More and more companies are using the Assessment Center to recruit and for internal promotion decisions as objective as possible. Indeed, it is sometimes difficult to identify the personality and potential of an employee or candidate. So what is the difference between the Assessment Center and the assessments carried out within the company?

 
What is an Assessment Center for?

The Assessment Center is based on professional situations. This approach studies the behaviors implemented by an employee or a candidate during exercises based on daily professional life.

The Assessment Center is an interactive process: the “behaviors” are constructed in interaction with the team of consultants who play the roles of companions in the exercises that follow one another throughout the day.

The person being assessed is projected into an unknown universe, since it is not a question of measuring reflexes derived from usual work habits.

Consequently, an Assessment Center focuses on observable behavioral dimensions. It also allows for the detection of skills as well as potential. In fact, it provides information that allows us to put an employee’s attitudes and ability to evolve into perspective.

The observations made during an Assessment Center are shared with the person being assessed with a dual objective: to probe his or her own vision of him or herself and to expose the behaviors observed in order to refine the mechanisms uncovered by the team of experts.

 
The Assessment Center measures potential

Within the company, the evaluation of employees aims to achieve the most complete vision possible of the employee. To do this, the internal evaluation is generally based on multiple quantitative and qualitative indicators selected by the company.

In addition to measuring performance, the assessment also raises multiple expectations on the part of employees (remuneration, career development, training, etc.).

Within the organization, different processes complement each other. In addition to performance indicators, annual appraisal interviews and bi-annual professional interviews provide material for people reviews or career committees.

In order to project the employee into a new perspective, the company must sometimes go further in the evaluation. In this case, it is a matter of probing the potential of an individual. To summarize and differentiate the two approaches, the table below summarizes the main differences between the Assessment Center and the “corporate” assessment.

About the Assessment Center

The Assessment or Development Center are methodologies that use a professional situation. The objective is to carry out a precise diagnosis of the strengths and areas for improvement of a candidate or employee. The objective is to carry out a precise diagnosis of the strengths and areas for improvement of a candidate or employee.

In the context of recruitment, this stage enables the company to advise on a suitable integration plan for the individual’s personality and skills. Also, having a global vision of talent is essential to prepare a new organisation within a company. In the case of internal mobility, the assessment includes specific recommendations on a development plan.