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Review Of Kenexa, Supercandidate, Brainbench & Articulate

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It is a known fact that any useful HR department or employment agency have tools to test a persons skill set. This could be a practical skill, technical skill or behavioral skill. However, has time changes, a flexible HR department or employment selection agency, will need to move forward with more powerful technologies that help them further in their area of expertise, candidate selection! In the early 90s online filtering was not really appreciable and the technologies employed were generally a database full of resumes from which to select people for possible interview.

Late in the 90s LMS (Learning Management Systems) broke like wildfire and many corporate firms started to see the logic in a organized approach to employee training, recruitment and retention.

As the 90s went by and the Internet started to reach a larger audience, many of the firms being reviewed were formed to try and offer solutions to firms from an outsourced net solution. These firms continue to improve products with technology and these firms reviewed are no different. However here is our review of their current state of play and how you could benefit from reading the review and finding which one suits your corporate or small business environment.

We reviewed several factors that are to our opinion ( Having worked both in HR and employment in large industries), very important in choosing the best tool for you.

The factors were:

Price.

Ease of use

Features against uses

Integration to your own platform

Server based storage, result notification and record filtering

Some of these features are easily comparable while others have variations that make it more difficult to quantitatively give you a clear result. When this happens, explanations will be around the similarities or differences from a customers hiring and practical perspective.

PRICE

As price is an important factor we discuss it here. Obviously people tend to gauge this first before feature looking at what is under the hood.

A cost comparison was created based on what might typically happen with a job post on the internet ( where 99% of firms now actually post jobs). Please note we stated one job post. Obviously you will need to multiply that by the number of jobs you target each month to get a realistic estimate of your actual costs.

So for the one job, what was done, was the actual cost of running similar test platforms over a period of a month using the minimum of 50 tests. This would be a fair representation of just one job placement that a HR or employment firm with approximately 50 possible applicants. Again this may be very conservative to the number of people who reply to your job posts but let us use it for reference sake.

Testing Firm Cost

Kenexa Proveit $1250 for 50 tests

Supercandidate $29.99 for unlimited tests

Brainbench $2500 for 50 tests

Articulate $499

Comparing these price factors, we see that Kenexas Proveit is the most expensive while Supercandidate is the least expensive by over 97%. This could make a major difference to who can afford the services. Overall Supercandidate is significantly less then any of the others reviewed. We will go into further detail about features shortly to see if that has relevance to pricing.

Ease of Use

When looking at ease of use, we took into consideration:

The GUI (Graphic User Interface)

Learning curve time.

In looking at the GUI we found that only Supercandidate had a built in video tutorial which allowed for step by step learning. The other three did not have this so the learning curve increased. With Proveit and Brainbench, we found that the dashboard was often confusing with many features leading to places that left us confused. This definitely could do with a training session which is offered by the firm at an additional cost.

Articulate was the hardest of all to understand as you needed to have experienced Adobe Flash style products before to easily work with the interface. Our opinion is, that someone without that knowledge would have to spend about 2 days to learn this product.

Features against Uses

This is a very important factor as it determines exactly how the products will benefit you in the real world. Having worked with HR and recruitment, we understand that there are many products out there with so many features to impress. However like many software products, you only really use certain features which work productively for you.

Proveit, Brainbench and Supercandidate offer the most number of useful features, such as premade test banks of Relevant tests, easy reporting features essential to fast decision making. Provit and Brainbench offered some more tests but we found that many were not relevant to the majority of users. Supercandidate offered direct access to create own questions which technically meant that you could add, remove and integrate your own questions in. This is ideal for customizing any job spec. This made this product more relevant for practical use as by integrating your own questions, you could keep up to date with any skill you choose making its test making limitless.

Articulate and Supercandidate offer the most media integration, allowing for video, sound and various media files such as image files, pdf documents(Supercandidate). These you can add directly to the questions. As the age of video integration is here with large bandwidth being the norm ( as seen by the likes of popular sites e.g. YouTube), it offers greater accuracy in job areas that require in-depth skills knowledge, these two products really shine above the others here. Of the two, we think that Supercandidate approach of browse click integration, rather then add to interface using a menu and several steps offered by Articulate, makes it the preferred choice for the majority of users, who look for ease of use and fast integration.

