensive in-person assessment; all this , without
hampering the standardisation and accuracy of
the results.
03 Accendo | The Virtual Assessment Centre

Once you understand the concepts and design
of an Assessment Centre, these are 3 key areas
to keep in mind on your way to launching a
Virtual Assessment Centre
3Key Focus Areas
In Virtualization
Reduce, Reuse & Replace
Resource
Create the Right Candidate
Experience
Leverage on Big Data

01
Reduce, Reuse & Replace
Resource
Just like the famous mantra of waste management, you
can optimize your resource and avoid unnecessary spend
by following something similar and applying it when
moving into a VAC.
Virtualization does not mean you entirely scarp your
physical process, rather, look for waste to be reduced,
effective resources to be re-used and non-scalable items
to be replaced.
Below you will find simple questions to help understand if
a resource should be reduced, reused or replaced and
some examples as well.
3R

01Reduce:
Do We Need This?
How Do We Get This
In A More Efficient
Way?
Resources we want to reduce often go hand in
hand with the limitations of having a physical AC.
We can reflect on this by looking a our process
and asking at each item do we need this? And if
we don’t, it can be removed. If we do however, we
then ask how do we get it in a more efficient way
looking at the fact that the process is to be
virtualized.
An example below is if we find we don’t need
logistics and materials spend, we can do away
with it by virtual administration. Yet, if we still need
time investment from assessors, we can make it
more efficient by on the go ratings in which they
do not have to be physically present to give their
ratings.
Reduce
Logistic spend
Material spend
Time investment
Assessment Leaks
How?
Virtual administration
On the go ratings
Virtual security features

01Reuse:
What Still Works
And Is Efficient?
Can Easily Be Taken
Virtual?
There may be many resources and processes that
exist within your physical AC or even in your
overall talent practice that can be reused in a
VAC. To understand what can be reused reflect on
things that still work and is efficient and also can
be easily taken into a virtual process. You will find
a lot of these if your company is a heavy user of
talent assessments.
An example below is if we already collect data via
tools such as psychometric assessments, video
interviews and 360’s they can be reused by either
an integration of the tool itself into your VAC or
by integrating the data alone. Leverage also on
current resources like your existing online
branding which can easily be adopted by a VAC
platform.
Reuse
Online assessments
Video interviews
360’s
Online branding
How?
Integration of tools or data

01Replace:
What Isn’t Scalable?
Has A Virtual
Equivalent?
The last category you may find resources falling
into is the replace category, in which, certain
things within our process are good but not
scalable. Above that, they also have a virtual
equivalent that we can replace. In certain cases,
we may choose not to replace these items due to
the complexity we would like from the AC with the
understanding we won’t need to scale it.
An example below in terms of business case
studies and physical group activities, whilst very
effective they aren’t scalable exercises, but, they
do have virtual equivalents. In fact, replacing
these with online simulations can give your VAC
scale and also faster more accurate scoring as
simulations are score instantly and utilize more
data points.
Replace
Business case studies
Physical group activities
Face to face interviews
How?
Business simulations
Virtual teamwork simulations
Pivotal experience interviews

02
Create The Right
Candidate Experience
Creating the right candidate experience does not have to
mean big bold interfaces with over the top messaging
and loads of free gifts. Often, companies chase these
things but forget the essentials of experience and end up
spending a lot on flash without no substance, leading to
poor candidate experience still.
In getting your VAC candidate experience right, think first
about these 4 essential components:
Branding •
Integration & Consolidation •
Candidate Functionality •
Accessibility •

02
Research has shown how strong employer branding has a direct impact on talent acquisition.
Companies with better reputations have higher-quality and more satisfied employees. In fact,
a LinkedIn study found that 69% of candidates say they would not accept a job in a firm with
a bad reputation even if they would be jobless.
A VAC is one of the best tools to promote employer brand because it gives companies the
opportunity to showcase its values, leadership qualities and style of working all through the
VAC platform. VAC’s give room to deliver more interactive types of branding. The entire
virtual experience a candidate goes through can be designed to match the desired employer
brand the company wants to convey in a much more impactful way.
Accessibility •
Branding

02
As we try and make our talent practices more rigid and valid, we tend to add on processes
and often forget about continuity. This means we keep adding tools and forms yet from a
candidate experience this becomes frustrating because it seems like repetition and to the
admin you start having mountains of data that do not talk to each other. In virtualization,
always keep in mind integrate processes, consolidate data.
We look at consumer tech as an example, you can sign into most apps today as long as your
Gmail or Facebook is logged on. This means no more new accounts, new passwords, having
to input personal information repeatedly etc. Through integrations and consolidation, your
VAC can be as continuous as this for both the candidate and the admin.
Accessibility •
Integration &
Consolidation

