In‐tray Exercises and Assessment Centres: The Issue of Reliability

An assessment centre typically involves several trained assessors evaluating the performance of individuals working in a small group. This evaluation is based on a number of different techniques such as group discussions, in‐tray exercises and psychometric tests. The roots of the assessment centre method are usually traced to the Officer Selection Programmes used during the Second World War. These were further developed after the war both by the armed forces and the Civil Service who instituted the Civil Service Selection Board in 1945. The first commercial organisation to utilise the assessment centre method was AT & T in the US, and other large American firms soon followed suit. However, it is only in recent years that a number of British business organisations have committed themselves to the use of assessment centres.