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Education Plus
Assessing skills can improve employability
Assessment has become the keyword in the corporate industry. It has become an integral part of the selection process. As skill levels go up, it has become imperative for companies to conduct skills tests before recruitment in order to ensure quality, says Madan Padaki, Co-Founder and Director of MeritTrac Services, a skills assessment company, based in Bangalore.
220;Until a few years ago, assessment was seen as a luxury by most companies. But, now, it has become a necessity,” Mr. Padaki adds. Skills, which would otherwise have gone unnoticed, can be leveraged and channelised towards the company’s benefits.
About 1.25 lakh candidates take assessment tests in the country a month. Awareness on assessment among employers and candidates has grown phenomenally from what it was when the company was formed seven years ago, he says.
The Information Technology and Information Technology Enabled Services sectors use this assessment system extensively to ascertain quality of manpower. Engineering, banking and financial services, manufacturing and retailing sectors, pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors too are increasingly taking to assessment of employees as well as in pre-recruitment stages.
Employers feel that interviews alone are not scalable and don’t offer a complete understanding of the capability of the candidate. The scientifically-designed assessment tests span over communication skills, general abilities, domain knowledge (including technology tests) and personality profiling. These tests are delivered both online and offline across several cities in India. The company has a large network of online testing centres in the country, including tier II and tier III cities, where the candidate can walk in and take the tests, Mr.Padaki says.
Employability is a huge issue for colleges and universities. The assessment tests give students a detailed feedback on where they stand pertaining to various skill sets. Candidates can improve their employability by identifying the areas where they need to work on.
MeritTrac is the assessment partner to the Governments of Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa and West Bengal for talent pool enhancement programmes. It also partners with several academic institutions such as Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum, for assessing their students on industry-readiness.
It is also partnering with NASSCOM for NAC-Tech, a skills assessment programme for engineering students who want to enter the IT industry. The programme will evaluate candidates on their communication skills, technical skills and analytical abilities.
ANASUYA MENON
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