Core Objectives and Evaluation Criteria#
Assessors evaluate candidates under simulated job conditions, focusing on analytical thinking, stress resilience, decision-making, and consensus-building capabilities.
Key Standard Exercises#
Familiarize yourself with the In-Basket exercise (prioritizing 20+ urgent items under tight deadlines), role-play scenarios (resolving interpersonal workplace disputes), strategic business cases, and cooperative group assignments.
Cultural Etiquette: Swiss Do's and Don'ts#
Aggressive individualistic behavior is strongly frowned upon in Switzerland. Score points by listening constructively, demonstrating immaculate punctuality, and fostering pragmatic consensus.
The Opening Self-Presentation#
Deliver a polished 3-minute elevator pitch encapsulating your key career milestones, professional values, and motivation for the prospective role.
Constructive Post-Assessment Feedback#
Treat debriefing feedback as a valuable learning opportunity, showing emotional maturity and receptive professionalism.
Who assesses you: assessors, behavioural anchors and the consensus conference#
An assessment centre is not an exam with a grade but an observation procedure. Knowing how you are assessed changes your behaviour – usually for the better, because it removes the fear of the «wrong sentence».
Assessment is usually carried out by three to five assessors, often managers from the target department plus one person from HR. They do not observe your personality but observable behaviour in defined situations. Each exercise is tailored to two or three competencies, and for each competency there are behavioural anchors formulated in advance – such as «puts forward arguments without interrupting others» or «summarises discussion outcomes».
- Several observers per candidate. This is meant to balance individual judgements; deviations are discussed in the final consensus conference.
- Behaviour counts, not intention. A good thought that nobody hears does not enter the assessment.
- The exercises are deliberately overloaded. Time pressure is part of the design; nobody solves the in-tray completely.
Practical consequence: anyone who «loses» an exercise but visibly prioritises, delegates and gives reasons scores points. Anyone who improvises and works on everything at once loses them despite being active.
Case example: in-tray in 45 minutes – a prioritisation routine#
Twenty items, 45 minutes, no follow-up questions. Anyone with a fixed routine in this situation appears calm and capable of deciding. A proven four-step loop:
- Scan and mark. Divide all items into three groups: deadline today, deadline this week, no deadline. Do not read, just scan – two minutes.
- Decide by deadline, impact, responsibility. Whatever must go out today and concerns customers or money comes first. Whatever someone else handles better is delegated – with clear instructions and a deadline.
- Record in writing. One sentence per item: what, by when, by whom. That is the actual object of assessment; the assessors read your notes along with you.
- Disclose the remainder. At the end, one sentence on the items not processed: «These three need a query with the divisional management.» Disclosure is rated better than silence.
A typical mistake is perfecting the first item. Anyone who answers the first e-mail in twelve minutes has lost eleven minutes for the other nineteen.