Guide the candidate to think about their performance in role as well as within the assessment. If they apply their feedback within the workplace day to day, it will prepare them much more effectively for future assessments than waiting to perform differently in a promotions context next time round.

Because feedback should be focusing on a more ‘global’ view of performance i.e. how you tend to respond in certain situations, focusing on the specifics of the exercise and how to ‘get points’ next time is less useful. For instance, in response to feedback that the candidate ‘missed the opportunity to consider monitoring performance and evaluating progress’, a line manager may offer guidance that ‘you need to make sure you say that you will follow up with another meeting next time’. This puts the emphasis on the specific exercise, and what to do in an exercise next time to ‘tick the right boxes’. It misses the opportunity to discuss the candidate’s experience of monitoring or understanding of why it is important. The discussion ideally will explore, in a practical way, measures for ensuring performance is monitored, situations where this could be useful within their role, the impacts on this and how to embed this in their workplace behaviour.

Steer the conversation away from too much focus on points and the specifics of the exercise. The exercises are diagnostic tools- it’s what you do with that information afterwards in a broader context which is important.

The majority of line managers want to support members of their team after they have gone through a promotion process, and will do their best to provide feedback. If they are unfamiliar with the assessment process and exercises, it can make this job rather difficult. Understandably, candidates are most interested to know ‘what they did wrong’, and it can be hard for line managers to satisfactorily answer this, even with detailed feedback reports to guide them. Unless the exercises are very policy and procedure based (which is often the case with internally designed exercises which are less behaviour or leadership quality focused), there isn’t a simple ‘right or wrong’. The feedback session needs to explore the nuances of behaviour and its impacts; how an individual might respond differently for more effective outcomes; the areas they prioritise and those they tend to miss, and why this is. This is a lot for a line manager to delve into it, particularly if they don’t have the full assessment ‘picture’. It can be both frustrating for the line manager and demoralising for the candidate.

Shift to a coaching approach, asking the candidate broader questions about their strengths and preferences, what gives them the most satisfaction in role and where they feel they need to develop confidence or skills. Find parallels between what the candidate is saying about their own performance and how this is reflected in the feedback report, and work together with both sources of information.

After a promotions process, unsuccessful candidates are likely to be disappointed and feel disempowered about where to go next. This can be turned around, as for many individuals, their performance showed development needs which can be addressed, and areas of potential which can be nurtured, and the unsuccessful result simply indicates that there is more work to be done before they are ready for the next step. An unsuccessful result needn’t be a ‘never’, it’s just a ‘not now’. It can be a lot for a line manager to do, to link the performance from a feedback report to areas for development, and then come up with development options which are creative, hands-on and proactive, without over-reliance on formal training methods.

Encourage the individual to identify their own ideas for what they can get involved with, where they could use their skills to the benefit of others and how they can maximise their learning around the leadership behviours within their existing role. Work together to establish what support they need, and your shared expectations of how this will be delivered.

At VCA our psychologists give individual feedback after our CPG assessments in 45-minute sessions. We can also deliver ‘group feedback’ to up to 5 candidates at a time which explores common performance themes, which can be a viable cost conscious alternative.

Visit our Events page to find out about our post promotions process Leadership Development workshops, which can offer useful direction for unsuccessful candidates.