About the provincial department
Meet Rachel, the Deputy Director of a prominent provincial department in Ontario, Canada. Rachel takes us on a journey of innovation and efficiency as she shares her experience of using Synap to transform her department's recruitment process.
With a constant influx of candidates applying for a range of job roles across the province, Rachel's organisation faced the challenge of hiring individuals with specific skill sets on a larger scale.
Join us as we delve into Rachel's remarkable story, witnessing how she successfully transitioned her department from traditional face-to-face exams to online exams with Synap - in just 16 days!
https://youtu.be/VLQRoX_KKXs?si=3RtRf_RA7oXmhFMR
The challenge: Moving from in-person to scalable, online testing
Rachel's department traditionally conducted one-to-one, in-person exams as a standard part of their hiring process. However, with the aspiration to implement testing on a larger scale throughout the entire province simultaneously, the conventional method of face-to-face exams posed significant challenges in terms of scalability.
Rachel described the previous in-person exam approach as “not very efficient”, particularly with the requirement for candidates to physically travel to the organisation's building to complete the exam, which added an extra layer of time-consuming complexity.
Additional inefficiencies occurred due to candidates applying to multiple areas within the province. This duplication of in-person exams not only consumed valuable time for both staff and candidates, but also hindered the overall efficiency of the hiring process.
Faced with these obstacles, Rachel sought an online exam solution that would not only enhance efficiency, but also empower her team to scale and assess multiple candidates concurrently.
Creating the exam for free in just two days
As part of her organisation's modernisation journey, Rachel invested considerable time in her search for an online exam solution, recognising the significance of venturing into the realm of delivering exams online for the first time.
Choosing Synap emerged as the optimal decision for Rachel, driven by the need for a solution that was not only “fast and easy”, but also user-friendly to ensure applicants felt comfortable using it for the first time.
“The building part was super easy. I am not a technologically savvy individual, but I was actually able to, on a weekend, build the test.”
Synap's 14-day free trial played a crucial role in Rachel's decision-making. This risk-free period allowed her to evaluate if Synap met her department's needs without financial pressure.
With access to exam features during the trial, Rachel seamlessly replicated her traditional exams. Despite identifying herself as "not a technologically savvy individual", Rachel was pleasantly surprised at how easily she could add questions and build her exam over a brief weekend. This user-friendly experience solidified Synap as the ideal choice for her department's transformative journey.
From exam creation to a live launch in just 16 days
During the 14-day free trial, Rachel stated “the Synap team was great!” and described the support that she received, made the whole onboarding process “very easy”.
Rachel found that whenever she had a query or question, she was able to use the live chat bot on her portal. She found that someone from the Synap team was “always online” and she received a response instantly, which expedited her exam setup process.
“The whole onboarding and getting everything out, and advising the individuals who would be taking the test, and providing support to our proctor, was absolutely excellent.”
Rachel implemented the team's advice by initiating a small pre-test for applicants before their formal examination, ironing out any potential issues and familiarising candidates with the new system.
Although she was anticipating challenges in delivering large-scale online exams, Rachel was thrilled to complete the entire process and launch her recruitment exams, just 16 days after her initial engagement with Synap.
“We got everything up and running within the 14 days and then the onboarding (for candidates) started at day 16. So it was really, really impressive and something that we thought would be much more difficult to do on such a large scale.”
Key features for success: Enhancing exam security and streamlining exam management
Secure exam delivery with Synoptic proctoring
Ensuring exam integrity was a top priority for Rachel, aiming to minimise opportunities for candidates to cheat. To mirror the conditions of their traditional in-person exam monitoring, where they utilised their own proctors, Rachel chose Synoptic - Synap's integrated proctoring tool that allowed them to retain the use of their own proctors.
Leveraging Synoptic's screen replay feature, proctors could closely monitor candidates, observing their on-screen activities and mouse movements in real-time.
Moreover, the tool's automatic breach detection, provided a comprehensive count and specific timestamps within the footage, significantly streamlined the proctoring review process.
This proactive approach to exam security not only upheld the integrity of the testing environment, but also offered a robust system for efficient monitoring.
Creating exam marker groups with defined roles
To facilitate a structured exam management process, Rachel utilised Synap's hierarchy of user groups, each assigned distinct access levels and roles. Her core team assumed the 'administrators' role, overseeing the creation, scheduling, and candidate invitations for the exam.
In a strategic move, Rachel extended invitations to colleagues and an external agency, designating them as 'educators' with limited permissions and access rights. This hierarchical setup allowed for clear separation of responsibilities, such as creating a user group that focused solely on grading exams.
This deliberate division of roles not only minimised the risk of errors but also safeguarded the integrity of the exam questions.
The positive feedback received from both colleagues and the external agency attested to Synap's user-friendly interface and ease of use for completing their respective roles.
“A number of my team members as well as the outside agency that I used, all say the exact same thing - that it was very easy to navigate, easy to put in the marking, and to search people.”
Downloading results via CSV for compliance
When it came to managing exam results, Rachel valued the ability to effortlessly download all responses in a CSV format. While Synap provided storage of the responses on her portal, Rachel's internal company protocols dictated the necessity to transfer results to their internal system.
This requirement aligns with their hiring process, where retaining exam results for an extended period is crucial for auditing purposes, spanning several years. The ability to download results via CSV not only streamlined their internal processes but also ensured compliance and effective record-keeping for the long term.
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The results: 95% first time completion rates, with 100% of candidates completing their exam
Rachel celebrated outstanding results from her exam initiative, with a remarkable 95% first-time completion rate among her 200+ applicants.
Even more impressively, the remaining 5%, who encountered personal internet connectivity issues, were accommodated with alternative exam dates, ensuring a flawless 100% completion rate within a 6 day testing period.
“From our perspective, we say that it's like a hundred percent success because everybody who wanted to do the test, was able to do the test.”
Moreover, Rachel was delighted to receive positive feedback from candidates who found the exam software easy to use, particularly for their first experience of online exams.
“We did not have any negative feedback from the candidates on using the application. In fact, we did get a few comments back that this was easy and they were glad that they didn't have to go to a place to do a test.”
The future: Expanding to more exams and wider organisational adoption
Rachel eagerly anticipates the ongoing use of Synap for upcoming large-scale exams, with two sets of exams already on the horizon.
As the project leader who took a leap of faith to try a new approach with delivering exams online via Synap, Rachel's success has attracted attention from other departments in her organisation. The seamless setup and success of administering online exams, a first for her organisation, has garnered admiration particularly from the HR team.
Recognising the impressive feat achieved without any issues, she has been approached by the HR team to share her experience of delivering online exams through a presentation. As such, Rachel envisions that Synap will be widely adopted across more departments in her organisation.
“Within our own organisation they're quite impressed. It takes a lot to move human resources into a new area…they've asked for a presentation on how I was able to get this up and running.”
