Acing assessment centres: role plays
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Continuing our mini-series on Acing Assessment Centres, today we look at the role-play exercise to understand what your assessors will be looking for and some quick tips to help you shine above the other candidates.
Out of all of the activities during an Assessment Centre, the one candidates most frequently rate as the most feared or most hated is the Role Play assessment. The need to act, and the fact the scenarios being assessed aren’t “real life”, seem to evoke strong reactions from candidates – and many struggle or fail because of their own fear rather than their ability.
If that sounds like you, here’s what you can do to ace your next Assessment Centre Role Play.
The first thing is to throw yourself into the Role Play despite your reservations – grumbling, laughing, or constant justifications for your poor acting skills, will only serve to undermine your performance. And remember, some of your assessors with amateur dramatic interests will really like the Role Play part of the day – and criticising or complaining about them will not endear you to them!
Once you get started, here’s some advice based on other mistakes I’ve seen people make during Role Play assessments –
Be careful how much you challenge during your assessment
I once watched a Role Play where the candidate was asked to play the role of the manager alongside an actor who was playing the role of the employee. The assessment involved the manager performance managing the employee who was refusing to accept that their performance was unsatisfactory as they had reasons why it was currently poor. Unfortunately the candidate in their role as the manager seemed determined to get the employee to accept they were performing poorly (rather than exploring the reasons they had given) and it ended up with the actor – in character – bursting into tears.
Keep your cool and don’t forget why you’re there
During another assessment I was asked to play the role of an under-performing employee and the candidate, as the manager, was tasked with performance managing me. When I continued to disagree with the manager as to why there was an issue he started firing questions at me without giving me time to think or respond – essentially trying to bully my agreement out of me! Always keep the end in mind – the important thing is to gain agreement to practical steps for improvement. Your focus is on the future – not the past – and you should bear this in mind when there is resistance. In general, resistance means “you haven’t listened to me”; stop pushing and start listening. Timing should be as follows. Presenting your concern clearly – 1-2 minutes. Listening and questioning to understand the situation from the team member’s point of view, and summarising this clearly so that they know you understand. Agreeing the standard required for the future and how this will be achieved, monitored, and started – the remaining one-third of the time.
Watch out for booby traps
As a part of Talent & Potential I was testing out assessment centre suppliers and witnessed an assessment centre involving an actor with instructions to explode emotionally if the candidate was in anyway harsh or hit a pre-agreed trigger. Whilst rare, it pays to bear in mind there may be situations where the person you’re role playing with is setting you up if you act negatively! If you experience an explosion, again the key is to LISTEN. Apologise that you clearly haven’t understood the situation, and ask more questions. Summarise frequently. This will draw the poison out, and return the situation to normal. If you don’t have time to move on to the future, you can always retrieve the situation by arranging a second meeting, and outlining what you’ll cover in that meeting.
In terms of the assessment itself, let’s take a moment to consider what Role Play assessments are designed to test. Firstly, they’re not looking to judge your acting skills, and they’re usually not looking to test your knowledge, or for you to say particular things.
Most Role Plays are set up for you to demonstrate your skills, often –
Throw yourself into it – your assessors are not there to judge your acting skills!
Out of all of the activities during an Assessment Centre, the one candidates most frequently rate as the most feared or most hated is the Role Play assessment. The need to act, and the fact the scenarios being assessed aren’t “real life”, seem to evoke strong reactions from candidates – and many struggle or fail because of their own fear rather than their ability.
If that sounds like you, here’s what you can do to ace your next Assessment Centre Role Play.
The first thing is to throw yourself into the Role Play despite your reservations – grumbling, laughing, or constant justifications for your poor acting skills, will only serve to undermine your performance. And remember, some of your assessors with amateur dramatic interests will really like the Role Play part of the day – and criticising or complaining about them will not endear you to them!
