3. Biographical interviews

In biographical interviews, the interviewer reads your resume and talks to you about your history from your education though to your various jobs, discussing them in turn. A biographical interview can be a good opportunity to show the range of your talents and experience and to reveal your personality, but can mean that you are unable to focus on your skills and experience that are most relevant to the position for which you are `applying. It is important to manage the situation so that you communicate this important information.

Assessment Centres

An assessment centre is not a physical location. It describes an approach. Traditionally an assessment centre consists of a variety of exercises designed to assess a set of personal competencies against set criteria.

Assessment centres typically involve the candidates completing a range of exercises that simulate the activities carried out in the target job. Various combinations of these exercises and sometimes other assessment methods like psychometric testing and interviews are used to assess particular competencies in individuals. The theory behind this is that if one wishes to predict future job performance then the best way of doing this is to get the individual to carry out a set of tasks which accurately sample those required in the job and are as similar to them as possible. The particular competencies used will depend upon the target job but one will often find competencies such as relating to people; resistance to stress; planning and organising; motivation; adaptability and flexibility; problem solving; leadership; communication; decision making and initiative. There are numerous possible competencies and the ones that are relevant to a particular job are determined through job analysis.

Assessment Centres are objective and normally attended by a number of prospective candidates at the same time, the length of time spent at Assessment Centres can vary from a couple of hours to a full day.