Across verticals, HR heads are grappling with the issue of tapping the 'right' kind of talent. Juxtaposed with this problem is that the number of the educated unemployed and under-employed youth in the country is rising alarmingly. Here's an innovative application aimed at overcoming the core issues responsible for this mis-match between industry needs and talent availability!

"I made my own assessment of my life, and I began to live it. That was freedom."
—Fernando Flores, a Chilean politician, engineer and serial entrepreneur

An innovation is often aimed at addressing a problem in the eco-system. Focusing single-mindedly on solving a particular issue invariably leads to the evolution of tools and technologies that have the power to challenge the status quo.

"There was a requirement for a tool that could assess the disparate, nation-wide human capital/talent against certain standardised benchmarks-acceptable to the corporate world at large. The realisation led to the creation of AMCAT." Himanshu Aggarwal, director, Aspiring Minds

When those at Aspiring Minds (AM) conceived the Aspiring Minds Computer Adaptive Test (AMCAT)-an 'intelligent' talent assessment tool-they also had a similar agenda. Himanshu Aggarwal, director, Aspiring Minds shares more: "If you look closely, a paradox exists within the industry-not only in the IT industry but in pretty much every vertical. On the one hand, the industry persistently complains about the dearth of skilled manpower, and on the other, an army of unemployed and under-employed youth in the country struggle to get jobs matching their skill-sets.

"We felt that a gap existed in the eco-system, which needed to be addressed in a scalable and efficient manner. There was a requirement for a tool that could assess the disparate, nation-wide human capital/talent against certain standardised benchmarks-acceptable to the corporate world at large. Furthermore, a platform was required where these assessment scores would be visible to recruiters any time, so as to enable them access to the large pool of available talent."

The realisation led to the creation of AMCAT. As the name suggests, AMCAT is a test that fresh graduates can take up, any time of the year, to get an assessment of how their skills compare against those required for different jobs in the market, explains Aggarwal. "This assessment is a standardised score, which is made transparent to all our clients on a portal. This way, the graduates get to highlight their skills to multiple companies and get the opportunities to land a job whenever they are shortlisted by our clients."

Multiple modes to reach a larger audience
AMCAT is a computer-based test, and can be delivered in both online and offline environments to ensure that no infrastructural challenge restricts its reach. Aggarwal says, "Although AM does have servers to deliver the test over the Web, due to infrastructure issues in campuses and remote parts of the country, the team thought it best to not rely only on the availability of the Internet and to come up with alternative ways to have the test conducted." A working computer is good enough to run the test, adds Aggarwal.

AMCAT delivery platforms Over the Web: Suitable for good, reliable connectivity, like in corporate environments. As a LAN (local area network) application: "We have laptops that act like assessment servers, which are highly secure, encrypted environments providing the complete assessment framework. We plug these laptops in the LAN network of a college lab and the test becomes available across the college lab. The laptop acts like the server and ensures that all the assessment details are captured on the server. These servers are then connected to the Internet to synchronise with our primary servers to upload data and generate detailed feedback. This LAN method of conducting the test is used extensively," explains Aggarwal. As a stand alone PC application: This is a truncated form of the test that can be installed on a standalone PC and the PC can then deliver the test. "This is not used extensively but in rare situations. The test application has more than enough content to dynamically deliver questions as per the user response. Again, the data from the PC application is captured and uploaded to the Internet using any available PC," says Aggarwal.

Intelligence embedded
Aggarwal shares details related to the mechanism that makes the test dependable, scalable and dynamic in real-time: "The product is based on the item-response-theory (IRT), an advanced statistical theory in educational measurement that makes the test adaptive and leak-proof. "IRT provides a framework to build mathematical models for questions vis-a-vis their difficulty, discrimination power and the guess probability," tells Aggarwal. These algorithms estimate the candidate's ability after delivering every question and then provide a question with a difficulty level close to the estimated ability of the candidate. The test automatically ‘content-balances' and makes sure that the candidate gets the appropriate number of questions from each sub-section. "This allows a very accurate candidate assessment, with the final score depending on how hard a question the candidate answered correctly," says Aggarwal.

