Fresh graduate assessment exercises

The solution

To fully understand the culture of the graduate roles within The Co-operative, and to gather evidence to support the development of additional indicators of each of these behaviors, our project team researched the roles thoroughly.

In order to offer a cost-effective approach and to gather rich data, this information gathering took different forms, prior to analysis.  Our online job analysis questionnaire allowed data to be gathered from a large number of existing graduates on the program to understand the types of tasks and activities they engage in.  This was distributed to graduates at different stages of the two-year program to ensure a thorough coverage of tasks throughout.

In addition, a focus group was carried out with a selection of The Co-operative managers who line-manage previous and current graduates, during which the tasks and effective/ineffective behaviors of graduates were explored. Alongside analysis of existing documentation and the leadership behavior framework, this information allowed the identification of key behaviors, of what success ‘looked like’ and idea generation for the bespoke Assessment Center exercises.

The Co-operative were keen to create two new exercises to replace their existing Group Debate and Case Study that were designed to give candidates an interesting, yet business relevant experience during the Assessment Center.  For this reason, a set of two ‘day in the life’ exercises was designed, set in a parallel industry to The Co-operative.  This allowed both exercises to contain the same branding and similarities in background to truly reflect a ‘day in the life’ approach.

It was also important to create a user friendly Assessor Guide that allowed assessors to quickly and appropriately, yet fairly and consistently, identify the effective and ineffective behaviors demonstrated by candidates. After design, the exercises were fully reviewed by The Co-operative so that they could provide feedback and any additional changes to content, timings, level and relevance.

The results

The Co-operative’s new exercises were fully tailored to ensure the measurement of leadership behaviors, relevance to the role and the business, and to enable candidates the opportunity to demonstrate the required behaviors.  By increasing the number of specific behaviors to be measured for each of the leadership behaviors, the exercises now offer greater consistency between assessor ratings, therefore yielding valid results.

One of the key requirements set out during the scoping phase was to adequately reflect the culture of The Co-operative and to demonstrate that, while being an ethical business, they remain a commercial organization.  This objective has been achieved and the project was completed to fit in with The Co-operative’s timescales.