Once you get started, here’s some advice based on other mistakes I’ve seen people make during Role Play assessments –
Be careful how much you challenge during your assessment
I once watched a Role Play where the candidate was asked to play the role of the manager alongside an actor who was playing the role of the employee. The assessment involved the manager performance managing the employee who was refusing to accept that their performance was unsatisfactory as they had reasons why it was currently poor. Unfortunately the candidate in their role as the manager seemed determined to get the employee to accept they were performing poorly (rather than exploring the reasons they had given) and it ended up with the actor – in character – bursting into tears.
Keep your cool and don’t forget why you’re there
During another assessment I was asked to play the role of an under-performing employee and the candidate, as the manager, was tasked with performance managing me. When I continued to disagree with the manager as to why there was an issue he started firing questions at me without giving me time to think or respond – essentially trying to bully my agreement out of me! Always keep the end in mind – the important thing is to gain agreement to practical steps for improvement. Your focus is on the future – not the past – and you should bear this in mind when there is resistance. In general, resistance means “you haven’t listened to me”; stop pushing and start listening. Timing should be as follows. Presenting your concern clearly – 1-2 minutes. Listening and questioning to understand the situation from the team member’s point of view, and summarising this clearly so that they know you understand. Agreeing the standard required for the future and how this will be achieved, monitored, and started – the remaining one-third of the time.
Watch out for booby traps
As a part of Talent & Potential I was testing out assessment centre suppliers and witnessed an assessment centre involving an actor with instructions to explode emotionally if the candidate was in anyway harsh or hit a pre-agreed trigger. Whilst rare, it pays to bear in mind there may be situations where the person you’re role playing with is setting you up if you act negatively! If you experience an explosion, again the key is to LISTEN. Apologise that you clearly haven’t understood the situation, and ask more questions. Summarise frequently. This will draw the poison out, and return the situation to normal. If you don’t have time to move on to the future, you can always retrieve the situation by arranging a second meeting, and outlining what you’ll cover in that meeting.
In terms of the assessment itself, let’s take a moment to consider what Role Play assessments are designed to test. Firstly, they’re not looking to judge your acting skills, and they’re usually not looking to test your knowledge, or for you to say particular things.
Most Role Plays are set up for you to demonstrate your skills, often –
- Verbal communication – how clear are you? Do you summarise, and use the language that other people have used in this summary?
- Quick thinking and the ability to analyse information on the spot – again, the summary is your friend as it shows your grasp of the situation, and gives you a little time to think.
- How well you balance assertiveness (clear statements of the problem; clear plans for addressing this) and responsiveness (seeking to understand their point of view; reaching win-win solutions).
- How influential and persuasive you are (especially avoiding judgemental comments, and showing your respect for the person and their willingness to do the right thing).
- How emotionally intelligent you are (keeping calm, not being defensive, stating your intentions)
- How well you do under pressure (a setback is not the end of the world – it allows you to show your resilience and ability to come back).
- Take the time to build rapport. Don’t dive straight into your Role Play, get to know the person you’re role-playing with even if just for a minute or two.
- Establish the facts. Listen to the other person and their view point. Don’t necessarily agree with them, as they may not be right, but do show empathy – show that you understand their situation.
- Ask questions. Be sure to search for any hidden information. Often in Role Plays role-players are given additional information you can only get by asking questions.
- Recap. Throughout the assessment take time to summarise what you understand the situation to be and get agreement on your understanding.
- Show you can challenge back. Whilst you need to be careful not to be too harsh, assessors will like to see you challenge/push back things you disagree with. For example, if it’s a Role Play about performance, you could ask the employee “Do you think it’s okay that you’re under performing in your job?”
- Don’t prescribe the answer. People are more likely to implement solutions which they’re involved in creating, so make sure you work with the role-player to build solutions – ask them how they feel the situation should be resolved.
- End with an action plan. At the end of the assessment be sure to summarise the agreement and demonstrate how you’d take it forward beyond that. For example “Here’s what we’ve discussed, and what we’ve agreed to do.” However, make sure that you’re not the one who goes away with the actions, the Action plan is for employee!
Throw yourself into it – your assessors are not there to judge your acting skills!