Charles Woodruffe delivered a keynote speech to the UK Assessment Centre conference. His theme, entitled “Fair Enough: Suggestions for Ensuring a Valid and Equitable Centre”, was the crucial importance of keeping assessment centre exercises as close as possible to the role for which people are being considered.

Exercises should be work samples and not simulations bearing only a scant relationship to the target role. This is crucial for an assessment centre to have predictive validity, impact and ownership, not to mention fairness. A copy of the talk can be downloaded here.