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Technical HeartIn a previous life as a director of a metal company, I encountered many recruiters who could tell about a candidate but could not really judge their profession other than relying on colleagues and degrees. An assessment works well to determine intelligence and work attitude but cannot indicate whether that structural engineer is a draftsman, fabricator or designer. These are very different functions and are determined by such things as understanding strength and drive technology and demonstrating creative ingenuity. By the technical heart. For an engineer, an elegant construction is sometimes quite different from a designer and vice versa. I always looked for people who were striving for that one elegant solution in their own field and then started designing and administering the tests myself. After all, capable and self-directed colleagues meant for me the freedom to build the company.
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Selecting with subject tests went through trial and error, like any learning path, but did bring together after a few years a team that came up with award-winning solutions in design prowess and managed to balance process certainty and innovation beautifully. For each new position in the company, we eventually created a test taken from our own practice and were able to gain insight into what that candidate could do rather than what they could tell us about it. The simplest test was for a new secretary/web marketing assistant, all 5 candidates holding a Schoevers degree and good references: After the interview, write a brief summary, and then again in English. Chaff and wheat separated immediately: of the 5, 3 immediately dropped out on sentence structure and spelling, and of the last two, one had written a razor-sharp but friendly observation following the interview. The latter I enjoyed working with for years!
When I came in contact with Maarten Smits van Ooyen and joined Xentys as a consultant, he turned out to use a similar approach in his field : procurement and supply chain. Thus, we are now building this unique way of evaluating candidates based on actual real-life cases. This allows us to deliver much better what the customer really needs. And the candidates? They sometimes get a shock when they are technically “sawed through” but find afterwards that it is a very fair way of selecting.
If you have any questions based on this blog, please contact: maarten.smitsvanoyen@xentys.nl
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