Provit, and Articulate offer the most question types, e.g. multiple choice, true false, checkbox. Now this initially seems an obvious reason for choice. However consider this, 85% of firms and institutions use the standard multiple choice format above all else, so it is likely that you can easily get by asking questions in that format and be well respected in your questioning techniques. If you compare price, the amount you pay is significant for these other question types even though the majority of tests will not need them. Besides tools like Supercandidate offer other options to create those question types using its strong media integration features.

For example, if you use the integrated media types such as a word doc, or jpeg, you can literally add whatever question feature you want. For example you ask a question that requires several answers (typical of a checkbox answer), you could open up your MS word doc and type in the different variations upload that to the question to offer a question that asks them to choose which set of options is best similarly you could have created a image file to do this.

Integration to your own customer facing platform

Kenexas Proveit, Articulate and Brainbench do not allow you to host the tests directly from your site. For example you will still have to send your clients to their site for the test e.g. provit2/acme (say if your name was acme). Not very professional for branding purposes.

Supercandidate does offer the testing platform to be integrated to the clients own site with a small charge associated. So if you are Acme company , it integrates straight to your site e.g. acme/testarea

This consideration is needed for those who want to keep applicants on their own site rather then going to another companys website. It also portrays the firm as a bigger firm due to the cost associated with such technologies which only the largest of firms can afford.

Server based storage, result notification and record filtering of results

All the products reviewed offered some sort of storage based setup. However not all storage are the same. While Supercandidate, Proveit and Brainbench offer tests based on their limits:

Supercandidate unlimited assessments including premade assessments Provit 900 assessments Brainbench 600 assessments

Articulate allows up to a maximum of 100 assessments.

With respect to result notification all firms offer instant notification of results to the administrator. On this review only Supercandidate, automated a serialized certificate to the test taker if they passed.

The record filtering is key to many who want to administer tests as it is the reason for the tests to see how someone performed in tangible ways.

All products offer filters. Proveit and Benchmark offer many unnecessary filters, where single tasks are broken down into several report formats. Supercandidate offers by group, by individual test results, with simple point and click methods.

All products offer CSV export features of the data on the online reporting point. Supercandidate and Proveit allow full data transfer to even email accounts.

A key reporting feature we believe is important for the HR person is based around reducing time. All of the products help HR and employment agencies reduce time by using tests to eliminate unqualified candidates. However, only Supercandidate takes into consideration that a live person does not always sit at their desk and has other things to do. For this they offer Cell Phone notification, which actually rings your cell when the best candidate is matched. You just head back to your desk and then call them up.

This is a very practical approach to free you from your desk and get on with other client calls, visits etc

Conclusion

Well our review looked at what we believe is key areas based on our 15 years working with HR, recruitment and the I.T industry related to the area of candidate selection. These 4 tools can definitely give you a step up in making sure you reduce time spent from tracking a candidate to placing one to a firm job.

Proveit and Brainbench seem to offer too little for those who want value for their money while utilizing a filter that will meet much of their needs. They have some fancy assessments but neither allows you to create your own tests or add to theirs. Any customization costs you even more if actually allowed.

Important features such as video and sound will play a more dominant role in tomorrows candididate selection as bandwidth increases and some features that were impossible outside face to face interviews, are now available to us via these elements. Both Supercandidate and Articulate allow these features.

Supercandidates cost of at least 90% less then all others, understanding of the need for quick learning, forward thinking features such as video in questions or cell phone notification on the go make this a really worthwhile product.

There is very little compromise with Supercandidate for those who want a effective filter to reach 95% of applicant testing. For this reason, we recommend the newer, more robust technology offered by Supercandidate Inc for the majority of users thinking of adding prescreening, or selection technology to their recruitment process. Also if you currently are using other forms, its time for an upgrade, especially when you are likely to heavily reduce your downtime and current spend.

