Assessment & Development Centre Course – A note on other providers

PsyAsia International is aware that there are other training providers in the region who are attempting to offer similar training courses as PsyAsia.  This is fine, that’s the wonder of free competition.  However, we have some real concerns about the competence of attendees following these courses given what might be seen as “quick-fix” training.  We wish to make clients considering alternative Assessment and Development Centre training courses aware of some of the major differences between our course and the competitor we have in mind who we shall call ABC.

Are you competent to run an Assessment Centre after one day of training? #

Firstly, ABC’s course is just one day in length, yet they claim at the end of the course, delegates will be able to run assessment centres.  PsyAsia’s Assessment Centre course is three days and even then we state that delegates will have developing competence in assessment and development centres.  Our course reviews are very positive, but there are times when delegates suggest adding yet another day to make the course 4 days!  To assess the competence of delegates following the training, our delegates undergo an actual assessment centre in addition to a final competency exam.  Please also note that there are no one day assessment and development centre courses available outside of Asia!  There are one-day courses that are “introductions” to assessment centres or defining competencies etc., but none which claim to provide you with the ability to run your own AC or DC following a one-day event.

Can you be taught psychometric testing so that you can administer tests as well as run assessment centres in one day? #

ABC seems to think so.  Following their course, you will receive a password and access to one of their psychometric tests.  Feel free to look through our website knowledgebase and you’ll see why there’s no way anybody can competently administer, let alone respect a psychometric test which can be “learned” during the same one day course!  Specifically, click here to view the most relevant knowledgebase article and click here for details of our 6 day British Psychological Society syllabus Psychometric Assessment Training course.

Does the assessment centre course teach you all you need to know? #

You’ll note that PsyAsia’s course covers many issues from developing business cases for assessment and development centres, through to reliability and validity of different methods.  ABC only introduces delegates to a few different AC methodologies.  PsyAsia covers all methodologies.  Delegates even get to design and run an assessment centre and receive detailed feedback from the facilitator (an internationally experienced, British Psychological Society award-winning doctor of organisational psychology who is an associate fellow of the Hong Kong Psychological Society as well as a full member of the BritishPsychological Society and a registered psychologist and university lecturer – MSc in HRM) regarding their performance.  This simply cannot be achieved in one day!

How about class size? #

ABC will run with class sizes up to 20, whilst PsyAsia strictly limits numbers to 10-12 to enable as much individual feedback and therefore personal development as possible.

How about our facilitators #

As you can see above, we only use highly qualified facilitators for any of our courses.  They must be highly experienced and have at least a Master’s degree in organisational psychology from a top university. Additionally, every one of our facilitators is answerable in terms of competence, ethics and professionalism, not only to PsyAsia, but more importantly, to professional and government bodies with whom they are registered in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and the UK.  This is a huge difference from the majority of Human Resource training providers in Asia.

Ask your facilitator if they are registered (mainly Australia, New Zealand & UK), chartered (UK) or licensed (USA & Canada) organisational psychologists.  If they are not, can you be sure of their competence?

Note that membership of the British Psychological Society is not the same as Chartership.  A graduate of psychology can become a member of the BPS, but supervised experience is required to become chartered.  In Australia, being a member of the Australian Psychological Society usually implies training and experience over and above that required for state registration as a psychologist.

We are not new at this! #

PsyAsia’s facilitators have been running Assessment and Development Centre training courses for over 15 years now. Our experience in training in this topic as well as designing and running corporate assessment centres spans the UK, Africa, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Singapore, China, Macao SAR, Malaysia and Hong Kong SAR. We have worked at ministerial and government level as well as with the world’s most notable and blue-chip organizations.

In summary… #

Make sure you receive proper and appropriate training that will lead to competence in running assessment and development centres.  After all, training time and course fees are investments.  So too is the time spent in designing, running and reporting on the centres.  Help your organisation to ensure you select and develop the right people, by choosing the right course!  Sure, it’s not easy to take 3 days off work (that’s why our course is 3 days instead of 4!), however, there’s no point in having a general, brief introduction to assessment and development centres that will not lead to professional competence and that’s why we’ve taken the time to outline these issues in this article. Thank you for taking the time to read it.