Online testing cannot be used for off campus screening or pre screening

Online testing for freshers who apply for job postings will be attractive to think but in real case its a toughest task to manage. Even great assessment firms are aware of the consequences and stay away from the idea.

"The job vacancies are posted in the internet". The problem starts from this point. Pre-screening for the particular vacancy is an idea evolved in recent times and many candidates are not patient enough to grasp the idea. The hiring company may leave the prescreening to its vendors who have an online platform to conduct exams. From the day of vacancy post of online exam the candidates start querying  regarding the prescreening, registration to the exam, time of exam, exam pattern, next process after prescreening and so on. The greatest fact is that every details will be clearly prescribed in the job posting itself. But many candidates don't read it fully and start posting in the forums or in the query part. If the queries are not answered properly the frustrated and impatient candidates start seeing the company as fake. This makes a bad impression about the company when exposed in internet .

Another problem will be when disclosing the results. If results are published transparently in the internet then the candidates who are not satisfied with the marks start commenting as if the correction has some mistakes. The pathetic company have to answer the questions related to this issue also. If the company has a forum connected to social networking websites then the issue gets even bigger as the information passes in a viral  manner. Now a days there are public forums where the candidates form group and have discussion about the hiring companies and the hiring process. So if one starts commenting badly about the online exam then the discussion leads to some bad impression about the company and hiring process.

If the company delays the next process of interview after the prescreening then vendor company who did the online exam will be affected badly which should answer to the candidates who are waiting for next step of interview. The hiring company will be least bothered about this issue because they however get a publicity among the candidates and the vendor company is blamed. Instead the candidates will start posting in forums as "the vendor company is fake and they did it for a publicity hunt". This leads to a total damage.

The company prefers for screening through online exam instead of prescreening then also the problem of handling exams to many candidates in a given slot of time, low internet speed, browser crash, network failure, power cut arises. Since screening is done for a mass server should have the capacity to overcome which can be solved with the help of technology. But issues like power, network all are in candidates side which is hard to be resolved. The scheduled exams should overcome all such problems.

So for off campus screening or prescreening online testing will not be an effective method. Only paper and pencil mode of conducting exams and scoring instantly will help to overcome the issues.

For more details click http://www.skillrack.com/quickscore

Paper and pencil exams better than online exams in case of aptitude exams.

 Taking B.E freshers, every year the count increases exponentially due to the increase in number of colleges. Ultimately recruitment process for a mass crowd is really a tedious work for any company. Initially the companies post the vacancies through internet in job portals. Even though a candidate who doesn't meet the eligibility criteria will apply for the post through online. So junk data fall into companies database. Then on the day of recruitment event company needs to handle a crowd for initial level of screening.

So to solve that companies choose either paper and pencil or online exams. In case of online exam company should arrange many computers in a place or ask the candidates to take from their own place. Arranging computers in a place and organizing an event is costly.

If candidates are asked to take online exam from their own place its hard to manage in many ways.It starts from registration. Although the registration and steps to be followed to take the exam is clearly mentioned, the candidates will start posting asking queries without reading any details. If queries are not answered, the candidate comments the company in a wrong manner. So on seeing one candidate posting in such a manner many get motivated and start abusing the company. The internet connection will not be evenly good for every candidate. Sometimes there may be a power cut or browser crash. The exam should sustain all such problems. The bandwidth cost to deliver these many exams in a single shot will also be high. Communication to candidates via online to these many candidates is really a tough task. The candidate turn up for next step of interview is also a problem.

So rather than online exam, test delivery through paper and pencil mode will be cost effective and also an simplified process. With SkillRack's quickscore product, the automated scoring for a bulk made it more efficient and time saving. Candidates are given question paper and answer sheets were the correct option will be shaded by them. Even if 3000 turn up in a recruitment event, the scoring part will not exceed more than 90 minutes. Finally the companies will not feel the pain and the process goes smooth.

For more details click http://www.skillrack.com/quickscore

My first marketing experience

I work for a product based company www.SkillRack.com and its product "Practice Perfect" has to be sold to Engineering colleges. So in one fine day(20 Sep 2011) myself and my CEO went to colleges around Bangalore.

The first college we went was ACS college of Engineering. The college was merely 4 years old. We tried to reach the placement officer or principal but both were engaged in a meeting. So we decided not to waste time and started to the next college. On the way Mr.Hemand who runs a startup accompanied us to sell his product.

The next college we went was JnanaVikas Institute of Technology. We met the placement officer. He listened to our  product explanation but he didn't show any interest while hearing itself. He asked us to send a proposal through email and we came out of his cabin. In the notice board we found a company "Proflex" which had undertaken training for programming languages and we note down the contact details and moved from the college.

Vivekanada institute of Technology was our next target and we met the placement officer "Mr.MadhuSudan" who listened to our product details. He asked about the finance part because the college is located in a rural area and the students mostly were in and around of the college. Meanwhile he was also held up with some meeting and told he will be free at evening. So we started to next college.

Then we went to Don Bosco Institute of Technology. We tried to meet the placement officer or principal but both were absent on that evening. In the notice board we saw two companies "zenithsoft" and "slk-soft" hiring students through offcampus drive in some other colleges. Noted the contact details. The college infrastructure was good but there was no on campus placements. So came out of the college and drove to next college.

GSS institute of technology was our next target. This college was established on 2004. The placement officer was not there. So we met the computer science HOD. Mr.Hemand explained his product and he got business. But we didn't get a chance to tell about our product because the college closing time actually elapsed. Also this college is concerned about the finance part. From Skillrack's part we said that we will schedule the online aptitude exam to the computer science students and came out of the college.


Lessons learnt :
The colleges we met didn't have any placements and were nearly 4 to 7 years old. They desperately need companies to hire their students and not left only with training. So to sell our product we need IT companies to hire after our practice perfect training.

Difference between Compiler and Interpreter and assembler

Assembler :

A program that translates programs from assembly language to machine language is called as Assembler.
An assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture. This representation is usually defined by the hardware manufacturer, and is based on mnemonics

Interpreter :

An Interpreter translates high-level instructions into an intermediate form, which it then executes.

Compiler :

A Compiler translates high-level instructions directly into machine language. Compiled programs generally run faster than interpreted programs.

Java Program to generate alphanumeric characters in random

public class RandomGenerationOfStrings
        {
        public static String getPassword(int n)
        {
    char[] pw = new char[n];
    int c  = 'A';
    int  r1 = 0;
    for (int i=0; i < n; i++)
    {
      r1 = (int)(Math.random() * 3);
      switch(r1) {
        case 0: c = '0' +  (int)(Math.random() * 10);
        break;
        case 1: c = 'a' +  (int)(Math.random() * 26);
        break;
        case 2: c = 'A' +  (int)(Math.random() * 26);
        break;
      }
      pw[i] = (char)c;
    }
    return new String(pw);
  }

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    int len = 10; // default 8 on unix, more is useless

   }
    System.out.println(getPassword(len));
  }
}

Java Program to generate strings(10 character) randomly

public class PasswordGeneration
{
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    int PASSWORD_LENGTH = 10;
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    for (int x = 0; x < PASSWORD_LENGTH; x++)
    {
      sb.append((char)((int)(Math.random()*26)+97));
    }
    System.out.println(sb.toString());
  }

}

When windows will not allow a Java program to delete a directory

Recently i wrote a Java program to delete a directory and i found that Windows was not allowing delete under the following circumstances.

1. A file under the sub directory is used by another process
2. Is non empty having sub directories