More BPO assessment tests set

The Business Processing Association of the Philippines will continue the rollout of its Global Competitiveness Assessment Tool (GCAT), in a bid to assess the capabilities of potential business process outsourcing industry practitioners and make it easier for companies to access qualified applicants.

BPAP senior executive director Gillian Joyce Virata said around 15,500 students in Luzon and Visayas had taken the test. The test would also be administered in Mindanao.

In crafting the test, she said 2,000 current BPO employees were asked to serve as benchmarks, which meant that the scores of the GCAT takers would be compared with the industry average via that 2,000-person yardstick.

The results of the first 15,500 GCAT tests administered, she said, showed that would-be practitioners scored lower than the industry benchmark.

“This could explain why hiring rates are low. The current industry average hiring rate is 5-8 percent. That was almost exactly the same as the passing rate for the GCAT,” she said. “For those who don’t reach the benchmark, we offer them various training so they can better prepare for jobs in the BPO industry.”

The test was first launched in March 2010 as the BPAP National Competency Test, with a P5-million budget from the now defunct Commission on Information and Communications Technology. The initial budget was enough to buy 10,000 test personal identification numbers (PINs) at P500 each. It was later renamed the GCAT.

The 2.5-hour computerized test gauges exam takers’ suitability to jobs in the BPO sector, using as criteria some of the basic skills required to do work in the industry, including verbal and numerical learning ability, English proficiency, perceptual speed and accuracy and computer literacy.

It also has a behavioral component, which tests a BPO candidate’s service orientation. Characteristics being tested include reliability, responsiveness, empathy, communication, courtesy and learning orientation.

The test aims to serve as BPO firms’ first level of screening for potential employees, as well as a feedback mechanism for the academe to know which particular skills the industry requires from graduates.