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Context-neutral assessment tools work well within ongoing HiPo initiatives aimed at exploring an employee’s overall potential. But when it comes to predicting effectiveness in real business conditions — with all the specifics, speed, constraints, and hidden traps of a particular industry — a different level of precision is required. In these cases, what matters is not just the level of competencies, but the ability to perform within the context of a specific business environment.
Why industry-specific assessment matters for business
A manager who thrives in banking may struggle to keep up with the pace of fast-moving retail. A brilliant strategist may find it hard to stay effective under regulatory constraints or within a rigid organizational structure.
Competencies “in a vacuum” don’t guarantee success in a given business reality. That’s why clients are increasingly turning to industry-specific assessments — diagnostics that mirror real conditions, with realistic cases and challenges grounded in the client’s business reality.
How an industry-specific assessment works
The evaluation happens in the language of the industry.
An IT professional might be asked to design a digital architecture for transitioning to new software; a marketing professional in pharma — to manage a portfolio of brands within a relevant sales channel; and a regional director of a pharmacy chain — to set up a process for developing their branch operations.
The key principle: instead of context-neutral tasks, participants work on cases closely aligned with the realities of the business, requiring good understanding of industry-specific metrics and performance indicators.
This approach applies not only to analytical exercises, but also to role plays — where the counterpart needs to “speak the language” of the field: like a pharma distributor, a product owner, a market access manager, or a subordinate dealing with a specific therapeutic area (e.g., a medical advisor).
Typical structure of an industry-specific assessment
- Analytical case: developing a strategy and action plan for a business unit or product
- Role plays: negotiations with a partner / conversation with a subordinate or peer
- Group formats: discussions or strategy sessions around current business challenges
- Motivational interview
- Psychometrics: in our case — our proprietary tool Semantika (in all the projects) or Hogan.
This combination makes it possible to see not only skills and "meta-competencies", but also how a person thinks, makes decisions, and adapts to the realities of a specific business.
Examples
Pharma
- Role: MSL (Medical Science Liaison) Manager
- Case: developing a launch strategy for a first-in-class drug, including an action plan, KOL engagement, and promotional budgeting
- Role play: negotiation with a professor loyal to a competing product
IT
- Role: Enterprise Architect
- Case: a “take-home” assignment on designing an architectural solution for implementing an internal product
- Role play: meeting with a Product Owner insisting on prioritizing their project and requesting scope changes beyond the original brief
FMCG
- Role: Regional Director
- Case: managing operational sales performance in a region
- Role play: discussion with a store manager about ongoing projects
When is it needed?
Industry-specific assessments are especially valuable when:
- hiring managers or experts from adjacent industries
- promoting internally — when the candidate has experience but needs to scale up to a broader role
- undergoing transformation or restructuring — when it’s crucial to quickly adapt to new realities and reorganize work
- comparing participant results with industry benchmarks.
What it gives to participants
Experienced managers and experts tend to highly value this format.
Thanks to realistic cases and live role situations, the usual skepticism — “this isn’t how it works in real life” — disappears. Instead, participants become more engaged and trusting: they see that the cases genuinely reflect their daily challenges. This makes the feedback easier to relate to and much more meaningful.
The role of psychometrics
As we often say, “You can’t measure a person with a ruler.” Semantika helps see assessment participants not through a pre-set model, but through their own meanings, needs, and preferences. This allows us to build a kind of 3D forecast — predicting in which roles, contexts, and conditions a person will be most productive, and where disengagement or a drop in effectiveness may occur.
In practice
At Landmark, we run almost exclusively industry-specific assessment projects, with only rare exceptions when a client specifically requests more “universal” or abstract cases.
For our clients, industry-based assessment is a diagnostic tool that speaks the language of their business — helping make decisions grounded in relevant, reality-based data.