Another important aspect of the tool is the delivery and MIS (management information system) framework, which manages end-to-end delivery. This includes candidate registration, test delivery, result and feedback dispatch and finally the transfer of candidate scores on the Aspiring Mind's corporate portal with shortlisting and candidate-contact facilities.

Through another of AM's products, TalentMap, candidate scores are mapped against the criteria specified by the various registered companies. The application then shares leads with companies registered with AM on the resources that match their requirements. Candidates, on the other hand, are informed about jobs that they can apply for and where their chances of being selected are relatively higher.

The challenges, and the way forward
At the outset, AM faced the serious challenge of validating a concept that had not been tried anywhere in the world. Says Aggarwal, "There was resistance from companies, campuses and students. No one believed such a model could work. While AM proved its model on a small scale, the next challenge was operational scalability." Ensuring the robustness of the AMCAT platform was a must.

But the real challenges were technical and came from the environment in which the tests were deployed and conducted, shares Aggarwal. "These were typically virus ridden computer labs of the different educational campuses, with uncertain hardware and flaky networks. Our assessment delivery technology had to be adapted to meet and overcome these challenges," he adds.

AMCAT shares feedback too! AMCAT's artificial intelligence engine develops the logic to generate feedback for each candidate. This includes a detailed seven-page feedback report that is shared with each of the candidates. The report includes nationwide percentiles, individual feedback at the module and sub-module level, pointers to improve skills, corporate sector matching according to the candidate's ability, and also tips on aspects like time management, etc, says Aggarwal.

The hardware that powers the application includes multiple enterprise-class servers, deployed in data centres, to maintain 100 per cent availability of assessments, for data management and data retrieval, says Aggarwal. "The challenge has been to manage the vast volumes of data being collected in a variety of methods, pan-India, through relevant automated and manual sanity checks, " he adds.

The content of the tests is sourced through a panel of experts from academia, such as Dr Vidya Kulkarni and Dr Shashi Khurana from the University of Delhi, Dr Maneesha Gupta from NSIT, etc. "An internal quality assurance team reviews the content based on inputs received from the industry survey about the skills that various verticals are looking for, and also for stylistic and grammatical correctness," says Aggarwal.

Revenue model
As regards the price point at which the service is made available to candidates and corporations, Aggarwal says: "Candidates can take the test at a nominal price of Rs 300 and there are no other hidden costs. With companies, we work on a per-offer basis, where they pay us every time they select a candidate."

"We charge a substantially lower fee than consultants do to enable a large set of companies to hire candidates, comfortably. This is a great proposition for start-ups and SMEs in particular, since with little effort they can access the best of students, interview them at their premises and make offers," he adds.

Going forward
So far, the AMCAT has been taken up by more than 35,000 students across 12 states in India, says Aggarwal. "AMCAT is the largest test for employability in the country. We have been very successful in building a rapport with the industry with the HR gurus in companies like HCL Technologies, Mphasis, EDS, ICICI, Godrej, Microsoft Research India, SKS Microfinance, etc," he adds.

On the campus side, AM has built relations with many educational institutions, including Delhi College of Engineering, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Banasthali Vidyapeeth, NIT Allahabad, Kurukshetra University, and over 250 other campuses, shares Aggarwal.

Aggarwal believes that it's not just the technological superiority of a product that plays a role in the success of a start-up but also the strategy that it adopts to reach its target segment. He shares: "The team believes in first making people understand its core value proposition and gets endorsements from thought leaders to then create mass appeal through activities, such as sponsoring HR seminars, events, organising placement seminars, etc." AM also uses the Internet extensively for brand promotion, he adds.

Aspiring Minds' timeline * May 2007: The idea for AMCAT germinates * August 2007: Aspiring Minds was set up * November 2007: Beta AMCAT piloted * January 2008: Final AMCAT launched

AM is investing continuously in research to come up with innovations. The dedicated R&D team is continuously working on new product ideas to serve AM's broad vision-which is to create credible assessment products for multiple business verticals including IT, ITeS, BFSI, pharma, infrastructure, manufacturing, etc, says Aggarwal. "A matrix of assessment, delivery and process tools will ensure the relevance of our products across verticals, rapidly," he adds.

Now, even though AM has only been in business for a little over two years, it comes across as a firm led by an articulate and confident team that knows the relevance of adding new dimensions to its products portfolio as well as business model.

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