02
The easier and more flexible it becomes for candidates to work out functionalities within your
VAC the better experience they have. Over merely taking assessments, a good VAC platform
should also expand on the interactions the candidate can do. For example, communication
features to directly link to recruiters, a self scheduler that given scheduling freedom back to
candidates and removes the hassle from HR, chatbots for quick problem resolution etc.
The idea here is, the more functions are placed within the VAC, the more interactive the
candidate becomes with the platform and at the same time lowers the amount of operational
work HR has to do.
Accessibility •
Candidate
Functionality

02
• Will the platform require the use of a laptop or is it mobile ready?
• Will there be a need for a strong Internet connection?
• Will the candidate need to install further plug-ins and software?
Asking these 3 questions can determine how accessible your VAC platform is. Accessibility is
especially important to achieve scale when using VAC’s as it can influence important numbers
such as error pages, completion rates and drop off rates.
Understanding the demographics of your candidate pool will give you a view on how
accessible the platform needs to be. The more diverse in age and geo-location your
demographics are, the more accessibility impacts the overall experience.
Accessibility •
Accessibility

03
Leverage On Data
“You can have data without information, but you
cannot have information without data”
One of the most powerful feature that will separate your
physical AC from your virtual AC is the ability to leverage
on data in a whole new way. Whilst the only data taken
from physical AC’s are scores used to rate candidates,
there is no data that serves to improve the process in
itself. In virtualizing, data will be able to improve your AC
process as a whole by optimizing 5 key areas as below:
Holistic
Scalability
Speed
Accuracy
Wallet Friendly
With Achieving All Of These

Wallet Friendly
In leveraging on data and achieving speed,
accuracy, holistic and scalability we are able to
break the cost limitation of physical AC’s and
create a wallet friendly solution that is highly
efficient, effective and reliable.03Leverage On
Data
Speed
With data everything becomes faster in a
VAC from instant scoring on activities to
instant talent reports being generated. Even
interviews are shorted as they become data
driven. Decisions are made quicker and
therefore becomes scalable.
Holistic
A virtual platform allows the possibility to
collate data in order to view candidates in a
holistic manner. The lens through with you
are able to view candidates becomes more
powerful as scoring can also take things like
metadata into account something that is
impossible in a physical setting.
Accuracy
Leveraging on data you can also increase
the accuracy of your entire VAC process.
Combining multiple data points to increase
tool validity becomes easier therefore
outputs more accurate. Also, the chances of
biasness in the process is slim to none.
Scalability
Leveraging on data you can also increase
the accuracy of your entire VAC process.
Combining multiple data points to increase
tool validity becomes easier therefore
outputs more accurate. Also, the chances of
biasness in the process is slim to none.

Developing
A Virtual
Assessment
Centre
04

10
Steps To
Developing
A VAC
04 Accendo | Developing A Virtual Assessment Centre
Job Analysis
Score Outcomes
Platform Setup
Planning
Analysis
Execution
01
07
05
Define Competencies
Cut-Off Scores
Candidate Engagement
Exercise Mapping & Design
Additional Data
Bias & Inconsistencies
02
08
06
03
09
04
10

01
Job Analysis
Wether deploying a VAC for hiring or development, the
core principal is finding the right person for the job,
and without first understanding thoroughly the job we
are trying to fill, it is impossible to know who the right
person is. A job analysis goes beyond what is usually
printed on a job description.
In doing a job analysis, we need to understand at the
least; direct and indirect accountabilities of the job,
what the job scope look likes in the lenses of the
present and the future, the competencies both
leadership and functional required to perform at the
job, and the proficiency required amongst those
competencies.

02
Define Competencies
Once the job has been analyzed, there should be a
clear framework emerging in terms of competencies
telling us what a high potential candidate should
exhibit. Ensure to clearly define these competencies to
avoid confusion. These competencies are then further
explained by a set of behaviours that indicate what
both positive and negative markers look like.
Further zoom into the competencies by asking can they
be measured by an assessment centre. Certain
competencies will only be visible on the job or over
time however most leadership and some technical
competencies can easily be measured via a VAC.

Exercise Mapping
& Design
03Utilising the results from the job analysis and
identification of the set of competency and criteria,
multiple exercises that reflect a simulation of the
target job’s key elements and context can now be
mapped. The design of using multiple exercises is to
have a complete picture of how candidates would
respond in different scenarios and validate their
performance by measuring each competency more
than once.
These exercises can range from psychometric
assessments, cognitive tests, business simulations,
video interviews and etc.

04
Up until now all process driven portions of planning a
VAC is done. Now comes an important step that could
lead to a successful or failed execution, thinking of the
candidate experience. Planning this requires walking in
the candidates shoes.
At this step you need to think about the tone of email
invitations being sent out, the length of the
assessments, the time given in total to complete the
process, and anticipating any problems that may
happen along the way. Remember, the level of
audience changes the answer to all the above. A VAC
can vary between 1-2 hours for graduates to 4-5 hours
for C-suites.

