Job Hunting: Shell Assessment Center

Shell assessment center took place in The Hague in the Netherlands in Shell main building. The Hague is BTW very nice city full of beautiful blond girls. The evening before AC we had a meeting with Shell representative and two graduates who has already been working for Shell for about a year. Next day the AC started at 8.30. I have to admit that this AC was pretty demanding. Shell focuses on so called CAR skills (capacity, achievement and relationships - for more, visit shell's career page). It is good to know, that Shell AC differs a lot from other ACs. For example there is NO competency based interview.

• Business scenario was about reading A LOT of information and identify key issues the imaginary company faces. There were basically 3 issues to identify. Then you had to present your conclusions to the managers. After that you were supposed to select one of those three and offer a solution. They wanted exact plan what you would do if you were responsible for solving the problem (ex. 1) I would contact somebody from the markenting, 2) I would do this and that...). They had pretty mean questions.
• Group exercise - there were several corporate responsibility projects in which imaginary company could invest. Within a team we were supposed to choose two of them (we had a budget). Basically to come up with a conclusion and defend this conclusion. Each manager represented different stakeholder (one was city major, other represented press etc.). Difficult since the group was pretty big (6 people).
• Business scenario 2 - I do not remember the official name for this exercise so I will call it BS2. Task was to choose one function within a company (IT, finance, HR...), then you were given several information about problems the company faces in this area, find solutions and present to managers. Again, pretty mean questions.

For me, this was quite difficult AC. Very competitive (there was a guy from Oxford) and extremely exhausting. Also it differs a lot from other AC I have been to, which makes it very difficult to prepare for this AC.