Assessment centres

Online Careers Library

Career Discovery provides information and resources designed to support you with preparing for an assessment centre.

Our UCL guides include top tips and examples:

• Assessment centres
• Interviews

You can also browse a broad range of informative articles from TARGETjobs. Search for key words such as assessment centres to view a broad range of resources, or focus on a specific part of the assessment centre, such as group exercises or presentations.

To filter for sector / topic specific resources, try using searches such as engineering assessment centres, accountancy assessment centres, banking assessment centres, and consulting assessment centres.

Graduates First

This resource provides example assessment centre exercises, as well as assessor information guides to help candidates to prepare for typical assessment centre exercises. At UCL Careers we partner with this test provider to save you having to pay for these yourself. You simply need to register* via the links below.

The exercises included are: 

• 1 x case study exercise
• 1 x in-tray exercise
• 1 x presentation exercise
• 1 x group discussion exercise

Register now*

*Note: To register to access the test materials for free, you will need a UCL email address. Recent Graduates should read the information about 'Email for Life' on the alumni relations website for details on accessing your UCL email account after graduation.

We organise a wide range of events where you can find out more about how to stand out during an assessment centre.

• Career Essentials programme (Repeated throughout the year) A series of Careers Consultant led talks aimed at all students and recent graduates which includes an interactive workshop on preparing for assessment centres and a personality profiling workshop to help with understanding yourself and others during group exercises, amongst other topics.
• Employer-led skills sessions (Autumn and Spring reading weeks) A range of graduate recruiters who run assessment centres on a regular basis for different roles host half day practice assessment centres to give you practical experience of typical assessment centre exercises and get feedback on your performance.
• Sector-specific recruitment fairs (Autumn Term only) A chance to network with large numbers of major graduate recruiters from a specific sector to get insider tips on how they run assessment centres and what they're looking for to ensure you stand out.
• Jobs market (Summer Term only) Similar to our sector-specific fairs but giving you access to graduate recruiters from a wide range of sector areas.
• Employer presentations (Autumn and Spring Terms) Talks by individual companies about their current vacancies which will usually include an overview of their recruitment process which will include tips on assessment centre preparation where relevant.
• Sector themed weeks (Autumn and Spring Terms) Network with professionals from a range of sectors popular with UCL students to learn more about whether assessment centres are commonly used in recruitment for roles in that sector and, if so, how they are typically structured.

View events listing

Register for event updates

If you have been invited to an assessment centre, you can get one-to-advice on what to expect and how to prepare or get individual, role-play based coaching.

• Career conversation: A general discussion with a Careers Consultant where you can go over any queries or concerns you may have about assessment centre preparation.
• Practice interview: A more role-play based coaching exercise to give you practical experience of answering the types of questions which are likely to come up if there is an interview element to your assessment day. These sessions aren't suitable for practising group based exercises which are commonly used but we do run events throughout the year as detailed above to give you practice with these.

Alumni networking - Speaking to UCL graduates who are working in the roles and sectors you're interested in is a great way to get an insider's view on what you might expect at an assessment centre. Through LinkedIn you can search for alumni by UCL course or department, job sector, current organisation, location, and more. Many UCL alumni will be happy to connect with you and tell you about their experience. This is a great way to explore your career ideas, master assessment centres and expand your professional network.