Give Facility Maintenance Software A Try For Solving Your Maintenance Issues

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There are several organizations that face maintenance problems on every day to day basis. There are several firms that use a completely fledged Facility Maintenance Software for his or her organizational desires. There are those who are continuously on the lookout for brand new strategies to form a corporation additional economical and effective. To extend the productivity overall you would like to try and do plenty of things to form your business run higher. Facility Maintenance Management happens to be a awfully necessary a part of running a business. Therefore, finding a decent Facility Maintenance software too is very important to keep up and run the business as a whole.

Some of the features of Facility Maintenance software are –

1.When it comes to cost facility maintenance software beats no other. You no longer have any reason to worry about renewal fees, registration fees or subscription fees. You will usually have to make an initial deposit and pay for the software, but it will be very cheap in the long run. Many Facility Maintenance software are free and easy to download as well.

2.Facility Maintenance Software are simple to install and use as well. It does not require any kind of specific training to use, neither is it too complicated to use. Facility Maintenance software requires a lot of data work that can go on for days and days together. With these types of software, the work is made easier and can be completed hassle free within a short time.

3.Depending on your type of business, you can get a good facility maintenance software. Be it a small, medium or big sized business, it is useful for one and all. Any company that has a lot of assets will need a facility maintenance software to take care of all these needs.

4.Return on investment can be seen within few months. There are only few software in the world that can give you instant results and a facility maintenance software is one of them.

These features should show you exactly how well a facility maintenance software reaches out and what its importance in the modern business is.

Why you need cloud project management software for your company

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Cloud project management is becoming quite popular to entrepreneurs since they realize the usefulness of storing information in the cloud. To make this more useful, it is advisable to invest in management tools found in the browser. Your company can receive all sorts of services from these applications, like managing customer relation, tracking the project and many other such management features that your enterprise needs in order to ensure that the projects are being completed within time and fits the budget. There are several types of project management software which are capable of managing resource pools and developing resource estimation. Project Object is a company of repute in this matter. >

Project Object offers a cloud based model of project management. One of the key factors that make the company unique in this field is that if you are using it, you have the opportunity to choose the deployment of the system based on your requirements. One of the best Cloud Project Management Software that has come out of the Project Object stable is the Progressive Project Management.

Progressive project management (PPM): This approach makes managing of the project easier. There are certain noteworthy advantages of this approach.

1.Flexibility: Projects Objects’ modular system can be flexible depending on the need and budget of the client. Moreover the system can be updated later to fit into your increasing demands. At the same time it is strong enough to support even a big system.

2.Deployment Options: to suit the customer’s need, there are two types of deployment of this model

There is the traditional on premise implementation which allows your organization to leverage your own data center and deploy the suit internally.

Also there is a demand-subscription based system to avoid all deployment as well as maintenance costs.

In addition, this suite also offers collaboration and sharing tools. The Projects Object is build keeping in mind your need to get returns for your investment. Therefore, it also helps you in resource utilization maximization and planning resource needs.

About the Company

Projects Objects is a software solutions provider. Founded in 2006 in Ireland and figuring in the magic quadrant of Gartner for IT Project and Portfolio management, the company offers a platform which is designed completely with you in mind. As you grow this flexible and scalable platform will grow with you fulfilling all your project portfolio management needs.

Project Objects is one of the best software development company of business world. It has expert development team for designing highly advance and reliable Project Portfolio Management and Program Management Software financial planning as per your requirements. Click here to get more information PPM Solution.

The Truth About Home Based Medical Transcription Work

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Here are the truths about medical transcription that you can use as a guide if you are thinking of going into this industry and taking up proper medical transcription training.

1. The medical transcription sector is growing.
This is true. Along with the global increase in demand for health care services, the transcription sector is also growing. As more and more patients require proper health care, the efficient recording and retrieval of patient’s records, analysis and doctor recommendations is becoming more critical to performing fast and accurate service. This caused an increase in demand for well trained medical transcriptionists.
Since technology is the primary platform when doing transcription tasks (connected computers and data access and retrieval), it can be performed in any location as long as those who perform the transcription have fast and dependable way to receive audio recordings, process the recordings to text format and send it back to the source of the audio recordings.
This gives rise to work at home transcriptionists who have dependable internet connection, fast computers at home, and have the necessary transcription equipments.

