English Language Assessment
Picture the scene. Your company has just hired a new Customer Service Manager. You watch as a foreign guest approaches him with an issue, which the guest explains in English. Then, as you listen to your new manager’s answer, it’s clear he hasn’t understood what the guest said. Gradually, the guest becomes more frustrated and angry…
English language skills are a challenge in Asia – we all know that – but the fact remains that when your company interviews a new candidate for a role, it will have a choice to hire a candidate with good skills, with mediocre skills, or with poor skills. Which will it be?
Companies’ current hiring processes are failing them!
The reality is that most companies in Asia depend on one of three processes to check for English language skill capability. And each one leads to failure, as we shall see…
Process #1 Interview candidate with a local HR or manager.
Your first option is to interview the candidate with a local manager. While the person may have skills that you feel are ‘good enough’ for an English interview, we can guarantee that the interviewer will be confident enough himself or herself to be able to identify the critical skills required. Result – mishire!
Process #2 Interview candidate with an expatriate manager.
The second option is to interview with an expatriate manager. The problem here, unfortunately, is that the candidate can ‘go into a shell’ and not communicate at all for fear of losing face, also the expat manager will not have the skills, typically, to open up the candidate in the target language. Result – mishire!
Process #3 The good old ‘pen and paper’ test.
Option three is to test the candidate using a grammar test or suchlike. This may seem like a good idea (and convenient too), however the reality is that you company needs candidates who can make a presentation, resolve a customer complaint, or write an email in English to a supplier, not who are excellent in grammar! Result – mishire!
At last there’s a solution…
Let’s recap the checklist: you want…
- an assessment that is listening/speaking based, and assesses a candidate’s communication skills in English
- an assessment that gives a real level that immedately lets you know if the candidate can fulfil the job requirements of his or her new role, and…
- an assessment that can be carried out in your office or workplace, 24/7
…You’ve got it!
The Versant English language assessment offers all the above and, what’s more, at a highly affordable price.
Using tried-and-tested speech recognition technology, Versant is a must-have tool that makes sure you hire the candidates with the very best English language communication skills. All you need is a telephone.
Here’s how it works
Picture the scene again. Your candidate comes in for an interview. You interview him or her in the usual way for technical skills and role fit. Then, to check the candidate’s English language skills, you ask him or her to conduct the test at a telephone in your office…
…within 15 minutes it’s all over and you can print up a report with the candidate’s level and capability clearly shown (you can download a sample report here). It’s that easy!
Great! How do we start?
If you would like to find out how Versant can help you cut out the mishires and improve customer service and English language collaboration in your company, simply send us an email using the contact form here and we will reply with full details and pricing.
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