Assessment centre: the written word

Part of most assessment centres these days is a written element, where you’ll be tested on your ability to communicate via email or letter in a clear, professional, and logical manner. Here’s our guide to nailing this obstacle and getting yourself closer to landing the job.

Spelling and grammar

This is an obvious one, but you’d be amazed at how many people don’t think about these things and then are failed on sheer incompetency. Make sure you double and triple check your work to make sure that it makes sense and is all correct linguistically—it can be the difference between success and failure.

Keep things professionally-minded

Remember that in most jobs it’s better to err on the side of formality rather than come across as too casual, so keep things very professional in any communications that they get you to draft as part of the exercise—no abbreviations, smileys, or kisses at the end of your emails!

Read the question

It helps to think about these exercises as if you were doing an exam at school or university. Make sure you read the question properly, take some time to think about how you’d go about solving the problem, and then complete it to the best of your ability. Planning briefly is always a good idea and can help make sure you don’t forget any parts of the task.

Prioritise

This is an important one, because companies are always looking for those who are going to use their working hours in a productive fashion and get the most important parts of their work done first. If there’s different parts to the question, make sure that you tackle the most important bits first, before working down your list of priorities until everything is completed.