Assessment Center

Fire and Police

An Assessment Center is a method of evaluating candidates for promotion to a particular job or position. Assessment Centers are based on a specific and systematic analysis of the tasks associated with the targeted position, as well as the knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics required to perform the tasks of the target job.

The Assessment Center will consist of multiple, job related exercises. By using multiple exercises the assessors can observe the candidate’s performance across the many different aspects of the job. The best candidates are those who can demonstrate exceptional levels of competence in all aspects of the job.

Typically, three or four of the following exercises are specially developed and administered to get a true understanding of the skills and abilities of the individual candidate:

• In-Basket – Out-Basket Exercise
• In-Tray Exercise
• Role playing
  • Employee Issue Exercise
  • Community Meeting Exercise
  • Media Exercise
  • Etc.
• Group Exercise
• Written/Administrative Problem Solving Exercise
• Oral Presentation Exercise
• Emergency – Incident Simulation
  • Incident Response Exercise
  • Response Sequence Exercise
• Rapid Fire Questioning Exercise
• Interview

The exercises, that are chosen, will be custom designed to reflect the position, the community and the needs of the department. Meeting with the City/Town Administration and other senior staff members, as town management sees appropriate, will enable the Assessment Center to be developed and meet the pre-determined needs of the town.

The common job measurements obtained in the Assessment Center are:

• Department administration and operation skills
• Problem solving ability
• Reasoning, judgement and analytical ability
• Decision making and decisiveness
• Time management skills
• Ability to manage
• Supervisory and coaching skills
• Planning skills
• Ability to delegate
• Leadership ability and command presence
• Customer service/citizen focus ability
• Interpersonal skills
• Oral communication skills
• Written communication ability

We will provide an Assessment Center Administrator who will be in charge of the overall Assessment Center. Typically, there are three subject matter experts that will serve as assessors. They will be responsible to score, evaluate and sometimes role play in the course of the assessment.

All candidates will be evaluated equally and against the same criteria and circumstances. Each exercise will be scored separately. When all the exercises are completed they will be complied resulting in a final overall score for the candidate.

After the completion of the Assessment Center process, the Town, will have the necessary information to best evaluate a candidate’s knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics to best fill the position in that community.

We conduct both MA Civil Service and non Civil Service Assessment Centers.