While talent crunch is one of the greatest challenges staring at enterprises, finding a right person for a right place is still more a daunting task. Madan Padaki, Co- founder & Director of MeritTrac Services, threw light on Skill Assessment, an useful tool for recruitment, in an interaction with B.V.Shiva Shankar, Associate Editor, CIOL

CIOL: How critical is Skill Assessment in recruitment?
Madan Padaki: In a scenario where identification of quality talent is the cornerstone of doing business, assessments assume a role of vital importance in the recruitment process. While recruitments have been growing in every sector, increasing pressures are being placed on recruiting teams to ensure that quality parameters are met. It thus becomes important that candidates' skills sets are scientifically measured to ensure only the best are selected. It is also important that evaluation is standardized to guarantee consistency in selection and assessments as objective tools assure of this consistency.

Due to the large-scale ramp up in business and so hiring numbers and global nature of businesses, there is an acute need for quality talent. This is compounded by issues such as lack of employability in a cross section of talent; geographical diffusion of talent and the need for assessments becomes more acute. Assessments also act as defense mechanisms to protect companies against issues like fake cv's and credentials.

CIOL: What should be the focal point of assessment companies, when they are catering to the needs of enterprises?
MP: Assessment companies provide delivery strengths to reach out to a vast talent pool in multiple locations. It is also a pre-requisite for assessment companies to develop and sustain the capability to deliver their services anytime anywhere. This ensures reduction in the bandwidth constraints of recruiting teams as all processes from screening of cv's, registration, test administration to interview co-ordination and offer rollouts are handled in multi-city recruiting events by assessment companies.

CIOL: Is Skill Assessment a useful tool only when recruiting in large numbers?
MP: Quality parameters are extremely important while recruiting whether in large-scale or hiring in smaller numbers. The universal benefit of assessments is in helping select the right candidates. This benefit is achieved by the process of scientifically assessing candidates on objective parameters over a range of skills sets critical to perform a job. Assessments assume a role of prime importance in selection be it for large scale or small-scale recruitments. Though small-scale recruitments do not entail mass evaluation of candidates and interviews might appear to suffice, assessments measure candidates more holistically than an interview process and provide an accurate picture of all round skills. Thus there is no scale barrier for application of assessments and so utilization of its benefits.