Mark Wilson - Head of Products

As Head of Products at The Test Factory, one of my responsibilities is to introduce new products to the market, powered by the innovative online assessment technology developed by our programmers…big up to the Dev. team!

In the most simplistic terms, any ideas I have or my colleagues have for new products need to pass the self-named “Wilson 3” test.

Will the product be remarkable, is it aimed at a niche market and is it sneezable (can it be easily promoted via word of mouth).

Let’s take a look at these in more detail:

Whether the product idea is a brand new concept (never heard of before) or an existing concept, it needs to be remarkable; otherwise no one will notice it or remember it.

For example, you could open up a hair salon a few doors down to an existing one, if you create something remarkable then people will recognize and remember you, if you don’t do anything remarkable then people will just walk past without noticing you.

A great story of a remarkable concept is Starbucks, before Starbucks, coffee bars didn’t exist, you had a coffee at home, in the office but rarely when you were in town. Now they are everywhere and have spawned a whole new industry…but remember before Starbucks…there was coffee!

A wise man once told me that having a remarkable product is like a Jack Russell playing on the beach trying to take a bite out of its favourite ball, it would be much easier to grab hold of if just a little bit was sticking out!

If you aim your product at a small niche you are more likely to get initial interest, once you have done that you can open up to a wider audience but if you try and go too big from the start or too big too soon, you will end up being drowned by the bigger (not necessarily better) more established brands in your market…it is also better use of funds to target a niche market.

Finally you need to think how you will market your product, marketing and advertising can be extremely expensive, certainly TV advertising is now only an option for those brands who already dominate their markets and who have been doing it for years. You need to create a product that can be easily “sneezed” and marketed by word of mouth, just look at how quickly things trend on Facebook and Twitter!

The ideal sneezers are experts who want to show their colleagues, families, friends and admirers that they are early adopters of your product and who recommend others to use your product/service. A point to note is that it is very difficult to find a sneezer if you aren’t targeting a niche market to start with.

On that note, I would like to introduce a remarkable, easily sneezable new product that focuses on the niche market of recruiting IT professionals, “Technically Compatible”.

Technically Compatible is revolutionising the way IT professionals are recruited by saving companies time and money when hiring. You can create a test in 30 seconds and have an unlimited number of candidates prove whether they have the exact skills matched for the role.

With the widest range of programming, web development, IT competencies and the greatest depth of assessment, you simply choose the required competencies, the level of question difficulty and how important the competency is to the role, then let us show you who the most Technically Compatible candidates are for your role.

If you are an expert in recruiting IT professionals, please contact us on 0800 612 2630, or better still…get sneezing!

Gazundheit!

David Copple - CTO

Here at The Test Factory, we pride ourselves on creating tailored, bespoke solutions to our client’s assessment needs. But how do we actually deliver projects on a global scale?

Our solution is Platform as a Service. All software is provided via the web, in a hybrid hosting environment that encompasses our own traditional hardware and the cloud. It is an elegant solution that offers the best of both worlds – the scalability and flexibility offered by the cloud, coupled with the additional data processing and baseline of our own servers.

Our core software – i.e. the ability to create and take tests and assessments, and process detailed business intelligence off the back of that is based on common components shared across all users. That means everybody benefits from out iterative methodology, which brings updates and new features on a monthly basis. Long gone are the days of patches and CD ROMS through the post on an annual basis from some old school software vendors.

Customisation and bespoke business rules can then be created to supplement this core functionality. We have some great examples of custom workflow and specific rules on how and when tests can be taken. It is this flexibility that truly propels what we do to be a best of breed solution – and more importantly creates a strong partnership with our clients.

From a Project Management perspective, we are certified DSDM and Prince 2. We are happy to work within a methodology that suits an individual client, and will typically incorporate some elements of both. We recognise projects and client teams will have different requirements, and it is this relationship with the client which will determine the most appropriate approach.

On project inception, the first stage is to define roles and responsibilities, typically covering:

• Defining the business requirement
• Providing the budget
• Providing the development resource
• Authorising change
• Defining standards and acceptance criteria
• Managing the project to successful conclusion
• Sign off on deliverables

The team within The Test Factory will usually include the following individuals:

• Business Sponsor – High level responsibility for the project
• Business Analyst – Assessing and creating requirements in conjunction with the client
• Project Manager – Manage day to day running and communication
• Technical Coordinator – Technical architecture and design
• Solution Developers – Creating the bespoke solution
• Business Ambassador – Ensuring fitness for purpose, and coordinating acceptance criteria
• Technical Testing & QA
• Content Team

Within this structure the development team follows a SCRUM methodology – with the Scrum Master role being taken by the Project Manager. Iterations are a 2 week timebox, with work defined up front. The product backlog is determined by the business team, and will be allocated to an iteration by the Project Manager, and resource planned by the Sponsor and Technical Coordinator. This helps to create a basic stage plan which then forms the basis of on-going communication, structured around daily Scrums (5 minute stand up review meetings) and highlight reports.

During the development phase we have dedicated build servers, gated checkins, and CI/QA and staging environments. Throughout the iteration, continuous integration testing and prototyping takes place, with the intention of producing early visibility of deliverables. At this stage, we would work closely with the defined Project Manager and Business Ambassador from the client to provide feedback for future iterations.

Finally we will hand over to the client for final sign off and go live – another successful project!

Dave

Ben Blakey - Internal Account Manager

Having been at The Test Factory for well over a year now I have seen a lot of new functionality released to our Test Player. In my role I then work with clients to determine how this functionality can be used to assist them in their online assessment needs. One scorching piece of functionality introduced during my time here is ‘Hot Questions’.

Our platform is used by clients for a number of reasons, for example, knowledge retention, pre-screening candidates prior to an interview, compliance testing and test preparation.  The examples here have a range of consequences for both the candidate and client. For example if a client is pre-screening candidates prior to interview and the candidate doesn’t achieve the predetermined pass mark the candidate doesn’t get an interview. Likewise if a candidate doesn’t achieve an acceptable score in a compliance assessment more training and a resit will be required before his or her organisation can confirm that particular person is compliant.

Back to the ‘Hot’ topic! Hot questions can place more importance around those questions you cannot afford your candidates to get wrong. For example, a candidate may have a 25 question test around cleaning windows at height. The candidate has answered 24 questions correctly however the 1 question they answered incorrectly was to do with securing your platform to the safety harness – choosing the answer “I never connect my harness to the safety line”. That kind of knowledge gap can have serious repercussions on the employees’ health and the organisations reputation as well as identifying a real maverick.

Automatic email triggers (standard functionality within our platform) could then be used to notify the manager of the window cleaner who, during his refresher training stated that he doesn’t use his safety harness. We could then remove this rebel from his role immediately until he had either understood the error of his ways or completed the working at height safety course, for example.  This example can be applied to a call centre worker who thinks it’s acceptable to answer the phone with the expression “A-hoy hoy”. We could remove this agent after receiving the email notification and explain why we don’t answer the phone to customers like that.

Hot questions allow you to add another element to your online assessments and turn up the heat on those questions candidates and businesses simply can’t afford to get wrong.

If you have a burning desire to learn more give The Test Factory a ring 0800 612 5200

Thanks

Ben

Carl Jones - Business Consultant

On March 26^th 2012 I was very proud to have launched ChannelTestFactory.com at the ChannelNext event in Montreal, Canada. The launch was the result of a lot of work in partnership with TechnoPlanet and VARCoach.com to bring a solution designed to help ease a major headache throughout the technology channel marketplace.

Success in the channel depends largely on the effectiveness of reseller and VAR sales teams; the more effective the sales person, the more revenue the channel see’s. There are plenty of sales training and development companies out there, and providing quality training isn’t really the issue. The problem is WHAT training is needed, WHO needs help in WHICH areas and HOW do you achieve this. The recent economic climate has instigated a further emphasis on this issue with restricted training budgets and tightened purse strings, so a solution like ChannelTestFactory.com is needed now more than ever.

Using The Test Factory’s innovative online assessment technology, combined with the sales expertise of VARCoach.com, we’ve launched a product which can enable resellers and VARs to quickly and easily identify the strengths, weaknesses and development areas of each member of their sales team together with recommended training actions designed specifically to address that individuals unique needs. Sounds simple right? Well, it is! Not only is the process simple, it’s also very cost effective and our customers should see a ROI with literally 1 extra sale as a result of the overall process – this should be a minimal realistic expectation.

As Head of Sales, I’m looking forward to engaging with the channel throughout the coming months in order to understand how we can further assist in the improvement of sales practice resulting in increased revenue. I’m also excited to collate the results and hopeful success stories throughout North America and beyond.

Watch this space……

Simon Grundy - Sales Director

At our recent “Tests in the City” breakfast seminar for the finance industry we had a real diversity of roles in the room representing the broad range of companies from the finance sector; Heads of Talent Management, HR Managers, Heads of Recruitment, Directors of Learning Development, Heads of Compliance and Managing Directors to name but a few of the titles. Despite such diversity we discovered that we all had something in common with the girls from Sex and the City (the TV show the seminar title was a play on) and that is the quest for the perfect relationship. That quest has parallels with the role that we all play in ensuring our organisations attract-recruit-develop-support and retain top performers.

Building on our shared goal, 2 of the key points that many of the audience took from our time together was:

1. The online assessment solutions that are available to us at every stage of our relationships with our employees; from that initial attraction to retention and long term commitment , give us a distinct advantage over the girls from Sex and the City in being able to assess our relationships effectively and take the actions that are going to get us the response that we are looking for
2. Every stage of the relationship in the employee life cycle are interlinked – use  the right assessment solutions throughout the cycle and you’ve got an on-going process of learning and improvement that you can carry on repeating and getting even better results from in the form of top performance. Might sound obvious but there are many different stakeholders who are responsible for different stages in that quest for our perfect relationship with our employees that would admit that they don’t join up but could use the insight provided by their online assessment solutions at each point in the relationship to stand a better chance of success in that relationship overall. In joining up and making those improvements they are much better placed to have long term relationships with top performers

So here is a high level view of the areas that we explored and how that might work for you:

Attracting people who are attractive to you: There are organisations that use online assessment solutions to grow a talent pool, a talent pool full of people who are attractive to them and their organisation.  Potential recruits who have already shown signs that they could have a fulfilling relationship with you and will fit in with your company culture and key values such as team work or have already shown that they have key competencies or behavioural inclinations; such as leadership, tenacity or self-motivation to be potential top performers on your graduate scheme or for roles that you would like a pool of talent to recruit from. The beauty of using some form of online assessment solution to do this is that you can always be looking and catching the eye of the talent that is out there when they are looking to engage and so growing that talent pool consistently not just when you have a recruitment window. You can do that in a way that is going to attract the people that you want to attract; which might be in the form of a Situational Judgement Test, game based assessments, utilising social media or on mobile devices.

Recruit those who have the potential to be top performers: As the girls from Sex and the City show us it may be entertaining but dating can be costly, a waste of valuable time and a bit of a lottery.  Those of us who have been involved in it or responsible for it know that recruitment can be the same. £5311 is the average cost per hire of UK talent acquisition in 2011 (HR Magazine, December 2011) that figure may be even higher for you. It is even more costly when we have to keep repeating the process because the people that we began our relationships with never had the potential to be top talent for us in the first place. That’s where that talent pool comes in, if you use the data from that then you are engaging with people from the beginning of your recruitment window where there is already an initial mutual attraction.

If you don’t have that pool of talent waiting for you then you can still use on line assessments at this stage to make sure that you are only engaging with, progressing and making a commitment to those who have shown that they have the potential to be the top performers that you are on the lookout for. That might be using a range of knowledge and skills assessments at different stages in that process or it could be using personality and behavioural assessments in the form of Situational Judgement Tests (SJTs). SJTs are something we are really excited about at the Test Factory at the moment as they are an objective, cost and time efficient means of really understanding how each individual will behave in their role and relationship with us; what would the girls in Sex and the City give for that?!

Inductions that equip our employees to make an instant impact: So we’ve made that initial investment and this is the point where we need to nurture those relationships so that they bloom into one where that potential we saw is realised. Where do you begin? You can build on the insight that you already have from the time that you have already invested and the assessments that you have used. So you can plan and begin the induction process with a sense of your employees’ competencies, knowledge, strengths and weakness.

Assessments can be used to get a sense of where your staff are at the beginning of the induction period and formative assessments can be used throughout to provide visibility of progress so face to face sessions can be adapted accordingly and focussed. They can be used as learning tools with immediate feedback to reinforce, guide and extend and so staff have a sense of their own progress and take ownership from the beginning. We want our relationships to succeed and our clients want to make sure that every inductee is equipped to do so.  What clients who use assessments across the employee lifecycle have seen is that what we put into these relationships in the early days shape how fulfilling and productive they are for both parties in the future.

Putting the development and support in place so that you continue to get top performance: In our relationships outside of work and those with our employees that we are responsible for developing and supporting wouldn’t it be great if you knew you that what you were investing time and money in when supporting these relationships was going to have an impact? Again, this is something that our clients use online assessment solutions to help them achieve and we work with many people in L&D or talent management who use online assessment solutions to avoid the “Sheep dip” approach to training. We also work with people responsible for the on-going development of top performers that join up with those who manage the induction phase of the relationship. That insight forms the basis for personalised learning plans for each individual where online assessments highlight priority areas for development that are met with face to face training as online resources are signposted and linked and candidates work their way through modules matched to their needs. Different types and applications of online assessment that strengthen those relationship, make our staff feel valued and they continue to grow and more likely to perform for us and stay with us.

Ensuring that all staff do the right things\ are fully compliant: In making our relationships work we want to make sure we are doing the right things; the challenge sometimes is working out just what they are. This can be the same for our staff as they deal with the ever increasing challenges of legal compliance, health & safety, managing people effectively and other best practice. Our clients use online assessment and reporting solutions to make it easy for themselves and their staff to have visibility of knowledge in key areas of compliance and best practice and to focus action and support where it is required. Such solutions also mean that they have the touch of the button audit trail that they may need to prove that they are providing that support to their staff. At this stage of the relationship, as well as part of induction or continuous learning phase, there are clients that will use certification portals to reward knowledge or progress and provide an incentive and sense of achievement.

As Sex & the City teaches us, or maybe doesn’t, but as many wise people who know about relationships work would tell us; taking the time to listen is key. Not just listening but then acting on the understanding that we get from that. We can use online assessment solutions at each part of our relationships with prospective employees and our staff to do just that and stand a better chance of achieving our shared goal of attracting-recruiting-developing-supporting-and retaining top performers.

So who is best equipped to achieve that shared goal of long term mutual fulfilling relationships us or the girls from Sex & the City? Well, if we embraced the advantages and insight provided by a range of online assessment solutions across the employee lifecycle and used the insight provided at each stage to drive continuous improvement throughout the process then it must surely be us.

Give us a call on 0800 612 2630 or drop us an email on info@thetestfactory.com to find out more about how we can provide online assessment solutions that will help you achieve your goals in the areas of the employee lifecycle that you are responsible for.

Want to hear more and see some visual examples then click here to register for our “Tests & the City” online session

Simon

Kevin Beales - MD

I have just returned from China, touring the country to understand the opportunities for The Test Factory and online tests in the world’s most populous nation.

It was my first visit personally to China, although The Test Factory delivers many online assessments and certifications in Chinese for global clients such as Microsoft.

Before my trip, the potential opportunities in China filled me with excitement and fear in equal measure. I knew there were an enormous amount of organisations and people for whom tests could improve performance and results. I knew the pace of growth and change was faster than almost all of the rest of the world. And I knew that delivering online tests was something we were successfully doing already in China. But I knew there were challenges – language, culture, values, not to mention the food (those who know me, will understand my fear with my limited diet)!

My trip was with fellow leading software companies, organised expertly by Software City, the regional ambassadors for the software industry in the North East and benefited from the considerable efforts of Sunderland City Council, twinned with Harbin for the last 3 years and pioneers for facilitating trade in China.

We undertook a series of meeting, tours and banquets in Nanjing, Zhengzhou and Harbin and added a little time for a sightseeing in Shanghai and Beijing en route. I can honestly say, I don’t think I have ever learnt so much in just over a week!

Whilst Nanjing, Zhengzhou and Harbin may be relatively unknown in the West, each has a population at least as large as London and it is in these cities that the scale and pace of growth is most evident. Skylines are filled with new office towers and cranes over sprawling miles. Bicycles, cars and buses fight for room, seemingly without rules as millions zigzag across the city to work, shop and play. And throughout these visits, we saw virtually no other non Chinese natives. This growth and change is almost happening in private.

In each City, we had the opportunity to meet Chinese software companies, visit vast new cloud data centres and meet local business leaders and dignatories. The welcome everywhere was overwhelming. The genuine warmth and hospitality offered by our hosts surpassed that I have experienced on my previous travels.

Each night we were treated to a banquet in splendour, with fine food (I couldn’t eat it all, but what I could was great) and toasted with finest spirits – “Gambay” (which was a combination of ‘cheers’ and ‘down in one’)! The protocol takes a little getting used to – when you can sit, eat and toast, how to respond and the hierarchical nature of banquets, but with practise came confidence and soon I was toasting new friends and telling my own jokes.

I couldn’t start to list all the lessons I learnt from my visit to China, but three stood out beyond the others:

Friendship first, business second - China is embracing partnerships and business with the west. It’s presence is evident on every street. The Chinese are welcoming of the opportunities but friendship comes first; in both order and importance. And then ‘we do business’.

Testing solves the same problems the world over – Talking to companies, the opportunities for tests and their benefits are the same. Finding the right employees, measuring knowledge, identifying learning paths and ensuring compliance top the list in China as everywhere else we do business.

I was right! – The excitement and the fear of business in China are both very real. The opportunities perhaps bigger than I previously imagined, the scale and pace of growth and change, and the benefits The Test Factory can deliver. But it is not without challenge. The language barrier is significant, the cultures and values are very different and business is not done in what we would know as a traditional way.

Friendships have started and opportunities have been identified. There is clearly much more to learn but The Test Factory likes a challenge. Infamous internally, ‘Can’t isn’t a Test Factory word’.

My visit culminated with a visit to the Great Wall of China. It wasn’t built overnight but it was, like our own strapline, ‘hand built by experts’.

*With great thanks to Software City, Sunderland City Council, UKTI without all of whom, this trip would not have been possible, and our interpreter Lijun Wang whose guidance, knowledge and translation made it a success (and that I knew what I was eating………most of the time!)

Kev

Richard Anderson - Business Consultant

Job applicants

Before I begin, I sympathise with everyone who are constantly filling in job applications. I appreciate (from experience) that it is often a laborious and time-consuming process.

I often wondered, do the organisations genuinely check our applications?

A very good friend of mine recently applied for a job which she was certain she would receive an interview. She ticked all of the pre-requisite boxes, and spent half an eternity filling in the application and updating her personal profile and CV, tailoring it for the role. The result: nothing. Not even a courtesy email! My point being: are recruiters really reviewing our applications?

Recruiters

From the business’ point of view, the purpose of having the best team of internal recruiters, is to ensure that the organisation are taking on the very best staff in all areas, ultimately to increase profit and cut costs all round; I don’t think that is debateable.

Senior managers: Is your organisation doing this to the best of its ability? Is your staff turnover too high? Are many of your staff in the wrong roles?

Recruiters: do you find yourselves spending too much time looking through CVs? Are you forced to make life-changing decisions on a “hunch”? Are you guilty of not properly reviewing applications?

Do you spend too long interviewing the wrong people? Is your recruitment process lengthy and laborious for you? This being the case; would a shake-up of your current process be just what you need? Would you like to save more money, and more of your time by only viewing the applications that are most relevant to the roles that you are recruiting for? Okay, rhetorical questions over.

The point of my blog is to share ideas with recruiters and HR managers; ideas about how you could totally shake-up your recruitment process by using online assessments.

Application process

The Test Factory will design, brand and host a full application portal, which will enable job applicants to enter all of the relevant details that you are looking for from the ideal candidate. We will capture any type of data you wish, from email addresses and qualifications, to work experiences and competencies.

The application will sit alongside your website, or within an I-Frame, and is easily integrated with any existing ATS platforms.

Management Information

Let’s say for argument’s sake, that the job you’re recruiting for requires the candidate to have a minimum academic qualification of a 2:1 degree. With an end-to-end solution assessment solution, the laborious task of going through hundreds of CVs is completely alleviated. By using our online application, you can filter through all of the people who have applied for jobs. They can be filtered by “degree received,” and therefore anybody who has not achieved a 2:1 degree or higher, will not be taken to the next part of the application.

Think for a second how much time and resource that you spend doing this, and how much of both of these factors you will save using an assessment solution.

I hope that this blog has given some thought to your current recruitment process, and how this can be streamlined and strengthened.

If you would like to learn more about the recruitment process, drop me a line Richard.anderson@thetestfactory.com / 0191 305 5194

Rebecca Rae - Client Services Manager

I read an article recently which mentioned there only being three true job interview questions. It specifies these to be:

1.  Can you do the job? – Strengths
2.  Will you love the job? – Motivation
3.  Can we tolerate working with you? – Fit

www.forbes.com

This got me thinking about my own experiences of being an interviewer and an interviewee and I was astonished at the accuracy of this statement! When you truly think about it, every question that was ever asked in an interview situation boils down too one of these three things.

You already know an applicants professional qualifications by looking at their CV so what you truly need to identify is ‘Can the applicant really do the job – their strengths’, ‘Will the applicant love the job – what truly motivates them’ and ‘How will the applicant settle into the team – their cultural fit’.

So just how do you get a true gage of an individuals real strengths, motivators and cultural fit? The answer for me was not far from home and lay within the use of The Test Factory’s Situational Judgement tests (SJT) offering.

Situational Judgement Tests allow a recruiter to present their applicants with a series of job-related scenarios and possible responses to each. These scenarios are tailored to the requirements of the specific job role the recruiter is looking to fill and can give genuine situations that the recruiter may expect the applicant to experience if they were hired into the role. Furthermore, a range of possible outcomes are provided and the applicant is asked to choose the most effective and least effective response. As there is no right or wrong answer, and is instead more of a ranking from most to least preferred, that the specific recruiter is looking for, the responses an applicant provides can truly supply an insight into the applicants business or cultural fit.

In the current job climate, you can be inundated with applicants that appear to have all the right hard skills required within their initial CV or application form. This is of course a great positive but can significantly contribute to souring recruitment costs. It is therefore essential that you accurately identify those applicants who also have the right soft skills to truly fulfil your role and business needs. By also coupling Situation Judgment Test’s with more knowledge based online assessments as part of your pre-interview screening process you will be able to get a better overall picture of a candidate’s aptitude for a particular role which will allow you to take the right candidates to the interview stage.

If you would like to know more about the power of our online assessment platform and our Situational Judgment test offering why not contact the team?

0800 612 2630/ info@thetestfactory.com

Thanks,

Rebecca

Carl Jones - Business Consultant

Recently I’ve travelled to Asia, Australasia, all over the States, Canada and throughout Europe as part of The Test Factory’s international expansion. During this time I’ve met and worked with leading organisations from every sector imaginable; Technology; Travel & Tourism, Financial; Call Centres, Construction, Training companies etc. Whilst the background and general agenda for each conversation tends to contrast with the last, I’ve been intrigued by the similar problems everyone seems to be facing in the area of Learning & Development.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say that I’ve been bemused at how similar the problems in Learning & Development are regardless of the size or success of each business, and I think this comes down to a lack of vision from solution providers which has led to there being little option for L&D managers other than to remain manual with certain processes. The one stand out problem is the lack of intelligent technological assessment solutions to replace costly and time consuming manual process. This is particularly pertinent in business units which include thousands of stakeholder’s, this means thousands of manual processes being carried out continuously all around the world.

Stop it. This need not be a problem in the 21^st century. It appears quite clear to me that whilst L&D professionals have systems in place to cover most of the main bases, they haven’t considered how these systems will link up – hence the manual processes in place to do so.

The economic climate has had an impact on the way in which most major organisations are operating at a BU level, and the buzzwords of the day always seem to include something about ‘leaning’ the process, this is where my conversations have been spawned from, and I couldn’t be better placed to help.

The most common issues are that of connecting assessment with PDP’s through an automated solution, and enabling flexible 180 or 360 degree online assessment with the ability to quickly and efficiently prioritise from a preset list of actions. Don’t get me started on the conversations I’ve had on the difficulty of pulling straightforward reports…

None of this should be a headache for any organisation; all of these issues can be quickly and easily resolved.

Sound familiar? Get in touch.

Carl.jones@thetestfactory.com

Richard Smith - Business Consultant

Are interviews flawed? What I mean by that is can some people just talk their way through an interview and into a job? The answer to this question is most certainly yes (I am speaking from experience ) and for some roles-how you portray yourself and communicate during an interview is often the key to success.

However, not all jobs require a confident personality and a track record of smashing sales targets. Technical based roles require a level of competency, knowledge and skill which is often near impossible to decipher during a one to one meet and greet. The IT jobs sector is a huge beast with large corporate organisations holding mass workforces of developers and programmers to maintain the very infrastructures and systems in which keep businesses running. Due to recent economic challenges or dare I say disasters, companies can no longer afford to spend vast amounts on training courses for inexperienced or unskilled workers, and are instead looking for those proven performers who can hit the ground running.

So how on earth do you ensure that the latest group of candidates brought in for your latest Java or C++ role have the ability to cut it with the rest of your technical team? How do you eliminate that risk of hiring the recently graduated student who claims to be an expert in .net because his “CV says so” but in fact plagiarised his way through University?

you guessed it, online assessments!

This is where The Test Factory come in with the launch of our new ground-breaking product-Technically Compatible. Technically Compatible is your all in one IT Technical recruitment assessment portal, enabling you to identify whom is suitable for your latest role whilst filtering out those who do not fulfil the criteria. How do we achieve this? Well it can all be done in less than 30 seconds….

1. Create your own IT Technical test selecting randomised questions out of our own content banks(spanning across a range of competencies)
2. Select the level of difficulty you wish the questions to be based on the level of role you are hiring for
3. Select the importance to role of each competency-Is one competency more relevant to your vacant job role than another?
4. Generate your test and issue to your candidates.

Once the tests have been completed by your candidates, you are able to quickly identify who is the most ‘Technically Compatible’ individual, and those that are not fit for the next stage of the recruitment process. Furthermore, candidates can be benchmarked against your current employees to ensure consistency of knowledge and capabilities.

Quick, simple but most importantly-effective processes for making sure you select the best possible candidates. I have had countless conversations with agencies and recruiting organisations alike that at some point have fell victim to hiring a candidate for a technical job who 1 week into his role has proved to not have the desired capabilities. If this is identified from the start then this surely is a win win situation for both organisations and candidates alike.

Technically Compatible, our new product will be available from April 1^st 2012 – If your job is to recruit (successful) IT professionals why not contact The Test Factory for a quick introduction and demo.

0191 305 5212/ richard.smith@thetestfactory.com

Rich.