Why We Started SkillsTrust
Today we're publicly launching SkillsTrust, a job task simulation platform that enables modern, skills-based hiring at scale. We're also announcing our funding: a €1mm pre-seed round led by Emerge and Rethink Education, participating alongside angel investors Cormac Whelan and Gavin Cooney.
Let's start with some context:
The Urgency of SKILLS: Employers today place immense value on skills. Predictions indicate that by 2030, technological innovations like AI will redefine at least 65% of the skills necessary for many roles. But yet, our methods of evaluating skills have stagnated. This discrepancy poses a challenge, especially considering that over 50% of corporate expenses go towards salaries.
The Demand for TRUST: As the Harvard Business Review recently noted, companies increasingly "favor hiring on the basis of demonstrated skills and competencies." However, in this digital age where virtual hiring is the new norm and AI-generated resumes & cover letters are on the rise, how can hiring managers confidently determine a candidate's capability for the job? Personality tests and aptitude quizzes leave room for doubt about actual performance capabilities.
Through extensive discussions with hiring managers, we heard the same thing over and over again: the only thing they trust when hiring is a take-home task or work sample. Why? Because it provides a simulated preview of the candidate's potential to perform from day one on the job.
It turns out that this approach is well-supported by decades of social science research. Work sample testing is among the most predictive and fair ways to select candidates for jobs. This approach isn’t just favored by employers; candidates also favor it because of the clear connection to the actual work and job preview that it provides.
However, there's a challenge. The process of requiring a work sample can be a logistical nightmare for hiring teams. Creating, distributing, and evaluating these assignments in a standardized manner has high operational overhead for managers.
Enter SkillsTrust. We enable modern, skills-based hiring decisions at scale.
We serve hiring managers in fast growing companies, where the imperative for innovation means that proven skills matter more than a previous job title or a degree. We focus on companies that need faster, more accurate ways to pinpoint people with demonstrable skills for analytical roles in business intelligence, data analytics, operations, marketing and finance. SkillsTrust helps leaders reduce time to hire, costs, and risk by verifying that a potential new hire has the necessary skills to perform from day one on the job.
Our approach is based on three pillars:
Real-world relevance: We partner with industry practioners to identify today's most mission critical business challenges and translate them into short, timed hands-on tasks.
Job-aligned: Using an AI-driven process, we tailor tasks to the level and context of specific roles, industries and organizations.
Standardization drives fairness: We embed accuracy and fairness into our tasks and delivery platform, calibrating time limits (max. 2 hours), instructions, and difficulty levels to guarantee that all candidates get the same opportunity to demonstrate their skills. Each task uses a standardized rating scale to analyze all responses fairly.
The final part of our name is .org. because we are more than another technology company.
We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to showcase their skills and potential for knowledge jobs. SkillsTrust is driven by our mission to enable a transparent and equitable job assessment process that levels the playing field for candidates, regardless of background, education, or experience.
Let's Collaborate
If you're a hiring manager who 1. champions the efficacy of work samples and 2. wants to sidestep the usual operational hassles, join us as a beta user (free of charge)!
