What Is an Assessment Centre? Exercises and How to Prepare
What happens at an assessment centre, what the group exercise, case study, presentation and interviews are testing, and how to prepare for the day.
LucidTrack Team6 min readAn assessment centre is a half-day or full-day selection event where an employer watches a group of candidates complete several exercises: usually a group exercise, a case study, a presentation and one or more interviews, sometimes with psychometric tests. It normally comes after the CV, online tests and video interview, as the final stage before an offer for internships and graduate schemes. Below is what each exercise is testing and how to prepare for the day.
What is an assessment centre?
An assessment centre is a half-day or full-day event run by an employer where a group of candidates complete a series of exercises, usually in front of assessors who score you against a set of competencies. They're most common in finance, consulting, law, and pretty much any large graduate scheme, but you'll see them used for plenty of other internships and grad roles too.
The key thing to understand is that an assessment centre isn't one test, it's several. You might do a group exercise, a case study, a presentation, one or more interviews, and sometimes another round of psychometric tests, all in the same day. Employers use this format because it gives them several different ways to see how you actually behave, not just how well you can talk about yourself on a CV.
You're also very likely being assessed the moment you walk in, not just during the "official" exercises. How you interact with other candidates over coffee, how you treat the receptionist, whether you're on your phone the whole time; assessors and current employees floating around genuinely do notice this.
The common exercise types
Group exercise
You'll be put in a small group of candidates and given a task, often something like allocating a limited budget between competing projects, or reaching a group decision on a business scenario. There's no fixed "winner" and it's not really about being right.
Assessors are watching how you work with others, not whether your idea is the best in the room. They want to see you bring others into the conversation, build on what someone else said instead of just waiting for your turn to talk, and keep the group moving when it starts going in circles. The classic mistake is either staying silent because you're intimidated, or dominating the conversation to prove you're a leader. Both read badly. Aim to be the person who makes the group work better, not the loudest one in it.
Case study
You'll usually be given a business problem, sometimes with a pack of information to read through, and asked to come up with a recommendation, either in writing or to present back. This is common in consulting and increasingly common elsewhere too.
There's rarely one "correct" answer. What matters is that you structure your thinking clearly, actually use the data you've been given rather than falling back on generic points, and reach a clear recommendation rather than sitting on the fence. If you're short on time, a clear, well-reasoned answer to part of the problem beats a rushed, vague answer to all of it.
In-tray or e-tray exercise
You're given a simulated inbox full of emails, memos, and tasks, and you have to work out what to prioritise and how to respond, usually under a tight time limit. This is designed to mimic a busy day on the job.
The main thing being tested is prioritisation under pressure. Read everything quickly first so you know what you're dealing with, then work out what's genuinely urgent and important versus what can wait or be delegated. Don't get stuck perfecting your response to the first email at the expense of everything else.
Presentation
You might be given a topic on the day, or asked to prepare one in advance, then present to a small panel or your group. Sometimes there's a curveball question afterwards to see how you handle being challenged.
Keep the structure simple: a clear opening that says what you're going to cover, a few well-organised points, and a clear conclusion. Assessors are looking at your ability to communicate clearly under pressure and to think on your feet when questioned, not at how polished your slides are.
Competency-based interview
This is a one-on-one or panel interview built around questions like "tell me about a time you worked in a team" or "describe a time you had to persuade someone." These map directly onto the competencies the employer is scoring you against.
The best way to prepare is to have four or five strong stories ready from your own experience (part-time jobs, societies, sports teams, group projects) and structure your answers using the STAR method: Situation, Task, Action, Result. The part students consistently skip is the Result. Always finish by saying what actually happened and, ideally, what you learned from it.
Psychometric tests
Numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning, and sometimes situational judgement tests often reappear at the assessment centre stage, even if you've already done them online, often alongside a HireVue video interview earlier in the process. This is partly to confirm your earlier score wasn't a fluke.
These are skills you get better at through repetition, not general intelligence tests you either pass or fail. Practising a reasonable number of timed practice tests in the week before makes a genuinely noticeable difference to your speed and accuracy.
General prep advice that actually works
- Research the company properly. Not just what they do, but recent news and something a bit less obvious than the first page of Google. Insight days and conversations with current employees are great sources for this, and they make your answers sound like your own rather than something memorised.
- Practise your stories out loud. Rehearsing STAR stories in your head feels fine, but you'll stumble the first time you say them under pressure. Say them out loud to a friend or family member before the day.
- Sleep and eat properly beforehand. Assessment centres are long and mentally tiring. Turning up exhausted or running on an empty stomach shows, especially by the afternoon sessions.
- Ask questions, but only good ones. Have two or three prepared that show genuine interest, and avoid anything you could have answered yourself by reading the website.
- Be consistently yourself all day. Assessors compare notes between exercises. If you're switched on in the interview but checked out at lunch, it gets noticed.
If you're juggling multiple assessment centres alongside everything else in the application process, it's worth keeping notes on each one as you go, what you said in each exercise, how it went, what you'd change. That way, if you get invited back for a final round, you're not trying to remember details from three weeks ago. We built LucidTrack to make exactly this kind of tracking easier, so you can focus on preparing rather than on remembering which company asked what.
Frequently asked questions
What happens at an assessment centre?
You complete several exercises in a day or half-day, usually a group exercise, a case study, a presentation and one or more competency-based interviews, sometimes with an in-tray exercise or psychometric tests. Assessors score you against the employer's competencies throughout.
How long is an assessment centre?
Usually half a day or a full day, run by the employer, in person or online.
What is the group exercise at an assessment centre testing?
How you work with others, not whether your idea wins. Assessors look for candidates who bring others in, build on their points and keep the group moving, rather than staying silent or dominating.
How should I prepare for an assessment centre?
Research the firm beyond its homepage, have four or five STAR stories ready and practise them out loud, do timed numerical and verbal reasoning practice in the week before, and prepare two or three good questions to ask.
Are you assessed at lunch and breaks?
Often, yes. How you treat other candidates and staff between exercises can be noticed, so stay engaged all day.
Assessment centres feel intimidating because they compress a whole day of scrutiny into a few hours, but every exercise is testing something specific and learnable. Know what each one is actually looking for, prepare properly rather than vaguely, and you'll walk in with a real plan instead of just nerves.
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