2. You don’t need to become a certified medical transcriptionist.
At present, a valid certificate is not yet a government mandated requirement when applying for medical transcription job though it is ideal to get certified since it will add to your reputation. On most occasions hospitals and companies hiring medical transcriptionists won’t even ask if you are or not a certified medical transcriptionist. What matters most is you have the proper training and appropriate work experience.

3. Medical Transcription Job requires specialized knowledge.
Some people may say that performing a transcription task is easy and won’t require proper knowledge or can be easily learned. This is wrong. The truth is a transcription jobs require specialized knowledge. Sure, using a computer and word processing software is easy but that doesn’t mean you can easily adapt to the language used by doctors. Converting the audio recordings to its text equivalent will require a working knowledge of all the medical terms, procedures and human anatomy. Most of the audio to be transcribed will contain medical abbreviations, and the transcriptionist is required to understand these abbreviations and medical terms.

4. You need proper education.
Similar to what I mentioned above, a transcription job will require specialized knowledge. So, if you are really thinking of starting a career in this industry then be prepared to take formal training. Proper education is required when you’ve decided to start a transcription career and presently you have two options for training. One is to take the training online (which will allow you to study at your own pace at the comfort of your house). Online training usually take up to 8 months to 1 year. If you want classroom interaction then you can apply for an on-campus training which on average will take you up to two years to finish.

5. Medical Transcription is not a get rich quick scheme.
Just to make sure that we are on the same page, keep in mind that a transcription job is not a get rich quick scheme.
So if on your search for a medical transcription job you bump into an ad that tells you how you can make money overnight with medical transcription even for those without experience and ask you to pay them for a list of where to apply, then it should turn-on a red light.
A medical transcription job is something you’ll have to study for or have years of experience doing before you can apply for available jobs or become a home based transcription professional.

Some important things related to document scanning software

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If you are still maintaining cabinets and boxes in your office to keep important documents then certainly you are spending more money on storage facilities than actually required. Apart from money it will also extract the valuable time of your staff in organizing paper documents. You should find out clever ways to make your company more efficient and utilize innovative techniques like document scanning software to make your company paperless. Although this technology was introduced nearly a decade ago, its popularity has grown by leaps and bounds in the recent years. Now even small businesses can upgrade their document processing tasks by hiring scanning services at a resonable rate.

This software will be helpful to any business that deals with a lot of paperwork since it easily converts hard copy into soft copy. The hard copies of documents are vulnerable to many dangerous elements, whereas the digital soft copies do not take much space in your server and can be secured with password protection for years. It is important to weigh the benefits of installing document scanning software before actually investing money into it. The company processing large number of documents will benefit the most as they would end up saving a great deal of money. Both small and large scale organizations will reap huge benefits by getting their documents scanned. Small scale organizations, though have very less volume of paper work, can take the help of this software to increase their productivity. On the other hand, large organizations have to deal with several thousand documents and hence they will get the maximum benefit. They will no longer need to rent commercial space, buy lots of paper and hire employees to supervise the files manually. Over a period of time you will realize that the benefit of installing scanning software will definitely outweigh the costs. Always keep in mind that any software meant for office use must be convenient and easy to use. Before making the purchase you should analyze the product properly. Make sure that it will be simple for your staff to operate all the functions.

When selecting document scanning software for your company, it is essential to ensure that people of employee of every age group is able to handle it. An organization will have different employees ranging from 25 years to 55 years of age. Unless all the employees are competent enough to use it, the purpose will not be served. Preferably, software must be so user-friendly so that anybody can operate it. Before taking the final decision, it is better if you undertake a test run. It will give you an idea about the type of knowledge required to manage the software. If your desired software needs constant, expensive upgradation then it will not be worth of your investment. Instead you can hire an outsourcing company to undertake your scanning requirements. Good software will offer long-term solutions that are ahead of its time.