Redefining Tech Talent Assessments

Talent assessment is one of the most important steps in growing a business. It guides companies to select the most qualified candidate for a job position within a lesser amount of time.

Be++ featured entrepreneur Kasper Dam, who talked about the significance of tech talent assessments as digital transformation continues to shape today's markets.

Starting with a vision

At an early age, Kasper already realized the importance of carefully studying a business venture and hiring the right people to achieve success. After a series of business risks, successes, and failures, he went to Asia, which he believed is slowly becoming the world’s emerging center of technology. In November 2017, he founded Kandio with a vision to connect people across the globe, and help businesses form better, competitive teams through talent assessments.

Kandio's business model was inspired by the one used by big companies in Silicon Valley, wherein applicants assess their own skills and proceed to a tailor-fit interview based on their own evaluations. This process is said to promote the value of knowing one's potentials and limitations, a key component in hiring top talents. Talent assessment materials, which are created by highly-skilled professionals across industries, help Kandio’s clients hire the right people.

Most clients looking for quality job candidates focus on the need to solve a specific problem in a fast, stable, and reliable manner. Kasper noted, however, that this could be a difficult task, especially with other factors to consider. For example, since Kandio deals with talent assessments, the company has to study proper data management to protect the information and privacy of applicants. To better serve large companies, there is also a need to improve service level agreements, multi-usage functionalities, and other enterprise-level features.

Recruitment is a two-way process

Recruiting talented and loyal people is one thing. Keeping them in your company is another. With the current tech talent shortage in the market, one way to find the best people is to actually search for them through your networks and applicant databases, and make them an offer they can't refuse.

Based on experience, some candidates were reluctant to take Kandio’s tech talent assessments. But for Kasper, taking these assessments is one way to know if an applicant is actually right for the job. It also shows the interest and commitment of an applicant early on.

On the other hand, companies also have to work on attracting and keeping top-notch talents. Organizations should evaluate themselves if they are fostering the right kind of image and culture that excites people to work for them.

How can they do this? One pivotal step to get and retain quality employees is to continuously improve the company’s management and leadership. This includes keeping a high employee satisfaction rate, knowing employees’ needs, and boosting their morale. One reflection that the company has a satisfied and productive workforce is when employees recommend good job applicants. This is an indication that they want to have good colleagues around and want the best talents within the company.

Change is good

There is no single way to build, upgrade, and maintain a product. This was Kasper’s experience in putting together Kandio alongside his in-house development team. Change is an inevitable part of any organization, making innovation a crucial part of growing your business. For Kasper, this means building prototypes that will return the investment ten-fold. It also means adapting to the changing market landscape. For example, seeing the changing needs of clients in talent assessments, Kandio is now transitioning from a quick go-to strategy to a more sustainable approach.

Change is also applicable to finding the right people and conducting talent assessments. As digital transformation makes the world smaller and more interconnected, entrepreneurs should not be afraid to try new things, such as working in a virtual office with a global workforce. "Don’t let geographical borders hinder the amount of your talents and clients," Kasper said.

Looking into the future

The global job market is continuously changing, with the exponential growth of the gig economy and more companies transitioning from hiring full-time employees to hiring freelancers. This rising trend prompts the need to foster more open and transparent spaces so that businesses can find the right talents with the right skills and attitude.

About the host

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Abhii Dabas is an active member of the tech community, and through his companies (including Webpuppies), he conducts outreach programs across different universities with a focus on entrepreneurship. Over the past months, he has already trained over 1,000 university students to help them prepare to join the workforce.

About the guest

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Kasper Dam is the CEO and founder of Kandio, a tech recruitment start-up that helps organizations hire the right and best employees. Kasper is currently based in Bangkok, Thailand. With over 15 years of experience in doing business, including in his home country, Denmark, he envisions an innovative business community by merging Europeans' ways of leading and managing companies, and the tech skills of emerging talents in the Asian region.