To make students job ready in the competitive market, and realising the dynamics of job market and need for employable candidates, Association of India University (AIU) has tied up with Wheebox, an online talent assessment company, LinkedIn, and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to implement Wheebox employability skill test (WEST) across universities in India.
The test is on the lines of GMAT, and the undergraduate & post-graduate students will take online adaptive test and thus will be provided with ranking that will be accessed to the influential network of professionals and recruiters on LinkedIn (partner for publishing India Skills Report 2015 as well). These rankings are the single metric that is consistent across the applicant pool. It provides a benchmark to the employer’s network to compare candidates against one another and against the student profile. This test will also help Universities to take preemptive measures to improve employability skills based on scientific data provided by Wheebox.
Nirmal Singh, Founder & CEO, Wheebox, “Today companies & universities are grappling with the concern of talent mismatch. They are devising strategies to counter this concern. He further added, “Thus, today there is a need to impart skills to the students and thus make them ready for the Job market.”
Dr Furqan Qamar, Secretary General, AIU said, “The percentage of employable students being low, which has been indicated from all the research reports, and this necessitated us to make the students employable and job ready that would be beneficial to both the employers & students.”
The exam is designed for 60 minutes that measures candidate’s English language proficiency, problem solving skills, numerical aptitude, computer literacy and soft skills viz. learning agility, interpersonal skills and adaptability for final year pass-outs. The test has been endorsed by CII that will measure critical competencies for employment of undergraduates and postgraduates.
Many organisations have shortlist the first round of candidates as per the scores of the test. Many professional and vocational training organisations have also used WEST to empower students to work on areas that might require improvement before they pass out and step out in job market.
