Consultancy Report on Assessment Centre Design for Cannings Marketing

Consultancy Report (Word count 2,500)

Cannings Marketing is a marketing and advertising company based in the East Midlands region of the United Kingdom. The CEOs are a married couple, who are both marketing executives. Until now, their portfolio has consisted of a number of small contracts for local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, Cannings Marketing have recently won a large national contract, and will subsequently be providing marketing and advertising services on a much larger scale than ever before.

The CEOs of Cannings Marketing have therefore decided to hire multiple graduate trainee marketing executives, in order to cope with the volume of work that the national contract will provide.  They are hopeful that by targeting recent advertising and marketing graduates, this will inject some fresh approaches into the business, whilst developing the next generation of marketing executives and securing a bright future for the company.

Until now, Cannings Marketing have relied upon an application form and semi-structured interview for their selection process. With the upcoming recruitment drive, Cannings wish to update their selection processes in order to ensure that they select the best possible talent. The CEOs have decided to use an assessment centre but they need the assistance of a consultant business/ occupational psychologist to devise the details of this.

Your task

This assessment centre can fall over ONE/TWO days and should be made up of at least TWO different exercises (e.g., a semi-structured interview and role-play activity). These exercises should be recommended based on a review of theory and research, as well as current market trends and costings.

Before detailing your plan for the assessment centre, you must first advise the CEO on the following:

• How to identify the relevant competencies for the graduate-trainee role to aid the recruitment and selection process;
• Which method/s should be used to attract the best candidates to apply for the role;

You should write your consultancy report using the guidelines provided below. 

Guidlines

Title Page (1 mark)

The title of the report should be concise and clear, identifying the nature of the report.  The name of the author should be included as well as the person or organisation that requested the report.  The date of completion of the report should also be included.

Contents

The contents of the report should be laid out in a consistent format and you should include both page numbers and title numbers.  A contents page should also be included to direct the reader to the relevant sections. 

Executive Summary (4 marks)

This section should be presented in prose and be similar in nature to an abstract for a journal article or your own research project. Its purpose is to provide the reader with an easily digestible and lucid overview of, a) the case (including any issues identified and/or potential issues/considerations evident in the case), b) the recommended method/s for identifying competencies and attracting the best talent, and c) the assessment centre design.

Consultancy Report (Word count 2,500)

This will have to be in summary form and since this section is the most important part of the report, it should be written last. It should not contain the word ‘I’ but should be written in the passive voice. Instead of writing “I would restructure the management team” you need to write “Due consideration may be given to restructuring the management team, to increase the reporting lines between staff”.

Contextual Theory (20 marks)

It is necessary to examine the context in which any piece of investigation is undertaken, whether it is a piece of ‘pure’ research that is intended to be published in an academic journal or an action research/consultancy document that is produced as part of a consultancy exercise. Undertaking a piece of consultancy work without reviewing the appropriate literature and picking out the material most pertinent to the case under investigation is more like ‘backing a hunch’ than consultancy.

This section ought to cover only those aspects of psychological theory that you believe are pertinent to the case that you are writing about. It should NOT be an attempt at a full overview of the theoretical writings in the chosen field. You will need to be quite selective in your choice of material here.

The idea of the section is to explain to the reader of the report that there is considerable information and theorising already in existence that can shed light on a) effective and ineffective recruitment and selection practices and c) support the design and implementation of effective recruitment and selection practices.

It will not be possible to give a very full account of the theories that you focus on, but you ought to aim to enlighten the reader about what has been done in this field to bring ideas together, e.g. a theory. This section should also be presented in prose and should not contain the word ‘I’ but should be written in the passive voice. You will need to reference the theories referred to in the same way that you would in an essay.

Supportive Information (7 marks)

In a consultant’s report it is usual to outline for the reader some ‘facts’ that the organisation may need to be aware of in coming to a final decision about how to make progress. These ‘facts’ will vary according to the nature of the report, but will typically include topics such as the nature of the labour market (national, international and local), the costs incurred in advertising, in testing, in interviewing, in training and the costs involved in losing staff. There are figures available from various sources on these topics, e.g. Social Trends or Mintel.

The CEOs of Cannings Marketing

The reason that ‘facts’ is in inverted commas all the time is to allow you to present your own information.

This section should contain tables of data, graphs and commentary on them. All tables should be appropriately numbered and labelled. References should be provided.

Proposed Interventions (12 marks)

This is the part where you become a consultant and make proposals to management about how they may change their current practice and/or implement new practices to achieve successful outcomes. All proposals should be in line with the case presented (i.e. proposals should be made that will aid the successful recruitment and selection of graduate-trainees) and based on the theory and supportive information previously discussed.

The majority of this section should be focused on the design of the assessment centre, with some reference made to the identification of competences and recruitment/advertisement.

The nature of any interventions should be clear and the reasons for these explicit. Important matters such as the timing of the intervention, e.g. ‘within the next six months’ and a cost-benefit analysis showing the possible costs to the organisation and the possible benefits should also be mentioned here.

This section should be prose based. It could use sub-headings, but it should not contain the word ‘I’ but should be written in the passive voice or third person. References should be provided.

Recommendations (3 marks)

Here you spell out what ought to be introduced into the organisation to enable them to achieve successful outcomes.

The purpose of this section is to allow the managers to have one page to refer to when they discuss the implementation of your consultative document. They will find it very helpful to have a snappy, transparent and well-presented set of recommendations that they can all refer to at the same time.

This is your chance to impress them with some clear-sighted view of what you think should be done.

This section would almost certainly be most appropriately written as bullet points, but it should not contain the word ‘I’ but should be written in a passive voice.

Conclusions (2 marks)

This should contain a summary of the main findings.  Clearly state how you arrived at the conclusion. 

References (1 mark)

These should include all the references to books, journals, websites, etc. that you cited in your report.

Within any research or consultancy, the importance of ethics is paramount.  This means that you should act in a socially responsible and lawful way.  When conducting any work with clients, you should explain the legal aspects related to your client's organisation; avoid any conflicts of interest such as personal relationships with clients or receiving personal benefits from the organisation.