West Midlands Metro tram driver job assessment

Hi all,

I've applied for the above tram driving job and been invited to attend an assemment day soon.

It entails 3 written exercises, and 1 role playing exercise around customer service and conflict management.

Can anybody offer some more detail about what I can expect to be assessed on, advice on how to present myself/things to say/questions to ask, and what the next stage would be going forward.

I am currently in a totally different industry and would be taking a fairly substantial paycut should I get this position but its something I'm extremely excited about.

Many thanks.

Hello my friend, I went through this recruitment process approximately 18 months ago. From what I can remember, you’ll have an assessment day in a venue just outside Birmingham city centre. On my assessment day, we started off with two written exercises. They were both ‘personality questionnaires’ I think they are called? Basically we had a list of questions asking us about ourselves, we’d pick an answer which gave us a certain number of points, at the end we’d add up our points to see which kind of personality we have. Not too difficult, not really much you can do to practice for this to be honest.
After this we had the role playing exercise. Basically we speak to the person next to us about their job and hobbies. Then they go around the room, and you give a brief overview of the person next to you, and you have to mention one or two interesting facts about them. Slightly difficult for people who struggle with public speaking , so it might be best to practice speaking to groups of people wherever possible to practice for this, but to be honest it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.
Final assessment, they give you a scenario where some sort of tram crash has happened, and you have to write an incident form for your manager. Best way to practice for this is to practice writing neatly at speed, and also memorise as much health and safety related vocabulary as possible.
After this they give a presentation about the job and the company, and you can ask them any questions. If successful they will email you to come to an interview. Sadly I failed the interview, but if you like I will have a good think and try and remember some of the questions if I can. Dress code for the assessment day was smart casual if I remember correctly

That's brilliant thanks for the detailed reply. If you could remember some of the questions that would be fantastic.

I remember it started with ‘what do you know about the company.’ Then it was the usual customer service and safety questions:
Name a time you had a difficult customer
Name a time you helped a customer more than normal
Name a time you worked towards a target
Name a time you helped out a colleague .
After this they let you ask any questions you like. Interview is held at the tram depot in Wednesbury. Strangely they refuse to offer feedback if unsuccessful at interview (at least in my case)