Site changes, new navigation

We've rolled out a bunch of changes to our site and particularly the main navigation. The main navigation has been reorganized (in groups) to hopefully make moving around the site a little more clear.

There are also some new sections/pages on our site like a Job Seekers page and a place to read previous issues of the TalentOyster Newsletter.

This is just the first step of navigation and look and feel changes we are making. Quite soon we will be updating the look and feel of the "headers" (that is the part of the page above the navigation bar) and rolling out a new splash page. Our overall goal is to help make the different parts of TalentOyster including the Job Board, Connect, Campus and Employers clear and distinct. If you have any feedback on the changes so far as always please let us know.

Introducing TalentOyster Campus

We're pleased to announce the launching of a new Beta feature of our site, TalentOyster Campus. As the name implies, this section of the TalentOyster site is geared towards students.

In it's initial setup TalentOyster Campus is a job board that features just student suitable jobs and intern postings. We will be expanding TalentOyster Campus over time, adding content speaking to the needs and issues of international students as well as newcomers who are looking to get their Canadian careers on the right path. Eventually we hope to have enough interest to justify splitting TalentOyster Campus into two micro-sites, one focused on students and another on interns. But we think our current start is an important step in the right direction of having specific content, features and jobs focused on the needs of these groups.

Be sure to check it out and tell us what you think.

Additionally non-profit agencies who have internships available should contact us regarding having them posted on TalentOyster Campus.

TalentOyster JobBadge Customizer

So following up on previous posts about the TalentOyster JobBadge we've created a simple page to help you create custom badges yourself.

Just to recap quickly the TalentOyster JobBadge lets's you display a real-time, auto-refreshing, widget-list of current opportunities on TalentOyster on your site. You can see the badge in action on the right of this blog.

Now this page wil help you create your own badge. Just set a few configuration buttons to choose your badge size, language, colours and number of jobs and click a button and you'll be able to see a preview of your job badge. Also the source code you need for integrating the badge on to your site is automatically generated for your custom badge and you can just copy and paste it right into your site.

So check out the customizer at http://www.talentoyster.com/servlets/TalentOysterBadge

Assessing Assessment : with a diversity spin

An ERE blog entry that PolyPlacements tweeted about reminded me of a bunch of discussions I have taken part in recently about assessment tools in the job board world.

I think you can make a strong case that fully-automated assessment tools are the holy grail of technology when it comes to recruiting and hiring. And yet nobody really seems to have the answer. Why is that?

One point of view, as is found in the aforementioned blog post, is that the tests themselves are to blame. Well. Okay. But I think the problem is more fundamental than that. The biggest hurdle I see is that in order to have effective tests you need a system that can objectively measure subjective answers but that's a difficult proposition from both a language and computer science perspective.

So to step back and explain what I mean. In order to have an automated (at least partially) assessment tool you need to be able to "score" the answers that the test user gives. The problem comes in designing questions (and a response mechanism) that be objectively measured. In the end most of these questions end being no better than "Do you have 5 years experience with X? Yes/No" which fails in multiple ways. The most obvious way it fails is a dishonest user who replies yes to every question. But the problem is worse than that as well because it doesn't properly capture the honest person who has 4 years and 6 months experience. Or the person who didn't really understand the question but has the relevent experience. Etc.

I am of the belief that at a certain point you have to accept that you won't be able to detect users with malicious intent purely through software. But that's okay because there are other aspects of the hiring process, like background and reference checking, that are intended to deal with these sorts of problems and frankly do it well. So I think one needs to focus on improving the process so that you aren't filtering out good candidates too early in the process.

These kinds of issues are especially relevant for TalentOyster because for some of our candidates the "traditional" sorts of screening tests act as obstacles to their getting hired. For example an assessment test that isn't PWD "friendly" and causes a good, qualified candidate to be filtered out. Or the assessment test that features such culturally specific terms and language that it can't be understood by anyone who didn't grow up in Canada.

And while we are working on assessments tools from a diversity angle I tend to think that the answers we find will be helpful in general as well. That is, to say the somewhat obvious, an assessment tool that works for a diverse audience will, by defintion, work for everyone.