At the beginning of February, five of our Sixth Form students: Melanie Ashun, Amy Jepson, Jacob Herd, Tom Diamantides and Justin Hopper, took part in the annual Siemens Mock Assessment. This is always a great opportunity and has benefitted our students greatly over the years.

The purpose of the event was to give students a 'taster' into what a real life assessment would be like when participating in an interview process for an Apprenticeship.

The Mock Assessment Centre used the sort of activities conducted in genuine assessment centres within Siemens' apprenticeship programme. The students were split into two groups and they all took part in the activities including:

  • Introduction and briefing on Siemens
  • Practice assessment centre test
  • Team building task
  • Meet the Apprentices
  • Speed interview

The day was a great success and each of the students found the opportunity and all of the activities really useful, creating a strong foundation for their future.

Following events like this, we are used to receiving positive feedback from employers and training providers about our students, but we were particularly delighted to learn that Melanie Ashun had impressed the Siemens team so much that she had received special recognition from the company and is to be recommended to the Siemens Human Resources Team. In an email sent to her by a member of the Assessment team, she was given the good news about the special recognition and congratulated: "Well done, you were brilliant"!

Commenting on the day's events, the group said:

Melanie Ashun: "I had a great morning - ' I found it so helpful and enjoyable! I really benefitted from the mock interviews as it gave me a good practice of what an interview would be like and also enjoyed hearing about other students too. I found meeting the apprentices really useful as I now have a bigger insight into what an apprenticeship is like and I enjoyed hearing their experiences. I enjoyed the team building task too and working through the case study with other students. The Siemens team were amazing and I really appreciate their hard work ."

Justin Hopper: "I think it was really beneficial to me it was really informational and a really great opportunity to have.
My best part was the interview, getting asked the questions and being put on the spot and being able to have the opportunity to say my answers. I also really enjoyed talking with the current apprentices and how they were getting on.
I think it did give me a good insight as to how a real assessment centre would be because it felt very genuine and it followed a good time plan throughout the morning."

Amy Jepson: "The event was very informative. I enjoyed the team building exercise. I think the event has given me a good insight into what an apprenticeship assessment centre will be like, because I participated in numeracy tests and the apprentices told us what to expect in a real assessment centre."

Tom Diamantides: "I thought that it was beneficial with helping to get an insight on what it would actually be like."

Jacob Herd:  "It helped give me further knowledge into the apprenticeship route.
The interviews were the most beneficial to me and now I understand what to expect when it comes to a real assessment centre."