I have been invited to IBM Assessment Center for a Business Consulting role. The aim of this is to assess my “capabilities/potential as a business consultant”. Could anyone who might have attended it recently/involved with it please shed some light on the following:1. What to expect?2. How best to prepare for it?3. How to ace it?I would most greatful.

Hi there I have also been invited to the final round assesment centre for IBM for IT consultant role. Please can you tell me how you did, what you had to do. What was asked at the interview.Good Luck

I had an IBM final assessment for IT Specialist last week but at the same time there were people doing Business development etc and we all did the same things so it'll be pretty much like the following (I didn't get offered a job!-so I'm not going to be the perfect guru here)1) Group exercise- A really tough logical puzzle which is slightly like Soduku but without any numbers. Basically your given different pieces of information and as a group you have to logically work out the seating order of some people. The only way you can practice this sort of thing is to find a quiz book or something along those lines. Our group came nowhere near to solving it.2) Communications exercise- small case study you have to read some notes a colleague has made and then try a sales pitch to your interviewer. Then you have to write an e-mail based on same thing selling it to someone else.3) 2 interviews- 1 foundation, 1 business (former with HR person, later with person who does role you apply for), these interviews really overlap and they both asked me some of the same questions. What makes you want to work for IBM? Why do you think IBM are so ethical? who are our competitors? Name a project you've worked on? Tell me something about yourself that is non-academic/ IT related? Name a time yuo decided to accomplish something extracurricula- basically your generic compentency interview. HR women was a bit of a nutter and went off on tangents- nice though.Anyhoo, I flunked although luckily I had another offer which I would have taken over Big Blue anyway, loads of the staff looked a bit depressed. In my application I said I wanted to work for IBM because it was a meritocracy and the HR gal became very sarcastic and basically told me that was all Bullsh*t! good luck though, none of its that hard apart from the logical puzzle thing which is a mindscrew.

Hi Frodo,I m going to IBM final round assessment center soon. This might be quite a long time ago for you, but would be great if you still remenber and provide details of IBM group exercise and communication exercise. If possible, pls state the smallest details that u remember.Cheers

Frog,I find it quite ridicolous that you are trying to get a job by preparing to the extreme of asking the smallest details from someone else. First of all, the smallest details are completely irrelevant. The assesment is about 'how you tackle problems, come up with solutions, analyse, etc, etc'. No insight in details of earlier assesments will help you develop that.Second of all, if you need help to the level of detailed information you are not adequate for the job. At client assignments you can't base rely on previous experiences from other people either.I have never prepared to that extend for any interview or assesment and have succesfully landed several MC roles.