There might not be AC on Saturday 22nd, due to movement restriction in Lagos state. Cos of local council polls schedule for dah day

I was called by HCP this morning (they actually missed my calls and called back). I asked if this stage will stop this month, as I haven't been invited. The lady said no...and that this stage will be on till everyone that got success mails is invited.
.
No need to panic or fret!

cloud9usher:
Most of what people who had their AC on 15th Saturday July said are all true and I don't really see much need to add, but if there is anything you wanna ask me then please do and I'd explain with all details necessary. Just quote me and ask anything you need clarifications on and I would duly attend to your request.

Also very important, my same source from First bank(a management staff) who told me about the inclusion of First bank service executives into the AC for those hoping to be converted to core staff also gave me some revealing information yesterday. He said the final list of those who would be called for medicals/documentation would also have to do with zoning and not just only on performance from the AC. I will explain further.

He said First bank won't only employ people from a particular geo-political zone because that won't be good for business, you need people from all over the federation and also need to have some significant number of people from a particular region being willing to go work in that region after training school, it would be easier for someone from Borno to agree to be posted to Borno branch after training school than it would be for a Lagosian to accept such posting and perform at his/her best in such an environment. Apart from language fluency, environmental awareness and familiarity would make the Borno candidate have more motivation to perform at his/her best there as opposed to a Lagosian.

Take for instance the cut off mark from AC to be qualified for training school is 70% assessment rating, and 90% of people who scored this percentage are from the South South zone, don't take it that First bank would invite all those South South geo-political zone candidates for training school because they represent 90% of candidates who passed AC stage, they would take just the top scoring candidates from that zone and also take other zones to make it even, so someone who scored 79% in AC might be dropped because of his/zone and someone who scored 70% would be selected because of his/zone. He even said sometimes a zone with low scoring candidates would have its benchmark reduced to fit in candidates from the zone. But of course, the percentage of selected candidates would be higher for zones with higher candidates as compared to other zones with lesser candidates.

So South West might take like 30% selection, South South 15%, South East 20%, North Central 13%, North West 17%, and North East 5%.

In a nutshell, to be safe, make sure you score high in your zone as regards your assessment centre rating, and of course zones with high level of competition would have more difficulty because of the competition, so he said just passing the cut off mark required for AC is not a guarantee for training school.

will the zoning be based on your state of residence or state of origin? Thanks in anticipation.

Hey guys, first of all, my apologies to those who have been expecting my feedback as promise after my assessment. Due to my travel schedule and other engagements I couldn't give you guys an update on saturday or sunday.

Where do I start from now? Okay, first of all, why the hell have other people been making this AC of a thing sound so difficult? I'm not trying to be cocky but there is no iota of me being braggadocious when I unequivocally say the assessment was fun and equally competence thrilling in all aspects. I commend HCP's unequalled level or organisation and professionalism. Those guys are just perfect in what they do.

Below are the stages we went through:

Group discussion
Numerical and Logical reasoning
Personality test
Preparation and presentation of powerpoint
Essay writing
Panel interview
A feedback form as well
And some cool lunch pack


For group discussion, the core they are testing for your leadership skill, your team working skill and your poise in interacting with others. Apart from these you must state valid and important points as well in the group discussion. Here is a tip, to display a show of leadership skill, be the first to speak out. You'd be all asked to read the overview of the group topic and then start. So while everyone reads and are silent, be the first to speak out after the usual silence of reading, because the assessors immediately noted this down from my observation who spoke out first. And don't just speak out gibberish please all in the name of being the first to speak out. Make sure you welcome your group members and apportion key roles you'd designate to group members as you guys tackle the issue on ground and start it off with good points as well as your contribution. In the group discussion, drop every form of orneriness in your demeanour, you want to show you have a pleasing disposition when interacting with others and not coming off as stubborn, irritable or ill-tempered. Make sure you also take notes of all discussed in your group because you'd use that for your Powerpoint preparation/presentation and the essay you'd write later on. You can make personal additions later on as well, because you don't prepare your slides immediately after the group discussion.


For the numerical/logical reasoning part. The goal is to test your aptitude level and also test how you manage time. You'd be given 20 questions to answer in 20 minutes for numerical and 15 questions for 20 minutes for the logical part. Look, half of these questions are averagely difficult and need some good level of intelligence and aptitude to solve, and the rest half are almost impossible to solve and some don't even have answers, and you won't have time on your hands so you'd end up with a very low score if you'd are ignorant enough to let the almost impossible to answer questions be a facade for you.

About the personality test section, I remember how most people came here to make it seem so trivial, they were saying things like: "Just freestyle in this section," "Do your thing in this section," "You can't be wrong," and all. You can be very wrong honey! In HR there is what we call "candidate profiling." This is used to assess the type of personality he/she possesses. Different jobs have various desired personalities and from the personality test I saw from HCP, they are profiling for a candidate that is a leader, one who is a career person and ready to go all the way to top in the job, someone ready to sacrifice some sort to family and personal inconveniences for career. In the personality test you'd see facade questions like: "Would you like to use your skills and competence as you have gained to succeed in your career to run a personal business later on?" Don't give HCP the impression that you have personal business plans in your options, this is vertoben in the corporate world especially in relation to hiring management trainee. First bank doesn't wanna employ people who would garner all the knowledge and experience and run away for personal business later on. Other questions are directed to pick up your profile to know if you are cool with not being given time for family and other personal time, being a core bank staff means you are gonna be deprived of a lot of family and personal time as you'd be busy a lot while doing your job. So you all should be mindful that the personality test is not a trivial part where you can just freestyle, be very careful at that section so you can either pretentiously or sincerely be perceived to be within the earmarked personality they are looking out for .


