Mercer Tests

Assessment centre

The assessment centre stage of the interview process is a full day of activities and tests designed to evaluate your soft skills as well as your aptitude and knowledge. This is a pressured situation, where you are expected to perform at your best while being watched by Mercer assessors and compared against your peers.

Preparation is the key to remaining calm and confident to show your true potential. Remember that you will be watched throughout the whole day, including during breaks, so be mindful of how you present yourself at all times.

You will be asked to complete five activities: a case study, a group exercise, a written task, a presentation, and a verbal reasoning test. More on each of these below.

Case study

You will be presented with data and information related to the field of work to which you are applying. You are then required to read through and analyse this information before answering a set of questions related to it.

For example, if you are applying for a position focusing on the health of a workforce, you may be presented with reports on sickness and absence levels, the reasons for sickness, the company sickness policies and outcomes of interventions. You may then be asked questions that assess your ability to understand and interpret the data, and use it to make predictions or suggestions.

Group exercise

The group exercise often follows on from the case study. You may be asked to join up with other candidates to discuss your answers and solutions from the case study, to decide what you would advise as a group.

This is a key test of your ability to work as a team, communicate effectively, influence your peers and speak up confidently. The assessors want to see you articulate your ideas while also listening to your peers and being respectful of others’ opinions.

Written task

You will be asked to complete a series of written tasks to assess your written communication skills, time management, and ability to understand and action instructions.

You must be able to show exemplary grammar, punctuation and spelling, with one of the tests assessing this directly by asking you to identify and correct any errors within a text. Another test presents an email that you must respond to appropriately, explaining how you formulated your reply.

The written task often leads onto the presentation element of the assessment day. You will receive a bulk of written information to use a source for creating your presentation. The information will be related to your chosen field and could be in the form of reports, analyses, recommendations, policies or guidelines.

Presentation

You will use the work you did in the written task to deliver a short presentation of your findings and recommendations. The presentation will be in front of Mercer HR managers who are assessing your confidence and ability to articulate your ideas.

They will follow up your presentation with intense questioning to test how you perform under pressure. Stay calm and explain your reasoning, but graciously accept any mistakes or misjudgements you might have made.

Verbal reasoning test

Verbal reasoning tests are designed to assess your skills in understanding and interpreting a passage of text to form conclusions. You must be able to understand the vocabulary used and critically analyse the information to extract the details you need to answer the questions.

You cannot revise for a verbal reasoning test, but you can try practice verbal questions beforehand to familiarise yourself with the format and time allowance of the test.

Final interview

If you are one of the successful candidates who make it through to the final stage, you will face an interview from one or two members of the senior Mercer team.

You will receive feedback and results from your assessment day tasks – your interviewers may want to discuss these with you and hear your evaluation of your performance on the day. This will lead to further questioning as your interviewees try to build up a clear picture of whether you are a good fit for Mercer.

You may be asked competency-based questions around your field of expertise and must again demonstrate a good knowledge of current Mercer news and developments within the industry.

You are advised to take extra copies of your CV with you, and to follow up after your interview by contacting each interviewer to thank them and express your enthusiasm for the role.