English Proficiency Testing For Employers
Reading Time: 3 minutes
English proficiency testing for employers works perfectly if you hire students for summer employment. A great example is the Summer Work and Travel Program. Employers like to hire students with a range of English speaking ability. Yet, when you picture an English test, you probably imagine students sitting down at a desk with a pencil and paper. And a proctor walking around the room with his hands crossed behind his back looking for people cheating on the test.
Those days are over at Academic Language Solutions. The iTEP (International Test of English Proficiency) exams we distribute are online and on-demand. All of them are taken on a laptop or desktop computer. This enables students to take the iTEP on-site or even remotely … from anywhere there is a high-speed Internet connection. And the results are provided quickly in an easy-to-understand format. Employers hire students from different countries and time zones making online and on-demand tests added strengths in English proficiency testing.
Save The Interviews For Program Intent And Experience. Leave English Proficiency To iTEP Conversation!
Old-School
The overseas partner recruits students and tells them they need to be able to speak English. A J-1 Visa Sponsor may interview the student for English proficiency and to make sure the student understands the intent of the program. Finally, an employer may interview the student also, and based on English proficiency and experience may make a job offer.
100% of the time English proficiency has been evaluated by unqualified people.
Online And On-Demand
The overseas partner recruits students and provides them with a Test ID to take the iTEP exam right from the comfort of where they live. The Program Sponsor receives the scores and assigns a staff person to interview the student for program intent, and focuses on that. Employers receive a score report and audio files, no longer concerned about English proficiency. The interview is based on experience and job assignments can be made on the objective scores from iTEP.
Consider the iTEP Conversation test is 100% speaking. The other professional tests like Hospitality, Intern, Business and Au Pair include both written and speaking components. With ESL professionals grading these exams, there is no comparison to the alternative of interviewing people in person. Our graders are not only ESL professionals but trained especially to grade the iTEP. Recalibrating these graders for consistency makes the iTEP Score Report more effective in placing students. The grammar, listening and reading sections are graded instantly. When an assessment of those skills along will do, there is no waiting for results. The speaking portion takes 48 hours since a live person grades that part of the tests.
Return On Investment
Assessing the students before and after to measure how much they learned and improved their English over time is the best way to measure ROI on an objective testing program. It also assesses the value of the program. Take a look at some research Academic Language Solutions did with GeoVisions. It included before and after testing with the Summer Work and Travel program. There really is no better way to discover the ROI on a program than to do before and after testing.
Promotions … Bonuses … Raises
When students are employed for only three or four months, it can be difficult to decide which of them deserves a promotion or a bonus or raise. Let’s say two students have similar experience and performance on the job. The differentiator is English proficiency. Because the iTEP Score Report comes with score details and a study guide, one way to determine who gets that promotion could be the attention paid by the student to the study guide. What kind of improvement has been noted in English proficiency? iTEP provides a way to reward for improvements in language skills.
English proficiency tools are not only used for making hiring decisions. They also provide a concrete metric for a skill that is vital to many jobs and positions. And it isn’t necessary only in an English speaking country hiring students from non-English speaking countries. Many companies in non-English speaking countries have a demand for workers with a high degree of English proficiency. The use of iTEP streamlines the hiring process and the placement process. This saves an incredible amount of time for hiring managers.
Follow Our Blog
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
ACTIVE MEMBERS OF:
