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It is a known fact that any useful HR department or employment agency have tools to test a person’s skill set. This could be a practical skill, technical skill or behavioral skill. However, has time changes, a flexible HR department or employment selection agency, will need to move forward with more powerful technologies that help them further in their area of expertise, candidate selection! In the early 90’s online filtering was not really appreciable and the technologies employed were generally a database full of resumes from which to select people for possible interview.

Late in the 90’s LMS (Learning Management Systems) broke like wildfire and many corporate firms started to see the logic in a organized approach to employee training, recruitment and retention.

As the 90’s went by and the Internet started to reach a larger audience, many of the firms being reviewed were formed to try and offer solutions to firms from an outsourced net solution. These firms continue to improve products with technology and these firms reviewed are no different. However here is our review of their current state of play and how you could benefit from reading the review and finding which one suits your corporate or small business environment.

We reviewed several factors that are to our opinion ( Having worked both in HR and employment in large industries), very important in choosing the best tool for you.

The factors were:

• Price.

• Ease of use

• Features against uses

• Integration to your own platform

• Server based storage, result notification and record filtering

Some of these features are easily comparable while others have variations that make it more difficult to quantitatively give you a clear result. When this happens, explanations will be around the similarities or differences from a customer’s hiring and practical perspective.

Price

As price is an important factor we discuss it here. Obviously people tend to gauge this first before feature looking at what is “under the hood”.

A cost comparison was created based on what might typically happen with a job post on the internet ( where 99% of firms now actually post jobs). Please note we stated one job post. Obviously you will need to multiply that by the number of jobs you target each month to get a realistic estimate of your actual costs.

So for the one job, what was done, was the actual cost of running similar test platforms over a period of a month using the minimum of 50 tests. This would be a fair representation of just one job placement that a HR or employment firm with approximately 50 possible applicants. Again this may be very conservative to the number of people who reply to your job posts but let us use it for reference sake.

Testing Firm             Cost

Kenexa Proveit         $1250 for 50 tests

Supercandidate       $29.99 for unlimited tests

Brainbench               $2500 for 50 tests

Articulate                   $499

Comparing these price factors, we see that Kenexa’s Proveit is the most expensive while Supercandidate is the least expensive by over 97%. This could make a major difference to who can afford the services. Overall Supercandidate is significantly less then any of the others reviewed. We will go into further detail about features shortly to see if that has relevance to pricing.

Ease of Use

When looking at ease of use, we took into consideration:

The GUI (Graphic User Interface)

Learning curve time.

In looking at the GUI we found that only Supercandidate had a built in video tutorial which allowed for step by step learning. The other three did not have this so the learning curve increased. With Proveit and Brainbench, we found that the dashboard was often confusing with many features leading to places that left us confused. This definitely could do with a training session which is offered by the firm at an additional cost.

Articulate was the hardest of all to understand as you needed to have experienced Adobe Flash style products before to easily work with the interface. Our opinion is, that someone without that knowledge would have to spend about 2 days to learn this product.

Features against Uses

This is a very important factor as it determines exactly how the products will benefit you in the real world. Having worked with HR and recruitment, we understand that there are many products out there with so many features to impress. However like many software products, you only really use certain features which work productively for you.

Proveit, Brainbench and Supercandidate offer the most number of useful features, such as premade test banks of “Relevant tests”, easy reporting features essential to fast decision making. Provit and Brainbench offered some more tests but we found that many were not relevant to the majority of users. Supercandidate offered direct access to create own questions which technically meant that you could add, remove and integrate your own questions in. This is ideal for customizing any job spec. This made this product more relevant for practical use as by integrating your own questions, you could keep up to date with any skill you choose – making its test making limitless.

Articulate and Supercandidate offer the most media integration, allowing for video, sound and various media files such as image files, pdf documents(Supercandidate). These you can add directly to the questions. As the age of video integration is here with large bandwidth being the norm ( as seen by the likes of popular sites e.g. YouTube), it offers greater accuracy in job areas that require in-depth skills knowledge, these two products really shine above the others here. Of the two, we think that Supercandidate approach of browse click integration, rather then add to interface using a menu and several steps offered by Articulate, makes it the preferred choice for the majority of users, who look for ease of use and fast integration.

Provit, and Articulate offer the most question types, e.g. multiple choice, true false, checkbox. Now this initially seems an obvious reason for choice. However consider this, 85% of firms and institutions use the standard multiple choice format above all else, so it is likely that you can easily get by asking questions in that format and be well respected in your questioning techniques. If you compare price, the amount you pay is significant for these other question types even though the majority of tests will not need them. Besides tools like Supercandidate offer other options to create those question types using its strong media integration features.

For example, if you use the integrated media types such as a word doc, or jpeg, you can literally add whatever question feature you want. For example you ask a question that requires several answers (typical of a checkbox answer), you could open up your MS word doc and type in the different variations – upload that to the question to offer a question that asks them to choose which set of options is best – similarly you could have created a image file to do this.

Integration to your own customer facing platform

Kenexa’s Proveit, Articulate and Brainbench do not allow you to host the tests directly from your site. For example you will still have to send your clients to their site for the test e.g. provit2.com/acme (say if your name was acme). Not very professional for branding purposes.

Supercandidate does offer the testing platform to be integrated to the client’s own site with a small charge associated. So if you are Acme company , it integrates straight to your site e.g. acme.com/testarea

This consideration is needed for those who want to keep applicants on their own site rather then going to another company’s website. It also portrays the firm as a “bigger” firm due to the cost associated with such technologies which only the largest of firms can afford.

Server based storage, result notification and record filtering of results

All the products reviewed offered some sort of storage based setup. However not all storage are the same. While Supercandidate, Proveit and Brainbench offer tests based on their limits:

Supercandidate – unlimited assessments including premade assessments Provit – 900 assessments Brainbench 600 assessments

Articulate allows up to a maximum of 100 assessments.

With respect to result notification all firms offer instant notification of results to the administrator. On this review only Supercandidate, automated a serialized certificate to the test taker if they passed.

The record filtering is key to many who want to administer tests as it is the reason for the tests – to see how someone performed in tangible ways.

All products offer filters. Proveit and Benchmark offer many unnecessary filters, where single tasks are broken down into several report formats. Supercandidate offers by group, by individual test results, with simple point and click methods.

All products offer CSV export features of the data on the online reporting point. Supercandidate and Proveit allow full data transfer to even email accounts.

A key reporting feature we believe is important for the HR person is based around reducing time. All of the products help HR and employment agencies reduce time by using tests to eliminate unqualified candidates. However, only Supercandidate takes into consideration that a live person does not always sit at their desk and has other things to do. For this they offer “Cell Phone” notification, which actually rings your cell when the best candidate is matched. You just head back to your desk and then call them up.

This is a very practical approach to free you from your desk and get on with other client calls, visits etc

Conclusion

Well our review looked at what we believe is key areas based on our 15 years working with HR, recruitment and the I.T industry related to the area of candidate selection. These 4 tools can definitely give you a step up in making sure you reduce time spent from tracking a candidate to placing one to a firm job.

Proveit and Brainbench seem to offer too little for those who want value for their money while utilizing a filter that will meet much of their needs. They have some fancy assessments but neither allows you to create your own tests or add to theirs. Any customization costs you even more if actually allowed.

Important features such as video and sound will play a more dominant role in tomorrow’s candididate selection as bandwidth increases and some features that were impossible outside face to face interviews, are now available to us via these elements. Both Supercandidate and Articulate allow these features.

Supercandidate’s cost of at least 90% less then all others, understanding of the need for quick learning, forward thinking features such as video in questions or cell phone notification on the go make this a really worthwhile product.

There is very little compromise with Supercandidate for those who want a effective filter to reach 95% of applicant testing. For this reason, we recommend the newer, more robust technology offered by Supercandidate Inc for the majority of users thinking of adding prescreening, or selection technology to their recruitment process. Also if you currently are using other forms, its time for an upgrade, especially when you are likely to heavily reduce your downtime and current spend.

References:

pcmagazine

supercandidate

hrmag

Newsweek

Between 10 to 20 percent of job seekers find a position via a recruiter or employment agency. These figures can fluctuate widely, depending on the economy. During the tech-industry boom years from 1998 to 2000, the job search firm business grew more than 20 percent per year. When the economy fell with the burst of the internet industry bubble, and investors finally felt all the hot air escaping from the bogus business plan balloon, more than 65 percent of recruiting agencies, mostly smaller, one- to four-person shops, closed their doors. But today the large national organizations are still in business, and many of the smaller shops are building back up with the improved economic outlook.

How much do recruiters help with job searches? Results are mixed. Job candidates often report that some recruiters don’t acknowledge receiving their resumes or return phone calls. Other recruiters are seen as responsive and eager to build a relationship with the job seeker. Think of them as Hollywood talent scouts always angling to find a new star to sell to a studio – you’ve got one good shot to impress before they move on to other candidates. The bottom line is that Recruiters Don’t Work For You. They are paid by client companies to locate and screen candidates for positions. Most do a fine job, but so do many bounty hunters!

Basically, there are three types of recruiters you may encounter: contingency, retained, and contract. Each has a particular function and style. It will help you to know with whom you are dealing.

Contingency Recruiter
Contingency recruiters earn their fees only after a client company hires a candidate they’ve referred. They usually handle a broader base of candidates for mid to lower-level positions. Some more discriminating recruiters will, however, place executives and senior staff. The salary levels they fill are mostly up to $75,000 per year, and they often fill multiple vacancies with similar talent and work for more than one organization at once to “find the right hire/fit.” Companies use contingency recruiters when they want to stay more involved in the screening, interviewing, and negotiating processes. Because their fees (ranging from 30 to 35 percent of the job winner’s first-year compensation) are paid only when the candidate is placed, many contingency recruiters are highly sales-focused. They can push hard to get your interest and have an aggressive work style. Some of the less scrupulous recruiters tarnish the role’s reputation for others.

Retained Recruiter
Retained recruiters (or search firms) are paid in advance by the organization to conduct a search. They also collect a fee from 30 to 35 percent of first-year compensation but often receive their pay up front or as a monthly retainer, even if the search doesn’t produce a successful hire. Their market is the upper-middle to senior-level professional with a salary greater than $75,000. A great source listing these recruiters is the Directory of Executive Recruiters.

To fulfill your marketing strategy, it can help to mail your paperwork to as many retained search firms as possible, especially to those that specialize in your field. You may get a better response if you consult someone in your network who has had success with a particular recruiting organization or if you are familiar with the firm because in a former role you had a substantial budget and retained them to find top talent for your company.

Contract or Temporary Recruiter
Contract or temporary recruiters work for a corporation on a part-time, contract, or temp-to-permanent basis. In an effort to contain costs, many organizations use these professionals to augment their workforces and manage the peaks in their hiring requirements. Because major job hiring can ebb and flow with broad economic situations, these handy, low-commitment, on-demand recruiters are a growing segment of the personnel placement industry.

Remember, state employment agencies and college placement centers also provide free job listings, career development counseling, and company data.

There are a number of points to keep in mind when working with recruiters.

You will interest a recruiter only if you meet the exact requirements of the position to be filled. Recruiters provide a service to client companies; contingency or retained, they are chartered to find the individual who best fits the often narrowly defined skill set.

You must carefully select the firms you work with—reputable directories and your network can help—and there is no ideal number to have working for you. The quality of the relationship can help guide you in determining the number.

You never need to give a contingency recruiter the “right” to work for you, but you do need to present yourself honestly (many people inflate their career qualifications and credentials) and treat the first meeting like a sales pitch, where you call attention to your special skills, talents, and accomplishments and provide a reason for him to represent you. Pay attention to how you are treated. Find out about the client base and how long the company has been in business, plus what special qualifications it has.

For an initial contact, you may do best using a contact name for your introduction rather than relying on a less personal e-mail or letter overture. Always include a resume if your first approach is through a letter.

Be careful when distributing your reference list to recruiters. It is best to make your names available only after the recruiter indicates you are a very strong candidate. These colleagues are important to your long-term success, and you should not call on them prematurely or too often. They are the job application ace up your sleeve, and the more frequently you use them, the less enthusiastic they might be to endorse you. Explain to the recruiter that you reserve your list of contacts for only the best job opportunities, just as the recruiter saves her candidates for the ideal openings.

You can certainly ask for a job description before your interview and request that the recruiter secure annual reports, marketing brochures, or any other data that might help you.

You should make an effort to keep the recruiter informed of your progress and call to summarize and critique your performance after each interview. There’s no need to be hesitant in pressing for specific feedback, too, whether the assessment is praise or correction. And you should use these times of analysis to identify for your recruiter how he or she is progressing in assisting you.

Once you have a job offer in hand, you should negotiate directly with the hiring manager. Some companies want your recruiter involved at this point, and some recruiters insist on participation because he often sets the hiring goals for you. It’s always your option to take charge and deal one-on-one with the hiring manager, not the intermediary agent, if you are not satisfied with the direction of the job negotiation.

You need to keep accurate records of the recruiters you meet or contact and full notes on your shared conduct of the job search. Include the information in your contact tracking sheet and remember to save copies of all your written correspondence with them.

Reprinted from Hire Me, Inc. by Roy J. Blitzer. Published by Entrepreneur Press. Copyright © 2006 by Entrepreneur Media, Inc. August 2006; $19.95US; 159918023-5.