This is my honest review after enrolling in the free trial offered by the psychometric test provider TEST CANDIDATES.
Before the lock down due to the coronavirus, I was working towards starting a business school for children aged 6 to 14 in Nigeria called The Segilola Salami Preparatory School. I’d had a number of people apply to work at the school as a teacher or coach.
Apart from the initial information written on their application form, I needed a way to understand the applicants a bit better before shortlisting them for a face to face interview once the lock down was over.
After reviewing some of the search results I found, I opted to give TEST CANDIDATES a try as they offered a 14 day free trial.
My initial thoughts after creating my account
It was pretty much straight forward creating a job, creating a list of candidates then adding the job to the candidates’ profile.
I added myself as a candidate so that I could see what the questions where like.
I chose the 5 test options available is personality test, verbal reasoning, logical reasoning, situational judgement and numerical reasoning.
It was not very clear to me when setting up what the difficulty level was, so for the numeracy I opted for the foundation level. I didn’t need a maths genius.
When I undertook one of the tests, even though I’m good with maths, I felt the foundation questions were quite difficult for my needs.
Plus I could not find any information on how to assess the results when they came in.
Free trial was not really a free trial
When the results came in, I discovered that the dashboard only displayed 5 results and asked me to upgrade to see the remaining results.
This came as a shock to me because when I signed up, the offer was 14 day free trial with full access.
I had no choice but to write to them.
My conversation with Support at TEST CANDIDATES
Below are screenshots of my conversation with the support team at Test Candidates
Since my last email, I have received no further replies from this company.
Due to their false advertising, they have data that belongs to me and the only way I can access it is by paying for it. How can anyone trust a company that says one thing on their website but does something else in reality. Even if they recently changed their offer, as long as they had not changed the information on the website, then they have a duty to honour the terms written on their website.
I am disgusted by this company. They also conveniently ignored my question where I asked about understanding how to interpret the results as a whole.
My thoughts about their dashboard
You have three separate sections: Jobs, Candidates and Results
Jobs
When looking at the list of jobs on the dashboard, it only tells you the number of candidates you emailed. It does not tell you the number of people that completed the tests in full.
Candidates
When looking at the list of candidates on your dashboard, it only tells you what job you enrolled them for. It doesn’t tell you if they completed the tests in full. It only has a resend test option.
For my personal needs, this is where the platform lets me down completely.
I need to be able to click into each candidate to see their overall performance eg the date the test link was sent, the date the candidate completed each of the different tests and most importantly their results. Also, I need to be able to either print or save this information to store in the candidates file.
There’s no way to compare the candidates’ performance against each section of the test. I would have liked to be able to see at a glance the results in a table. This would have helped me see the best performing candidates.
Results
The results is reported as soon as a candidate completes a test segment. The result of each test segment per candidate I’ve been told equates to one credit.
According to the company, they offer five free credits. If you opt for all 5 segments of the test, then you can only see the results in full for one person.
In my opinion, this was intentional, so that you have to pay before noticing the flaw in their reporting (or not).
Slightly more results with the gesture of goodwill credits
Would I recommend TEST CANDIDATES | Psychometric test provider?
If you need a psychometric test provider that you can trust, then I do not recommend TEST CANDIDATES.
If you need a company with a dedicated customer service team, then I do not recommend them.
If you need a psychometric test provider dashboard that is built with the needs of the employer in mind, then I do not recommend them.
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That’s the end of my Review of TEST CANDIDATES | Psychometric test provider. I’m still on the lookout for a suitable psychometric test provider, so please leave a comment below if you know one.
