Dealing with In-Tray Exercises

Recruiters use in-tray exercises to test a potential candidate’s ability to juggle tasks on-the-job. Read through to prep for your next one.

No mater how your in-tray exercise is done – virtual or physical – it tests your ability to deal with a typical work situaton: the full inbox.

This is an individual exercise to see if you can deal with a pressure situaton as quickly and efciently as possible, and how you can go about doing so.

What they look like

In-tray exercises are essentally role-play. You’ll be given a scenario, and you must work through an in-tray – or inbox – full of typical paperwork within a tme limit that ofen ranges between 30 minutes to an hour.

Some examples of items include: • Emails • Phone messages • Documents • Reports • Memos or loose notes • Calendar notes

What you need to know

• Read through the informaton carefully • Put it in order of priority for acton • Justfy your actons to assessors • Work within the given tme limit, but stay calm through the exercise!

Application example

The scenario:

You’re the marketng manager at Sangréal, a company that manufactures and sells cosmetcs and female healthcare products. Sangréal’s head ofce is in France, and Singapore is its APAC regional headquarters. Your boss is the marketng director, Jonathan Yong, and the managing director of the Singapore division is Christne Ang.

Note

You’re a manager, so you can delegate responsibilites to others. However, you’re answerable to your directors, so keep that in mind when making important decisions. The task

You have two emails – one from your company’s legal advisor, and one from your marketng staf – and a post-it note from your supervisor’s PA. You need to decide how you’re going to handle all three within a short tme period, and justfy your actons with the assessors.

Post-it note

From: Your supervisor’s PA

FYI: Aero France FR-365 delayed – positve COVID case found in the departure hall. Internatonal marketng director only arriving on 5/2/2022 @ 4.30pm.

How to handle it

Priority: Low Your company’s internatonal marketng director has just had his/her fight to Singapore delayed. Obviously, this isn’t high priority, but don’t drop the ball – you stll have to deal with this.

As marketng manager, you’ll probably have some meetngs with the director, so reschedule any appointments you may already have with him/her. If your planner is already packed with other appointments, you’ll have to shufe those around as well to make the best use of your tme.

From: Your team member Email #1

From: alex.yap@sangreal.com.sg Subject: Printer overheads

Yo, boss. Spoke to our printer in the morning. They insist they want to mark up their prices to print all our billboard ads by 20% next year. Guess this means they won’t be within our marketng budget for the next year anymore.

I know we talked about exploring some new optons, and I’ve already found one other company willing to match the price we were previously paying. Problem is, I spoke to one of my buddies from Vivo Tech over the weekend. He has printed with them before, and he insisted these guys have some serious QC issues. Remember that faded billboard we saw on Orchard Road? Yeah, they did that. You want me to give the green light to these new guys, or do you wanna run that budget by Jonathan again? Let me know.

Cheers, Alex Yap Marketng Executve Sangréal Singapore

From: The company’s legal advisor Email #2

From: vanessa.wong@sangreal.com.sg Subject: URGENT – Impending legal acton by Body Food

I’ve just received an email from Body Food’s legal team. They’re issuing a cease-and-desist order on your recent advertsing campaign for our SkinWorks product line here in Singapore. Body Food’s lawyers are alleging that we have commited copyright infringement with the “What works for your skin, works for you” tagline. They’re saying you ripped that of their company’s slogan: “What works for your body, works for you.”

Body Food is giving us 30 days to retract all material related to this ad campaign or they’ll fle a class-acton lawsuit. I need your input on this ASAP.

Thanks, Vanessa Wong Corporate Solicitor Sangréal Singapore How to handle it

Priority: Medium This concerns day-to-day operatons, so atend to this afer you have setled any red fags concerning the business as a whole.

The informal tone gives you a hint of Alex’s background – you’ve probably known him for some tme now. It’s safe to assume that you can trust his recommendatons as a long-tme staf member.

You’ll have to make a judgement call here. Will you print at a lower cost at the risk of compromising the quality of your ads? Or will you ask your supervisor to increase your marketng budget so you can maintain the quality of the materials?

You’ll have to decide, and be able to justfy your response to your assessors.

How to handle it

Priority: High Legal acton is a serious issue, so prioritse such emails in the exercise.

Your supervisors need to know about it, but you should also show that you can deal with problems efciently. Check your in-tray for any relevant informaton which may help this case, and compile all the facts you need.

Remember, you’re only a marketng manager, so you aren’t expected to solve this on your own! A good soluton is to reply to Vanessa seeking her legal advice and CC in your superiors, Jonathan and Christne.

Fill them in on the facts you’ve dug up, and ofer your input on how the company can resolve this issue. In a nutshell…

The above example should give you some idea of how to deal with such exercises. Just think logically about the size and importance of the tasks alongside your positon within the company. As long as you include the input of others, partcularly your superiors, it should put you on the right path!