I attended an assessment day for the Account Manager role. The day was well structured, and the company tells you in advance to bring just yourself lunch and stationery are provided. The format was built around five distinct activities. The first was a public speaking task, followed by a combined chart reading and drawing exercise that you complete simultaneously more demanding than it sounds, as it tests how you process visual information while producing your own output at the same time. After a short break with refreshments, candidates were sent out into the office to speak directly with current employees and find out what they consider unique about the business. Back in the room, each of us shared the three Unique Selling Points we had identified. Those points then went into a group discussion among the candidates, and we had to collectively agree on the three we thought were most important. This part stood out as it's a research task, a synthesis task, and a group consensus task rolled into one. The final exercise was a roleplay. Each candidate was assigned a dealer and had to call them in character, explaining why the dealer should stay with First Response and continue doing business. The focus was retention, not new prospecting. Tip for anyone applying: get comfortable switching pace quickly. The day moves from individual public speaking, to dual task cognitive work, to interpersonal information gathering, to group discussion, to a sales role play, all in one session.

The first stage was to record videos of yourself answering basic questions. That was fine. But the second stage was awful. I said to my self it felt like an audition process and we all said this on the day we were there. Just 9 of us arrived and we had to do multiple tasks to get to know one another - some of which were quite silly and very uncomfortable. But the upsetting part was when we were given out first break, me and half of the group were called into a room and asked to leave. We could have been asked before the break or long after the break. But also where the other candidates couldn’t see us being unsuccessful. Not a great style I’d say.