Assessment Center

Today, I took the Assessment Center (AC). It's the second
stage of the Career Executive Officer Examination and it uses a series
of simulation exercises that exposes the candidates to the problems
and pressures that managers usually face.

It's a very interesting exam, as I already told at the
interview late this afternoon. But I am not hoping that I'd pass it.
I didn't even finish half the papers in my in-tray this morning. I
miscalculated the time. I thought that the afternoon "in-basket" in
the agenda given to me was part of the time I could use to finish my
paperworks. Too bad :(

To my credit, I believe that I did well on the concerns that
I finished/acted on and was able to explain my actions to the
interviewer.

During the interview, the examiner asked me if it's an
effective tool to determine one's potentials as a Career Executive
Officer. I was quite sassy to answer that it must be one, especially
since I didn't have an alternative option at the top of my mind.

The exam quite reminds me of the Pimsleur Language Aptitude
Test that I took in 2004. Pimsleur presented a fictitious language
that the examinees had to understand or be able to decode, i.e.,
correctly interpret its meaning :)

AC presented a fictitious country, fictitious company, people
and problems that one must work on. Just reading all the background
materials already took much of our time. Imagine constantly checking
background papers to answer concerns.

It was really quite an interesting exercise. It would have
been also been quite fun, given a little more time :)

sayong
02-09-08 11:55pm