Psychology Commons^™

Assessment Centers, Tara Myers, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What are assessment centers? Assessment centers measure knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics by assessing participants’ responses to job-related simulations. Assessment centers can be used for hiring, placement, and career and skill development (Gaugler, Rosenthal, Thornton, and Bentson, 1987). Typically, participants complete a combination of in-basket, leaderless group discussion, role play, case analysis, and oral presentation exercises (Hoffman, Kennedy, LoPilato, Monahan, and Lance, 2015). Within each exercise, participants review job-relevant information and complete tasks. For the in-basket, participants are presented with documents (e.g., emails, memos, reports, requests—things that might be in an inbox) to which they provide responses and about …