Advertisment

Skill Assessment: Searchlight to find talent

author-image
CIOL Bureau
Updated On
New Update

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

Advertisment

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.

Advertisment

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.

 

CIOL: IT / ITES are using Skill assessment extensively. How about the other verticals?

MP:
Historically when the assessment sphere actually took off in India with the start of MeritTrac, it was the IT & ITES companies, which were the early adopters of the concept. But off late, verticals like BFSI, Retail, Manufacturing, Healthcare and even PSU companies have realized the value and difference assessments can bring to people acquisition.

Advertisment

CIOL: Are Indian companies seeing value in the Skill Assessment of MeritTrac?

MP:
Over 150 companies across industry verticals rely on MeritTrac's expertise in identifying the right candidates for various roles within their organization. MeritTrac's assessment solutions have clearly demonstrated tangible benefits such as selection of right fit candidates, reduction in interview bandwidth, operational efficiencies in multi-city and multi-layered recruiting, and in procuring intelligent insights on talent pools. It has also helped recruitment teams to concentrate their efforts on formulating more effective recruitment strategies. Further to talent acquisition, the talent management practices of organization have also benefited through MeritTrac's offerings. MeritTrac's assessments have helped evaluate employees' capabilities and address the identified gaps through appropriate training and orientation programmes, efficient resource allocation and career/succession planning.

CIOL:How scientific are the test tools?

MP:
Assessment tools are scientific evaluators of talent that are based on sound testing methodology and robust research. MeritTrac's unique assessment process is structured and scientific in its approach. It involves the identification and definition of key attributes required for the various roles in each company and industry vertical. Based on these competencies, Standard Test Templates are designed. These Standard Test Templates outline the distribution of questions from various Subject Areas and the appropriate difficulty levels within the Subject Area.

The Tests are administered and research is conducted by systematically tracking the actual performance of tested candidates in their roles within Companies. This vital information is then utilized to validate the test and enhance its reliability.

Advertisment

CIOL: How your test development & delivery and recruitment analytics are helping HR assessment processes, hiring strategies and training methodologies?

MP:
Content for the Tests are created and managed by MeritTrac. Developed while keeping in mind specific industry needs, MeritTrac's question bank with proprietary IP is tagged for difficulty levels, topic/sub-topic, proficiency levels, etc. and entered into our Test Content database. MeritTrac continuously updates its question banks by adding new questions and weeding out old ones that have been used several times or have lost relevance. Questions in new Subject areas or Industry verticals are added as they emerge.

Another interesting offshoot, which makes a company like MeritTrac, a valuable partner is the accurate intelligence on talent pool dynamics provided by us. With the experience of testing lakhs of candidates across sectors, MeritTrac is in the perfect position to analyze the first hand performance of students on various parameters and give the industry much needed inputs on the availability and quality of talent. These insights are extremely valuable for companies in defining their talent acquisition starategies, an essential for business success.

 

CIOL: Has MeritTrac put together a customized Skill Assessment tool for individual verticals?

MP:
MeritTrac's team studies the latest recruitment trends across industry verticals & develops assessment solutions to meet the need of these industries. Retail, BFSI, Manufacturing are just a few such industries that we can name where MeritTrac has developed tailor-made solutions of the various job roles that are being hired for with the guidance of subject matter experts from the industry.

CIOL: What are the key parameters of Merittrac's Skill Assesment?

MP:
While domain expertise is one aspect of efficient evaluation, the other side involves the possession of functional skills. Many of the front end functions, especially in an industry like BFSI require aptitude towards sales and customer orientation. These skills might seem hard to evaluate but thorough research by MeritTrac on job roles, customer expectations and psychology has managed to break down these skills on understandable parameters, which can be mapped through assessments. Specialized functional tests have been developed by MeritTrac's team to evaluate not just aptitude to these functions but also level of proficiency in these functions