What is ‘Starbreed Assessment’?
'Starbreed Assessment' is a tool for personnel selection, especially for middle management, which combines the strengths of assessment centre, business game and role-playing game. The result is a one-day strategy game, which is played against each other in specially designed rooms. Throughout the entire time, each player's behavior is filmed and thereafter systematically evaluated using behavioural anchor coding.
Why playing?
In a job interview or in short communication exercises, the candidate tries to maintain an image that he would like to convey. This is detrimental to the validity of the measurement of properties and communication style. By involving the candidates in a challenging game, the focus of attention is shifted from self-presentation to winning the game. In this way, strategic skills and communication style under stressful circumstances are made observable.
What exactly happens?
Each player takes over the leadership of an alien race, which he can design from a set of features and technology advantages at the beginning of the game. In separate workspaces, players have to plan their moves and enter them on the laptop, into the browser frontend of Starbreed - always keeping the game goal in mind: Becoming chairman of the 'Intergalactic Council' and thus win the game. This is followed by many phases of strategic planning, weighing and testing in the face of partly non-transparent rules as well as changing impact factors and algorithms. Every Starbreed game is different. In order not to be left out, one must cultivate diplomacy. This is aggravated by the spatial separation of the players, who can exchange messages in the chat, but can only visit each other on their home worlds (their personal workspaces) in order to negotiate and plan together once they had real contact in space before. Every 10 rounds, elections are held and the game ends when a majority of the 'Intergalactic Council' agreed upon its chairperson. How to achieve this goal is up to the players and their strategy.
What is measured?
Almost 40 traits and abilities (or their absence) can be observed during the game. Roughly speaking, the focus is on strategic and communicative competencies that again can be subdivided: Strategy- Target orientation
- Networked thinking
- Data collection and analysis
- Versatility
- Implementation orientation
- Briefing competence
- Coordination ability
- Conflict ability
TNS Infratest
'We especially want to emphasize that during a difficult international business environment, Mr. Sander was able to motivate the Panel Management department employees not only to accept the new European company structures, but also to actively take part in designing the necessary changes. In general, we found Mr. Sander to be a very committed and competent person. He skillfully and cautiously supervised the group. In a similar situation we would definitely appreciate his services again.' Oliver Champion (Head of Production)
T-Mobile
'When managing several international projects, Mr. Sander has impressed us by way of his focussed, independent and efficient approach to work. His knowledge of statistics and his conceptual skills in processing research surveys made him a valuable addition to our company.' Andreas Schindler (Head of International Market Research)
Qyte
'We always enjoy working together with Mr. Sander because with all the professionalism he exhibits in everything that he does, he is also always an integral part of our team. The objectives that we set in our projects are always common objectives, and it is simply a pleasure producing good work together with him.' Jürgen Hirsch (Management Director)
.companion
'We absolutely recommend co-operation with Mr. Sander to marketing decision makers. Due to his industry knowledge as well as deep methodological knowledge and high flexibility, he delivers fast and reliably accurately fitting solutions to business challenges.' Michael Heine (Management Director & Partner)
WebXF Web Excellence Forum / IQMresults
'We work together with Carsten Sander since 2007. We emphatically recommend him and his benefits. He captivates by his methodological competences proven in many projects and by his expertise when facing most varied challenges.' Christian Bachem (Management Director)
infas TTR
'We have gladly worked together with Mr. Sander for a number of years now. From his purposeful concept design to his impressive results presentation, Mr. Sander always carries out his projects with precision.' Reinhard Potzner (Management Director)
Hirsch & Sachs
"During the difficult times of restructuring and reorganisation within our company, Mr. Sander gave us his invaluable support in formulating the methods and procedures needed for our employee surveys. This enabled us to quickly identify important indicators in employee satisfaction and to devise appropriate plans of action." Management Director of Hirsch & Sachs GmbH
Medizinische Hochschule Hannover
We have worked very well together. Excellent teamwork.” Dr. Ralf Vonberg
Market Research & Services
In particular, it should be emphasised that Mr. Sander very quickly understands interrelated subject matter and can also formulate it with absolute precision. To do so, his excellent analytical skills and also his systematic approach to work stand him in very good stead.” Dr. Michaela Kunze (Management Director)
Georg-Elias-Müller-Institut für Psychologie
Careful attention to detail, a sense of responsibility, and a willingness to cooperate are key aspects of his style of working.” Prof. Dr. Birgit Kröner-Herwig (Head of Clinical Research)
Kriminologisches Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen
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Kallisto Webservices
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IQMresults
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Universität Kassel
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