05
Platform Setup
Technology is a process catalyst in which if your
process is right technology makes is exponentially
better but if your process is wrong it becomes
detrimental. Which is why we get the planning phase
right before moving to the virtual platform now. Here,
ensure your VAC platform is setup according to your
organization needs in terms of branding, scoring,
competencies, activities and etc.
Also, ensure to test and receive feedback from all your
stakeholders view meaning the candidates perspective,
HR’s perspective and line manager’s perspective.

06
Candidate Engagement
Candidate engagement is a metric that is essential to
any HR initiative and is one way to ensure maximum
ROI on VAC’s. The initial excitement during the launch
of a program can be high but the real challenge is
keeping that constant throughout the time.
Increase candidate engagement in your VAC’s by
matching the right type of assessment to the right job
level, ensuring purpose is given to the candidate on
why and what the VAC is about, ensure to avoid
assessment fatigue, and constantly monitor completion
and drop out rates to be agile with your
communication strategy.

07
Score Outcomes
An important step to high adaption rates amongst
internal stakeholders is the outcomes of the VAC. Many
times, off the shelf reports or scoring formats that are
not contextualized to your organization tend to have
low adaption rates as the interpretation of what scores
mean to the company is left to the individual.
Instead, think about what reports and language are
familiar with stakeholders within your company and how
assessment score implications can easily be read. The
easier this information is interpreted, the higher internal
adaption becomes.

08
Cut-Off Scores
The benchmark at which you qualify a candidate is
another important scoring aspect to look at. Without
proper analysis, you could either end up setting the bar
too high and have no candidates meeting the threshold
or setting the bar too low and qualifying weak
candidates as good.
There are various best practice benchmarks available
by assessment companies you can use to start as a
guidance such as industry benchmarks, national
benchmarks and global benchmarks depending on the
company and role. Post utilizing this benchmark, do a
validation study against future performance scores to
understand where your cut-off sweet spot is.

09
Additional Data
The beauty of using a virtual assessment platform is
having the ability to add data that can further
contribute to holistically profiling a candidate. Upon
collecting assessment scores, data such as
performance scores can be added as well.
A strong data point to use is assessment metadata.
This refers to data points collected aside from the main
measures of an assessment. For example, whilst a
business simulation may directly collect scores on
“Strategic Thinking” ability, metadata such as speed to
made strategic decisions, impulsiveness, aggressive
thinking etc is also collected and can tell you with
greater depth about a candidate.

10
Bias & Inconsistencies
Lastly, a final step to ensure maximum effectiveness
from your VAC in order for your talent decision making
process to be rigid yet fair is to put in place a check for
bias & inconsistencies. If your VAC involved human
intervention when scoring for things like video
interviews, unconsciousness bias may have played a
part. Check on this by exploring rating patterns or
many virtual platforms now have algorithms in place to
detect if an assessor is potentially being bias in their
rating.
Inconsistencies can be seen by irregular assessment
completions like time spent and extreme low scores.
Inconsistencies may occur from candidates potentially
not taking the assessment seriously, guessing too
much, not understanding the language or task and etc.

4. Candidate Experience vs
Engagement
• Create the high touch around the online
• Messaging and timing is important
5. Security
• The larger the candidate pool the more
• Think about the sharing of your assessment
assessments
data you hold
process
05 Accendo | Top 5 Learnings
1. Design Determines Output
• Think about what competencies are
• Over-dependence on one tool
2. Don’t Overload Because It’s
Online
• 4-5 tools in whole process
• Lasting at most 3-4 hours
3. Think About Your Audience First
• Who are your candidates?
• What level are they?
• What is the VAC being run for?
important
Top 5 Learning From Deploying A VAC

Kick-Off Your VAC
As we have seen, moving from physical to virtual
assessment centres not only offer a resource
saving alternative, but also has added benefits
due to technological advantages. The concepts
remain similar, but virtualisation brings a whole
new advantage to your assessment practice.
To kick-start your own VAC keep these things in
mind: Leverage virtual solutions, host on the
right platform and leverage big data.
With these VAC principles, your talent decisions
will be made with the utmost of validity whilst
being resource efficient.
06 Accendo | Conclusion

Request For A
Demo Today
A-13A-1, Northpoint Office Suite,
Midvalley City, 1 Jalan Medan Syed
Putra, 59200, WP Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia
www.accendo.com.my
demo@accendo.com.my
+603 2722 6525

Virtual Assessment Centre Ebook- The Edge of Virtual Over Physical

Recomendados

Recomendados

Más contenido relacionado

La actualidad más candente

La actualidad más candente (20)

Similar a Virtual Assessment Centre Ebook- The Edge of Virtual Over Physical

Similar a Virtual Assessment Centre Ebook- The Edge of Virtual Over Physical (20)

Más de Nicole Yean

Más de Nicole Yean (6)

Último

Último (11)

Virtual Assessment Centre Ebook- The Edge of Virtual Over Physical