Online assessment for corporate recruitment
In early 2020, the Gulf Transportation Company (GTC)* was midway through selecting its newest cohort of graduate applicants. GTC, based in Saudi Arabia, had just 50 vacant positions for which it had received over 2,000 applications. Candidates were spread across the world, with high volumes of applications received from students in UK, US and Saudi universities. Applicants were invited to fly to Riyadh to take a number of skill assessments (including an English test).
The Challenge: Testing during a pandemic
In March 2020, as GTC was planning the next in-person step in the selection process, the covid-19 pandemic struck. Flying 2,000 international applicants into Riyadh became impossible. GTC was faced with a dilemma: how to remotely yet accurately assess the English level of the applicants?
For obvious reasons, the test needed to be 100% online. It needed a CEFR output, which would accurately and reliably assess the applicants’ English level. Importantly, test administration had to be as easy as possible - GTC’s human resource team didn’t have the bandwidth to waste time on a complex admin system.
After seeking advice from the British Council Riyadh, GTC selected the Dynamic Placement Test (DPT).
Remote Testing Considerations
DPT runs on any device - laptop, desktop, tablet or mobile
GTC had two primary concerns. The first was on test security. How would applicants be prevented from cheating? Fortunately, the nature of DPT’s question types (sentence or dialogue reconstruction, word placement, etc.) coupled with a randomised and adaptive test design minimises the risk of cheating. Moreover, an ‘Anomaly Tracker’ flags up suspicious test-taker behaviour to administrators.
While test proctoring was also an option, the client decided that this wasn’t necessary - and DPT was as secure as it needed to be for this stage in the assessment process.
Test administration was GTC’s second concern. Already behind schedule, the team could not waste any time setting up the test or organising results. Here, the Admin Panel came to the rescue. The test administrator(s) would simply need to import test-takers’ email addresses from a spreadsheet, and the rest would be handled automatically. Applicants would automatically receive an email with all the test details, and results would be instantly available to view (or download) once they had completed the test.
Project Outcome
Satisfied that the Dynamic Placement Test addressed their testing concerns, GTC used it with its 2,007 applicants. The test ran smoothly, with 1,980 test-takers completing it successfully (27 applicants started the test but did not complete it); a technical success rate of 99.95%.
Key Takeaways
The GTC testing project is an excellent example of a perceived crisis bearing unexpected fruit. While the client only turned to remote testing in desperate circumstances, it ended up being a significant cost-saver. When the test incorporates security into its questions, clients don’t need to incur the expense of flying candidates in or costly invigilation. At just a few dollars per test, clients can focus their resources to where they are most needed.
That leads nicely to a final point: the importance of a simple and convenient administration process. Client teams typically don’t have the time to learn a complicated new system when they want to set up an assessment. The Admin Panel makes test administration as simple as possible.
Contact us if you have any questions or think the Dynamic Placement Test might be useful for your own recruitment and selection process.
This post is based on a presentation delivered by Andrew Stokes and Ian Cortez. You can read the full transcript by clicking here.
*We have used a fictitious name to preserve the anonymity of the client. All other details in this case study are accurate.