Students in our Apprenticeship Academy were recently invited to take part in a Mock Assessment Centre, which gave them a simulation of what this recruitment process entails. Students from the Apprenticeship Academy have already attended several workshops, including sessions on acing applications, interview techniques and how to use LinkedIN effectively. Degree Apprenticeships are incredibly competitive and employers have rigorous recruitment processes in place, often with four or five stages. Often the final stage is an Assessment Centre where candidates are invited to take part in a series of group and individual tasks, where employers are scoring each candidate based on a range of soft skills such as teamwork, communication, negotiation and leadership.
We were delighted to welcome Bolton Council, First Response Finance and BlueFox Accounting who supported this event by running one of the assessment stations each. Students were put into groups and tasked with rotating around the stations to complete 4 different assessments, which all tested students on a range of soft skills, including problem-solving, decision making, time-keeping, and creativity.
Our employers were scoring each student on each task, and at the end of the event we added up the scores and determined our 8 winners of the event who would have secured the apprenticeship were this a real assessment centre.
Students left the event feeling more confident about what to expect, and ready to attend any assessment centres they get invited to. Second-year Single Vocational Level 3 Applied Law, Business and Public Services student, Muskann Patel really enjoyed the day saying:
“I am a part of the apprenticeship academy because I want to complete a business apprenticeship. Being in the academy has allowed me to meet like-minded people and further my professional network. The mock assessment centre was a massive help as I now have an idea of what to expect when attending a real assessment centre. It gave me a chance to make mistakes and learn how to improve on those, something that I would not have had the chance to do without the academy. This experience has given me the confidence to attend assessment centres and fully showcase my abilities!”
Emily Dover, Careers & Employability Advisor, who runs the Apprenticeship Academy felt the event was a resounding success saying:
"I was blown away by the performance of some of the students this year, I have been running this event for a few years now, but this year in particular I saw some very strong teams who were communicating effectively, some excellent negotiation and debate skills and some stand out students who already have strong leadership skills. A big thank you goes to the three employers who attended and gave up half of their busy working days to support this event.
The employers who contributed were also really impressed with the students with Karen Fairhurst, HR Resourcing Lead at Bolton Council saying:
“We thoroughly enjoyed our morning running a “Dragon’s Den” style activity during the Mock Assessment Centre and every student we met approached the task with maturity and professionalism. We were so impressed by the enthusiasm and creativity of the students and it was lovely to see how the groups developed their communication, persuasion and negotiation skills as they moved to the different task stations. At Bolton Council we look for employees who embody our core values and events like this really allow the students to develop the softer skills that we are looking for. Our apprenticeship roles will be advertised in the coming months and we encourage the students from The Sixth Form to keep an eye out on greater.jobs for our suitable opportunities.”
At B6 we are proud of the extra-curricular activities we offer, including our enrichment clubs, student leadership programmes, and work experience programmes. Through these opportunities, our students have been able to develop the key skills employers are looking for. It is really important that they do this in their first year of College, so that when they are applying for apprenticeships or university, they can have a wealth of evidence to evidence how they have developed these skills!
Learn more about our careers programme here.
This site uses cookies that enable us to make improvements, provide relevant content, and for analytics purposes. For more details, see our Cookie Policy. By clicking Accept, you consent to our use of cookies.