3 Skills You Must Show in Role-Play

One of the stages most frequently encountered by those entering the assessment centre is role-playing. While preparing the candidates who will enter this process, I see that they are most excited and nervous about this stage. There are some critical communication skills you are expected to demonstrate in role plays. I will share how you can show the 3 skills that I have witnessed the most difficult among them in role plays.

Show empathy:

Try to find clues for the role-play that are hidden somewhere in the information given to you at the beginning. What might be some of the difficulties this person is currently experiencing in her/his life? It is important to show that you know, understand and are ready to help with their personal or business challenges. For example, you can use this challenge if she is working full-time but also continuing her master's program. “Despite your hard work, you continue your education. It's great that you are interested in self-development. You are very successful in everything. Yet what can we do for you?” You can show that you are understanding and ready to help with this approach.

Create an action plan:

During the role-play, you are expected to produce solutions for all the problems and shortcomings that you notice. You can provide these solution ideas, or if you have time within a limited time, you can ask open-ended questions and have the person produces own solution. The important thing is to leave here with a concrete solution and action plan. For example, if the person in front of you says that he cannot express his opinion in meetings because he is excited while speaking in front of the public, you can tell him that you will bring a book that you have read and benefited from when you will come tomorrow, or that you will try to learn about the training opportunity by discussing this issue with Human Resources and that you will give feedback to him about the subject today. Evaluators want to see determined plans with "who will do", "what" and "when".

Ask open-ended questions:

One of the best opportunities to show your coaching skills is through questions. If your questions are closed-ended questions with "Yes/No" answers, it will be difficult to get the other person to talk, on the contrary, if you ask these questions a lot, the person in front of you will shut himself up and not give you information. However, questions created with patterns such as “What, How, When, Who, Which” enable the person to think and give information. These types of questions are the most powerful questions we use in coaching. For example, instead of “Have you informed your teammates about this?” use this: “How did you inform your teammates about this?” A question like this would be more appropriate to open the dialogue.