What is the origin of the Assessment Centre?
The history of how and why assessment centres developed will help you to appreciate what the original users were trying to achieve and how you can best illustrate your knowledge, skills and attitudes during the exercises. Selecting people based on their ability to do the task required has long been established in the selection of military personnel. There are several examples throughout history, but it was between the world wars that the German Army used the original assessment process to select officers. In the book ‘Spies and Saboteurs’, by Dr W.J.Morgan (1955, London Victor Gollancz Ltd), the author describes how a German psychologist, Dr Simoneit watched officers performing a variety of tasks. Some of these task involved certain tests, the forerunners of today’s exercises, and the officers were rated on how well they performed and chosen for promotion accordingly. He started this research in order to gain a better understanding of why certain officers did not exhibit or act in the