For the interview section, you'd be asked basic questions. The question of: "Tell us about yourself" is meant for you to sell yourself to the interviewer. No one is asking you that to know your name or course of study or where you have worked, use that medium to show you are you are a leader, and someone who is poised at offering improvement wherever he/she finds himself. They are looking for a core leader and not a myrmidon! And when I say a leader I don't mean being a Whatsapp group admin, or being the leader of your Slay queens squad I mean professional leadership qualities and experience you have garnered over time. Be mendacious if you need to be in order to prove your point, just be convincing enough!
And you might wanna ask why so much is stressed on your leadership skills, 70% of the people you see in a bank are contract staff, the few core staff in bank branches are leaders in every aspect, and even in headquarters of the banks, core staff are leaders as well as they make strategic decisions and policies which directly affect the bank. So leadership skill matter a lot!

Lots of candidates can pass aptitude tests like you but they need someone who can show initiative in being innovative and creative in regards improving a business and you have to show how you have displayed such traits in a real life professional/business settings. In the interview section you need to know about First bank a lot as well, go and read all about FBN. For my interview, my interviewers and I were basically discussing because all the questions they had to asked me I had prepared for more than they could need and even the bounce off question that come in between as well and the interview section was the sweetest of all sections for me.
For your interview, exude confidence, I say it again, exude confidence!!! Don't be looking and/or acting all pusillanimous because a leader exudes confidence and its a very important trait.


For the Powerpoint preparation/presentation, don't start designing your slides like you are applying for a graphic designer job please! Make it simple and professional! Don't be equivocatory when doing your presentation, try to be consise and succinct in giving salient points and try not tergiversate. When you are asked about something in your presentation to take you off balance try to state why you feel its correct but don't sound imperious, and also, the assessor's assertion might be correct so keep your head at a level that you would gain from the assessor as well if your points are not correct, because you'd have an First bank staff as an assessor for your presentation.



For the essay writing stage, please this is not some secondary school English lesson asking you to write an essay on your last school trip, so even if you have excellent creative or technical writing skills(which most Nigerian lack) you still need to deliver your essay in business communication and correspondence style to sound competent enough for the job at hand. You can google about effective business correspondence and communication to get more info.


For the feedback form, its just like a survey to tell them what you think about the assessment, there is nothing special or difficult here, if you don't wanna write much just state "satisfactory" except if you had some issues to differ from this stand, which I'd be surprised to find anyone think of the assessment to be anything from satisfactory.


Also, I saw some people dressing in pathetic asymmetrical style, this is the corporate world honey! You gotta look fully business corporate and pizzazz! This is not just about your intellectual capabilities but also your aesthetic appeal! Appearance matters! It matters, and for the umpteenth time; it matters!!! Your photo would be taken as well, and you'd be doing your presentation having them watch you as well. I heard an assessor sternly rebuking a guy concerning his dress style, the dude just wore a shirt and looking all frowzy, some ladies I met wore mundane clothing and I bet you that they lost the points apportioned for dressing nice. So dress up to kill, and I mean corporately appropriate and not lewdly dressed for the ladies.


Also, I agree with the information that cloud9usher stated in the previous page of the thread concerning the zoning of candidates to matter as well because while filling the attendance register for the day, from their master list I saw that after my name there was where my geopolitical zone was also included in abbreviation, if you guys were observant you'd remember seeing stuff like SW, SE, SS, NC, NE, NW in the proceeding information after your name and mine tallied with my geopolitical zone.


Lastly, I can't stop dreaming about that top notch swimming pool I saw at First Academy, that's the height of balling while training, I can't swim for now and don't mind my fellow First bank colleagues teaching me how to swim while in training school, its gonna be fun!

See you all in training school soon!

izmercy:
Morning,
Lemme just add this; one thing you need most is confidence. Try not to stutter and please be audible.
Also never say anything you can't defend especially during presentation and interview. And the almighty question "tell us about yourself" is your way to paradise or hell. please manage it well.

Note: it's more of smartness test (ma opinion).

were u asked questions during/after ur presentation?
who are u presenting to; a panel or the whole candidates? if panel, how many were they?

rgds

pls someone from Kaduna state and his based in Lagos,wrote is exam and ac in lagos.which zone will he be included?is it southwest or northwest.

mayoor15:
Thanks bro, I owe you one bottle of cold orijinzero.

The guy do not sound like he takes anything zero.

bartho77:



will the zoning be based on your state of residence or state of origin? Thanks in anticipation.

Abumas99:
pls someone from Kaduna state and his based in Lagos,wrote is exam and ac in lagos.which zone will he be included?is it southwest or northwest.

From what I was told, the zoning refers to the geopolitical zone you come from(i.e your state of origin) and not exactly where you are resident.

cloud9usher:




From what I was told, the zoning refers to the geopolitical zone you come from(i.e your state of origin) and not exactly where you are resident.

This zoning thing got me thinking too back then, because i also saw all that sw,se,ss,ne,nw,nc different geo zones fixed on each name on our attendance resister during the assessment