You will frequently find that you are not supplied with all the
information you may desire to make a truly informative decision,
the
in-tray exercise requires you to select the ‘best’ option that
reflects the key behaviours and reflects the skills the
organisation requires for the successful candidate. If you did
have all the information required to make your decision it would
probably make such an exercise too complex and long to be
practical to do within the Assessment Centre.
The Assessors or the creators of the in-tray questions and the
multiple choice answers provide you with what they consider to be
the most appropriate, possible and unsuitable answers for the
role. Beware they may have certain choices which reflect the
actions of someone in the position below the required role, i.e.
that of a supervisory rather than a manager, or an executive
rather than a director. If you choose these options you will show
the Assessors that you are not yet ready for promotion and be
awarded minimum or nil marks.
By including time to practice this type of exercise before your
Assessment Centre, the more adept you will become and
selecting the answer that will see you being awarded maximum
marks. Some candidates find it easier to use separate clean sheets
of paper to write down the links to issues between items. This is
often really useful when the overview includes a written
organisational chart rather than a pictorial one which makes it
easier to see the relationships between parties and people. You
may also wish to create your own flow charts, or mind maps, to
give you a clearer understanding of the relationships and knock-on
effects of items.
It is important to keep at the fore front of your mind that the
in-tray exercise
is not designed to test the quality of your decisions, but to test
how well you can make decisions under a severe time restriction.
You often only have 20 to 40 minutes to read around 24 items and
begin to create a picture of the key issues, problem areas,
conflicts or personnel concerns. Then you will have a further 30
minutes approximately to answer between15 to 24 questions. This is
when you will need to be able to quickly look back to the items
referred to in the question and any other items that relate to the
issue raised.
The number of items and questions will vary and reflects the
nature of the position for which you are applying. For example, an
in-tray exercise
aimed at recruiting managers may have more items and questions
than a similar exercise designed for a strategic position. In the
case of the latter it is likely that the complexity of the items
and questions posed will be of a more detailed nature.
What you must do to maximise your score for the in-tray exercise
is to come to a decision as best you can from the information
provided and then select the one which best fits in with the
multiple answers supplied. This process will be a lot easier if
you make good notes and highlight in some way key information or
critical data. You will need to be able to refer back to other
items that impact on the question item and quickly see the salient
points you need to use in making your decision.
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