Assessment centre

An assessment centre is a process where candidates are examined to determine their suitability for specific types of employment, especially management or military command.

[2] After World War 2, The OSS type of assessment centre was essentially abandoned in The United States except for some internal use in intelligence gathering operations by the CIA.

Assessment centres specifically applied for industrial usage can be traced back to the early 1950s and the pioneering work of Robert K Greenleaf and Douglas W. Bray of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T).

Douglas W. Bray as a director of human resources at AT&T, directed a study that lasted over 20 years and followed the careers of young business managers as they progressed up the telephone company rankings.

This study showed that the assessment centre method could successfully predict organizational achievement and was later implemented throughout AT&T and later on adopted by many other companies: IBM, Standard Oil (Ohio) and Sears for example.

The ultimate reason for having an assessment centre in any organization is to gather all relevant information under a standardized conditions about an individual's capabilities to perform a given task.

Assessment centres are often the method of choice for selecting senior leaders in government and municipal jobs, including police chief and fire captains.