Group Exercise

Group exercises are widely-used at assessment centers. A group exercise is an assessed discussion that involves a small group of candidates. Practice group exercises today on our e-learning platform!

How Do Group Exercises work?

Does your job application require you to pass a group exercise during an assessment day? Don’t worry we’ve got you covered! Assessment-Training.com offers realistic test simulations developed by psychologists with years of experience designing tests for large publishers such as CEB/Gartner, Talent Q, Saville Assessment, Kenexa (IBM) and Thomas International.

Here are screenshots of our group exercise test:

 

What do Group Exercises assess?

Group exercises are a widely used assessment technique used by graduate recruiters at assessment centers. They are an assessed discussion exercise that involves a small group of candidates (usually 8 – 16 people) following a workplace-related problem or scenario requiring the entire team to work together to solve this issue. These tests are designed to test your ability to work with others efficiently. Group exercises are very similar to a panel interview.

Typical factors assessed in a group exercise include values, teamwork ability, leadership potential and influence, social skills, and interpersonal skills. The most important success factor for any group exercise or discussion is active participation. This means being active enough to be noticed by the assessors but not so much as to dominate the group.

Assessment-Training.com offers group exercise practice tests to help you improve your performance, make sure your competency will get better, and you will feel less anxious during the real exercise.

What you should know about Group Exercises?

Candidates are usually given a case study or topic to discuss or a problem to solve within a given time limit. To simulate a workplace environment, recruiters may offer additional information relating to the scenario during the exercise itself to see how candidates respond to dynamic situations and changing information and/or priorities.

The recruiting employer hopes to gain an insight into how individual candidates operate and behave in teams and is looking for the following character traits:

• Clarity of thought and expression
• Ability to analyse information ideas and to identify key points
• Lateral thinking and creativity
• Communication skills (especially interpersonal skills)
• Focus, drive, and motivation
• Leadership skills
• Teamwork
• Enthusiasm
• Commercial awareness
• Ability to influence and persuade others

The provided task is usually related to the industry for which the candidate is being recruited. Throughout the exercise, all candidates will be observed, and the assessors will analyze their behavior and performance. The group exercise has several variations, the most popular of which are practical tasks, discussions, and role-play exercises.

Practical tasks:
Every candidate is assigned to a group and every group is given a task, normally a problem-solving assignment which needs to be resolved by group members. These tasks may be relevant to the workplace or may not be relevant at all. For example, group members can be required to build a structure out of straw. These exercises are given to test every member’s capability of working as a team member and coordinate the team effort to maximize the accuracy of the result. Also, it is important that individual contributions and knowledge are easy to recognize.

Discussions:
An applicant may be invited for a group discussion on leadership, while the group will receive a presentation with a workplace relevant problem or scenario. The task for the group can be to address the problem and avail a logical solution. For instance, candidates can be required to recognize an organizational problem and resolve it within a certain amount of time with the help of other group members to prove their capacity of solving issues with a combined effort.

Role-play Exercises:
In role-play exercises, the candidate will be required to undergo tasks with a distinct role to expose his/her ability to keep pace with situations and resolve problems taking remarkable initiative.  Information and briefing will be provided to every member and each of them has to play a particular part and complete their own task to comprehensively get the project done. For example, a mock meeting can take place and every applicant needs to assume a specific role to meet the assigned target and group objectives.

Preparing for an assessment centre or online aptitude test can be stressful because you don’t know what to expect. The best way to familiarize yourself is with practice aptitude tests that mimic the tests used by employers and recruiters. Assessment-Training.com has prepared thousands of candidates for their assessments and aptitude tests by offering realistic test simulations with fully worked solutions.

By practicing group exercises you can improve your performance during the real test by familiarizing yourself with the format and time-pressure.

Tips and tricks to ace your Group Exercise

Doing some research about the tests that you need to take is the most important step in preparation for any aptitude test. If you know what to expect you will increase your chances of performing well due to the fact that you’re familiar with the formats. Also, by practicing aptitude tests you will reveal your own strengths and weaknesses that you can work on in preparation for the actual assessment.

Therefore, we advise you to find out the test publisher and exact name of the tests that you are about to take, and then search Assessment-Training.com or contact us to get more details about this test.  

These effective test-taking strategy tips and tricks are well worth remembering before you take the actual group exercise:

• Practice, practice and practice some more to get familiar with how group exercises are structured. Your competency will get better and you will feel less anxious during the real test.
  
  
• Research the role before the actual assessment centre and try to show your understanding of the organization’s service by relating these to the exercise (only if possible). By researching the organization, industry and role, you can gain knowledge of what will be expected of you and what assessors will look for during the group exercise. For example, if you are applying for a position at an investment bank, having background knowledge of this industry, and particular the industry of the position that you are applying for, can give you background knowledge which may be useful during the group exercise.
  
  
• Make sure that you follow the instructions that are given to you at the start of the exercise.
  
  
• Try to stay calm during the exercise. Be assertive to get your views across but not overbearing; try to be diplomatic.
  
  
• Make sure to take part and contribute during the group exercise. Also remember, assessors are interested in the quality of your ideas, not the quantity.
  
  
• Don’t interrupt other people during the exercise or be dismissive.
  
  
• Remember, it is not a competition. Some candidates make the mistake of thinking that they are in competition with the other candidates when, in fact, they are not. An important assessment area for the group exercise is the ability to work as part of a team. Therefore, involve others and show good communication skills.

How can Assessment-Training.com help you ace your assessment and Aptitude test?

Assessment-Training.com is your number 1 online practice aptitude test and assessment provider. Our aim is to help you ace your assessment by providing you practice aptitude tests that mimic the tests used by employers and recruiters. Our test developers have years of experience in the field of occupational psychology and developed the most realistic and accurate practice tests available online. Our practice platform uses leading-edge technology and provides you feedback on your scores in form of test history, progress and performance in relation to your norm group.

The Assessment-Training.com customer service representatives team found that through practice candidates increased their scoring accuracy and went into their assessments more confident. Remember, it’s not really about how intelligent you are; you just need to practice to make sure you familiarize yourself with the test formats, work on your accuracy and experience performing under time-pressure 

Each of the practice tests that Assessment-Training.com offers, has some free sample questions. Click on the links below to go to that specific test information page and take the practice tests:

• Numerical Reasoning
• Diagrammatic Reasoning
• Number Sequences
• Antonyms
• E-Tray Exercise
• Verbal Analogies
• Verbal Reasoning
• Math Test
• Spatial Reasoning
• Logical Reasoning