Graduates into Head Office management roles
A large high street retailer of health and beauty products engaged us to develop their new flagship selection process for graduates into head office management roles destined for future senior management positions with the firm. We designed a cutting edge assessment process that incorporated the organisation’s values for diversity, challenge and fast pace. The assessment centre was built around an engaging and upbeat scenario that took candidates on a journey which featured a range of emotional and motivational highs and lows and successes and failures.
The group graduate recruitment programme sought future senior managers, who would shape the business of the future. This involved creating and driving new business paradigms and was not about operational store management.
We therefore designed a selection process to meet these needs:
- The assessment exercises provided behavioural evidence that differentiated candidates in all of the areas defined by the new selection criteria.
- Early stages in the assessment process were designed to differentiate effectively against the selection criteria such that the standard of candidates at the assessment centre was improved. This was reflected in more of the assessment centre candidates receiving offers.
- The assessment process was designed to communicate positive and realistic messages about the organisation as an employer, and the demands it will make of future senior managers.
- The assessment process was designed to have high impact, such that it represented a constructive and memorable experience. It was more challenging, more thought provoking, more engaging and more creative than the assessment processes that candidates experienced at other organisations.
- The assessment process was integrated around a theme. This theme was developed to incorporate high level commercial opportunities, strategic thinking above and beyond the current circumstances, and business intentions that had profound and far reaching implications. The scenario had a plot, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, such that the candidates’ involvement felt like a journey. The theme incorporated a mix of emotions, including challenge, achievement, fun, humanistic values, and team cohesion.
- While the purpose of the assessment centre was clear to candidates, the tone was such that self-disclosure and self-development were encouraged and supported.
- The assessment process was designed to be enjoyable, provocative, and developmental for assessors as well as candidates.
- Assessment and related paperwork were elegant and uncomplicated.
- Recording of observations and assessments were designed to enable constructive developmental feedback against the selection criteria to successful candidates.
- Assessors were guided to participate in ways that deliver perceptive and relevant observations, and balanced and objective decisions. They were also briefed to ensure that assessors support the positive messages and tone of the assessment process.
- The assessment process was designed to encourage diversity, by communicating positive messages about individual differences, and by making offers to candidates who showed outstanding performance against the criteria, irrespective of unsubstantiated reservations about fit with the organisation’s “own image”.
