Case Studies

I have been involved in a huge variety of assessment and development projects, covering a wide range of work types. I have included a small selection here, please do email me if you are interested in something specific.

Graduate Assessment Centres in SE Asia

Sector: Manufacturing
Work Completed: In Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia
Level: Graduate
Project: Assessment Centre Manager and Assessor for a number of assessment centres in different locations for this global brand.
My role was to manage the candidates and assessors on the day, assess my own stream of candidates, QA the other assessors, facilitate the integration session, and write the reports for the successful candidates.
The centres were complex in terms of logistics and culture, and each centre brought together assessors and candidates from all over the SE Asia region. Through my experience, I was able to bring an international benchmark to the centre, and keep the assessors focused on objective assessment, which was not always an area in which they had a great deal of experience. I challenged ratings where evidence wasn’t strong, and was able to support the client in getting the best candidates for their international graduate program.
I have so far been asked back to be an assessor for this program three years in a row.

Telephone assessments for Global Hotel General Manager roles

Sector: Hospitality
Work Completed: Candidates were from and located all over the world and were interviewed by phone (including India, China, Tunisia, UAE, Qatar, America, UK, Vietnam, the Philippines, Australia, French Polynesia, Canada, Spain and many more).
Level: General Manager of luxury hotels
Project: Assessing around 45-50 candidates for various General Manager positions (in charge of running the hotel, both operationally and financially) in different locations, through a competency based interview, ability tests and personality questionnaire.
I provided a flexible resource to my client, consistency in interviewing and comfort with different cultures. I was given feedback that my reports were of high quality.

Tailored training course on competency design in Egypt

Sector: Financial Services
Work Completed: in Egypt
Level: HR Leaders and HR Business Partners
Project: The aim of the project was to create a competency framework for my client’s organisation. I ran a training course for them on Job Analysis and Competency Design, going through the theory and principles of how to approach this successfully.
In order to deliver for my client, I had to be very responsive, as when I arrived, they told me they wanted the course to be more bespoke, which meant changing content, adding and removing exercises based on their needs. They were very satisfied with the course, even the two senior and more experienced delegates who told me they had been ‘sceptical’ they would learn anything at the start of the course.

Large Scale Competency Based Interviewing Training project with a wide range of participants

Sector: Oil and Gas
Work Completed: in Saudi Arabia
Level: Management Positions
Project: Large scale Competency Based Interview training across the organisation for both HR and managers in the business.
I ran about 30 1.5 day training courses for this client. One of the challenges was to flex the course content to suit a wide range of attendees, from those who were quite experienced with this kind of interview format to those who had conducted no interviews at all. The courses also mixed participants of different levels, which meant some challenges in terms of participants feeling too junior to contribute, and also expats and nationals. This wide range of delegates meant I had to be very responsive, whilst also ensuring I adapted appropriately to the local culture. The client gave positive feedback about my role and I was asked back a number of times throughout the 2 years of the project.

Short timescales project Assessment for Job Redeployment in Malaysia

Sector: Telecoms
Work Completed: in Malaysia
Level: Middle Management
Project: Assessment of talent potential for several levels, across all functions.
The organisation was going through a redeployment and job levelling project, and I was brought in as part of the team to support this work. The project was very time-pressured as 70 candidates needed to be assessed within a week, using interviews and case studies. I worked intense, long days to support this for a week, and also turned around reports in very fast timescales. As the most experienced assessor on site I also assessed all the more senior level candidates.

Leadership High Potential Assessment in Vietnam with need for high responsiveness

Sector: Financial Services
Work Completed In: Vietnam
Level: C-suite and C-suite minus 1
Project: Training of the C-suite in Assessor Skills, and then being Centre Manager and assessment expert for the high-potential Assessment Centre.
For this project, the assessment materials had been designed by another consultant, and I was delivering them on the ground. Due to language issues I used a simultaneous translator for my entire four days with the client, including running all the training like this. I trained the organisation’s CEO and 7 of their C-suite to be assessors, dealing with some scepticism and a lot of questions about the methodology, as well as the challenge of keeping the delegates focused on the course when they had many other priorities. During the course the project lead wanted to change a number of aspects of the assessment centre, and so I had to work with my colleague to decide what was practical at this last minute stage and what wasn’t, and implement these changes. In addition, I spent considerable time quality checking the write ups and reports of the assessors, which involved a particular cultural challenge, as these very senior employees, working in a hierarchical culture, were not used to feedback.

Complex Senior Level Development Centre

Sector: Professional Services
Work Completed In: Ireland
Level: Partners and Graduates
Project: Implementing a high stakes Development Centre for those who were on the Partner track in this professional services firm. The centre was a highly complex one, with 18 senior level participants, 9 assessors, role players, CCTV for assessors to watch the role plays in a separate room, telephone role plays which also involved an assessor in a separate second room and many other moving parts. I was the project manager and organised all the resources, as well as making sure everything went smoothly on the day. Challenges I had to manage included one of the assessors going into labour and leaving for the hospital during the centre. Overall, the centre took place successfully and the client was pleased with the impression it left with the candidates, and with the information they got about them. Candidates were also provided with development feedback after the centre.

Sensitive restructure project with local Council in the UK

Sector: Public Sector
Work Completed In: UK
Level: Individual Contributors
Project: Design and delivery of project for restructure/redeployment in a local Council.
I project managed this project, where a local council needed to restructure for more efficient performance and cost savings. The assessments were part of a larger set of data on which the council were basing decisions, but needed to be connected to this, and to follow legal requirements. I worked with the client to ensure the materials and design of the centre met their needs, and then managed the assessor team across a number of centres. I also acted as an assessor on some centres. The project went well, and candidates felt that the process was fair. There were no legal challenges.