Unlocking engineering potential

Adam Hartles, a Technical Services Manager with Solid Solutions Management for over 18 years, oversees a team focused on professional services. His team specifically handles post-sales support, training, and consultancy services.

Their recruitment strategy centers heavily on attracting placement students, a pipeline Adam himself benefited from early in his career.

“I actually started with the company as a placement student, which is a lot of what our recruitment revolves around. We do go out to industry and hire more senior people, but I would say on an annual basis if, let's say, we take on 15 staff members. Ten of those could be on the junior end of the scale. We like to help people develop their skills.”

Subjective scoring leaves many skilled candidates behind

Solid Solutions Management hires year-round for various roles, including customer support engineers, help desk engineers, solution architects, and pre-sales.

It also uses targeted recruitment campaigns at specific times of the year to find promising graduates and placement students who can be trained in these positions.

Adam’s team uses a three-step process to screen these candidates.

When applications come in, multiple members will review them together, keeping track of candidates' performance in spreadsheets. If an applicant seems suitable, they're invited for a virtual interview.

Those who pass the interview stage are invited to take a company-administered assessment. Before using TestGorilla, the team relied on quizzes and other subjective measures to assess technical skills. The lack of standardization made it difficult to compare candidates’ scores objectively.

There was a real sense that talented applicants might be slipping through the cracks simply because different assessors interpreted answers differently.

TestGorilla helps Solid Solutions Management understand candidates’ abilities

After searching for a tool that could provide a more objective and adaptable way to test candidates’ technical skills, the team found TestGorilla.

They were initially drawn to the platform’s versatility and affordable pricing plans. Following a brief validation period, during which the team attempted various job-related tests to check their relevance and accuracy, they switched to science-backed talent assessments.

Adam identified several product features that particularly appealed to hiring managers at Solid Solutions Management.

• He was impressed by the integrity of the tests. Because TestGorilla shows hiring managers an overview of results rather than specific answers to test questions, hiring managers get an unbiased view of the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses.

• The secure question bank also prevents the possibility of leaked answers, which ensures the assessments are as fair and objective as possible.

• The DISC personality test has proved particularly useful for evaluating candidates at the final interview. Hiring managers can refer back to the results from the assessment and compare them to how people present themselves in person.

• The ability to adjust the weightage of tests within an assessment based on their relevance to the role helps the team understand which candidates are best suited for a particular position.

• Besides technical skills, Solid Solutions Management could identify critical soft skills like communication, problem-solving, and work ethic.

For Adam, the key to unlocking TestGorilla's full benefits was understanding how to craft an assessment that suited Solid Solution Management’s particular needs.

“We liked the change of pace with open-ended essay questions in the middle of the assessment, which allows people to go from logical problem-solving to something that is a bit more self-reflective. And at the end, they do the DISC profile, where there's no real right or wrong answer.”

New hires are successful and stay with the company

TestGorilla has significantly enhanced Solid Solutions Management’s recruitment.

Standardized talent assessments give them the confidence to cast a wider net at the initial screening stage. Later in the funnel, they have solid data to compare against opinions formed during the virtual interview.

These insights are essential for a company that emphasizes hiring potential and developing employees throughout their tenure.

By bringing in quantitative measures and streamlining other parts of the hiring process, Adam’s team can make effective selection decisions.

The result is an overall higher caliber of applicants at every stage of the recruitment cycle and a clear improvement in new hire retention rates, especially for graduate and placement student roles. 

Of the candidates screened through Test Gorilla, all those hired by Solid Solutions are still with the business today. 

The success rate is even higher for placement students who have gone through the TG process; 95% of those have been offered full-time roles after graduation.

TestGorilla has also added transparency to Solid Solutions Management’s hiring, as managers can use assessment results to provide precise feedback to candidates.

"We can go back to candidates legitimately with feedback and point out the areas that they struggle and where they excel, which is good. It's not just the opinion of the assessors now."

Test for potential, hire for proven skills with TestGorilla

Resumes may offer a glimpse into a candidate's background but don't always reveal the whole picture. Talent assessments provide a deeper understanding of each applicant's abilities. TestGorilla can help you assess a candidate's technical and soft skills, ensuring they possess the expertise needed to thrive in your organization.