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Assessment Days - Recent Experience (May 2009)

A training contract applicant has very kindly given us a detailed description of an assessment day that recently took place in the North West. It gives a flavour of the typical sort of day you will get in most medium and large law firms..

Here's what happened at the (North West Firm) assessment day.

Introductions - we had to write a few facts about ourselves on a side of a4 paper, screw it in to a ball and throw it in the centre of the room, we all then had to go grab a ball and discover who it was and then use that to introduce the person to the group.

We then had a group exercise. We were a group of four hikers, lost in a snow storm - in a tent -and had to decide on how many people should look for - and then from a list of 19 items decide which ten should be taken by the people who went for help and what items should remain for the people staying in the tent.

I then had a competency based interview. First question 'what is your unique selling point' (i nearly fell off my chair) - other questions included examples of being commercially aware, greatest non academic achievement etc..

The comprehension exercise was in a vein of a spelling test. There was a sentence or two with words missing an you had to choose which went where. affect/effect advise/advice were the simple ones i can remember there were some very tricky ones which definitely threw me. There were 40 to do in 20 minutes (plenty of time however).

Hope this assists anyone looking for advice on assessment days... Let us know your experiences and we can add them to this bank of knowledge.

Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and can be contacted on 0207 127 4343 or cv@ten-percent.co.uk

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Comments

Unknown said…
That sounds somewhat stressful, but interesting at the same time. I think having different types of group assessments are a good idea because it can give the employers an insight on how you work in groups, and not just on your own. As for the one-on-one questions like "what is your unique selling point?" that would probably make me fall out of my seat as well, but that's how they start to separate the candidates they want. Who is prepared for the question, and who has no idea. It would be nice if all companies that used a PEO had similar assessments that are described here. Having assessments more hands-on would probably work better than just straight-forward tests.
22 May 2009 at 22:21
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