We’ve been seeing lots of students with assessment centres coming up and many more who are waiting the results of telephone and first round interviews. For any of you about to go through an assessment centre, the whole process can be feel a bit daunting. Doing research and familiarising yourself with what to expect on the day is the best way to manage those nerves and to come across confidently.

Here a recent LSE alumna shares her top tips for how to perform to the best of your ability on the day:

My feedback for other students would be (as obvious as it sounds!) be prepared, be honest and be confident.

1. Be prepared

This really helped me to stay calm on the day. Before the assessment centre I had read through the relevant pages on website carefully, researched anything I wasn’t sure about and thought about detailed examples for each of the competencies they were looking for.

I had a sense of what to expect in the interview and I knew not to be overwhelmed with information but to instead take my time and focus on key points during the tasks. This really helped on the day, especially in the presentation task (which turned out to be more in the style of a meeting where we sat down and discussed an issue). To help me prepare for the interview I had a practice interview with LSE Careers. I would really recommend this as a way to refine your interview technique. The careers consultant’s feedback was really helpful.

2. Be honest

Being honest about why I wanted the job helped me to come up with relevant things to say in the interview. If what you are applying for really is something you would like to do, then being honest about why you personally want the job is a convincing way of showing your suitability to the interviewer.

Honesty is also useful when the interviewer asks something that you aren’t sure about. In my interview I was asked a question about something I had never heard of previously, but instead of pretending I had a clue and potentially getting out of my depth very quickly, I let the interviewer know that this concept was unfamiliar to me. Being honest in this sense made me feel more comfortable as the interviewer was understanding and put me at ease.

3. Be confident

On the day my confidence was boosted through the preparation I had done. I think this confidence in myself allowed the interviewers to be confident in me too. I believed in what I was saying which made it much easier to answer questions and defend my position when necessary. This links back to being prepared and thinking about what you might be asked so that you are ready to respond calmly and confidently if the question comes up.

The assessment centre really helped me to think about the day as a chance to show why I would be right for the job, but also to test for myself to see whether it was really something I wanted to do.

If you want to share your experiences of recruitment processes whether that be interviews, psychometric tests or assessment centres with other students please get in contact with our careers consultant Maddie Smith – m.l.smith@lse.ac.uk.

Best of luck!