Best of the Web: Testing Recruits, Net-Style

A host of Web sites test such things as programming and accounting skills. Ten CEOs say which sites are most worthwhile.

By September of this year Steve Linton had lined up half a dozen prospects for jobs at his company. Linton oversees recruiting at On!contact, a maker of customer-relationship-management software in Cedarburg, Wis. He's the first to admit that his knowledge of computer-programming languages like Java is limited. Still, Linton had to hire people who had the Java skills to help On!contact expand its Web site's capability. To determine the applicants' technical competence, Linton says, he needed an expert to verify that he was "on the right track" with the people he was considering.

He might have turned to a traditional testing outfit, the sort that dispatches a tester to an employer's office and screens job applicants in person. Instead, he picked ReviewNet Corp., which conducts tests entirely online in, among other things, JavaScript development. A few years ago, of course, no online alternative would have been available. Today, however, a variety of Web-based companies compete in the skills-testing market. To test the testers, Inc. asked a panel of 10 CEOs to evaluate five of the most prominent sites, which measure ability in a range of tasks from complex programming to spelling.

As for Linton, he describes himself as a satisfied ReviewNet customer -- not surprising, perhaps, given that Inc. asked his opinion at the testing company's suggestion. Yet before Linton and On!contact's vice-president of technology, Sam Vaynshtok, had settled on ReviewNet, they had spent two weeks shopping for a skills-testing service.

Linton had quickly ruled out the traditional brick-and-mortar companies. "Online testing makes it really easy," he says. "If a candidate has a computer and Internet access, he can take the test from the comfort of his own home, and I don't have to send the tests back and forth for processing. It's a matter of convenience."

What's lost in the online version, say the companies that test in person, is a measure of security and some sophisticated test features that they can offer but that many Web sites can't because of bandwidth constraints. During an online exam, "you'll never know exactly who is sitting in front of that computer," notes Mark Savery, the product-development director at OPAC, a testing-software company based in Sacramento, Calif.

If there's a common denominator among online sites, it's their emphasis on computer-skills testing. Among the five sites reviewed by our CEOs, ReviewNet is in a class by itself: its focus is entirely on information-technology skills. The other sites gauge not only clerical skills but, in some cases, knowledge of everything from accounting to medical terms.

Linton could have paid as little as $10 a pop for a basic computer-programming test that was available on one IT-skills-testing site, but he decided to spring for ReviewNet's $50-a-test offer. ReviewNet won out, he says, because he thought its test was more comprehensive and because he liked an unusual feature on the site that asked a series of questions to plumb a candidate's confidence and personality.

Payment schedules vary from testing site to testing site. Brainbench, too, charges $50 a test. Webvaluate.com, a site run by Presenting Solutions, typically collects $25 a test for each applicant but also can require a $250 annual fee for customized service. Prove It charges $25 a test, plus a $99 onetime initiation fee. AssessNet offers its tests for a bargain-basement average price of $5 apiece, although at the time of the reviews it had only sample tests available online.

Two of the sites -- AssessNet and Brainbench -- provided free access either to sample questions or to entire tests. To get our CEOs entrÉe to the tests of ReviewNet and Prove It, which don't make sample questions available without a password, we arranged for our judges to register with aliases so that they wouldn't receive special treatment. The fifth site, Webvaluate, asks its customers to call a sales rep to arrange for a demo test, which our CEOs did.

Once you're a customer, all logged on and signed in, which of the five sites is most able to help you in assessing a job applicant's skills? Here's what our CEOs had to say.

www.assessnet.com
What it's good for: Clear graphics and layout. One CEO praised the site's "simple screens that aren't overloaded with information."
Don't waste your time if: You're interested in previewing a lot of tests online. There's only a limited number of sample tests available for browsers.
What our CEOs had to say: The site needs to provide better descriptions of its products. The choices are "not properly summarized," said one CEO. Another criticized the site because the navigation bar appeared only on the home page.
What you ought to know: This spring four-year-old AssessNet introduced its first prepackaged (and less expensive) tests. However, only sample tests were available online at the time of our panelists' inquiry, which might explain why some of the CEOs found the site confusing and limited.

www.brainbench.com
What it's good for: A wide range of tests and good descriptions of the contents. "They had current tests, and the questions were well written," one reviewer commented.
Don't waste your time if: You want a sense of human warmth. One CEO suggested that the site "could use more of a human touch with pictures and graphics."
What our CEOs had to say: The site offers a large variety of tests and is easy to navigate. "The tests were quite challenging, and it was easy to register and take a test" is how one panelist put it. However, one reviewer disagreed, saying that the "navigation could be consolidated and the descriptions much more concise."
What you ought to know: Brainbench seeks individual customers as well as companies. It encourages individuals to take tests at their own initiative, obtain certifications, and post rÉsumÉs on the site. The test results are posted in an online database, which companies can search for a fee. The strategy has attracted some big investors: Thomson Learning and Manpower have poured millions of dollars into Brainbench.

www.proveit.com
What it's good for: Good sample tests. One CEO remarked, "You got a feel of how it actually would work using their site if you purchased their services." He also liked the format in which the scores were returned to prospective employers.
Don't waste your time if: You're looking to show candidates a personal touch. One panelist thought the site "had big-company, autocratic overtones. The administrator can configure the setup to get test results and not provide them back to the test taker. That's just not our style."
What our CEOs had to say: The reviewers liked the site's layout. "It was a professional Web site visually, it was acceptably easy to use, and the number and variety of tests seemed exceptional," one CEO said.
What you ought to know: Prove It is a product of Know It All, which in turn is a division of TalentPoint, a well-established recruiting and training company based in Wayne, Pa. Know It All and TalentPoint merged in March and have filed for an initial public offering.

 1 | 2  NEXT