Subject: Refund Request.

The words practically jumped off Janet’s monitor.

Since launching her organization’s performance-based certification (PBC) program, the certification manager had received more unhappy emails than she cared to admit. The irony? 

The complaints weren’t because there was anything wrong with the program itself. Janet, and her lean team of two coworkers, spent 16 months developing a quality PBC program. 

In fact, the team went over budget after outsourcing a UX professional, devops engineer and cyber security engineer to leave no stone unturned. Unfortunately, Janet was now dealing with a problem she had never anticipated: Growing pains. 

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Performance-based tests have substantial impact on the role of the psychometrician. They require skills in analyzing qualitative data, facilitating group discussions, pragmatics, and correlating variables.  But, let me start by defining psychometrics and describing what psychometricians do.

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Since the dawn of the Pinterest era, DIY has become ubiquitous with crafters building home decor on weekends.

Unfortunately, most certification managers don’t exactly associate the term with the same level of enthusiasm. And that is because they are often building new exams out of necessity, not love.

Creating a performance-based certification platform in-house involves several moving parts, such as exam design, platform programming, latency testing and more.

SMBs that can only devote one to three team members are the most likely to experience setbacks due to trial and error. Budgetary constraints, unfamiliar technical specifications and poor contractor communication are often additional cause for frustration.

Most of the certification managers we meet at conferences wish they could hire someone to manage and execute PBC for them. However, they assume that doing so would be out of budget.

They are surprised when we tell them that often isn’t true. Their jaw drops even more when they learn they may actually be overspending on contractors who don’t fully deliver!

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What a waste of time…  

If you’ve ever uttered the phrase after attending an employee training program, you’re not alone. Despite U.S. companies continually spending more money on training, 75 percent of respondents surveyed by McKinsey & Co. indicated such efforts did not improve employee performance.

The primary culprit? Marathon learning sessions that overload team members with information that is never revisited. Read More

You’ve analyzed the data.  

You’ve done your homework.

And you’re ready to transition from multiple-choice question exams to performance-based certification (PBC).

There is just one problem — you still have to convince “the boss” that adopting the new program format is the right move for everyone.

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How knowledgeable are you when it comes to MCQ exams?

Would you win a round at trivia night, answering the following?

True or false:

• The longest answer on an exam is usually the correct one.
• Exam answers hardly ever repeat consecutively.
• The answers “none of the above” and “all of the above” are correct responses on multiple choice question exams 52% of the time.

If you answered “true” for all of the above, pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for being a big nerd! Regardless of your score, read on to learn why performance-based assessment excels where MCQ fails.

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Expensive. Complicated. Time-consuming.

These are some common misconceptions held by software and platform companies considering Performance-Based Assessment (PBA).

What has motivated companies like Google, Elastic and Chef to make the switch in recent years, despite these misconceptions?

Instead of presenting candidates with only multiple-choice questions — that don’t accurately measure true ability — these organizations can now test users and channel-partners in real world environments that emulate actual project scenarios.

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Her toes were in the sand.

A piña colada was in her hand.

And Lauren wasn’t worried about a thing.  

This was the vacation she had needed — a complete break from tech troubleshooting, exam proctoring and certification grading.

Everything was going great until a blaring car alarm began to overpower the sound of the ocean waves. The noise became louder until Lauren opened her eyes and realized it was her cell phone.

She reached for the phone, looked at the clock and rolled her eyes as she read the time: It was 2 a.m. Her husband woke up and gave her that familiar look that said, “Is this seriously happening again? Please quit, and find a new job, so I can get some sleep.”

Lauren managed the certification program for a growing SaaS provider that had recently launched its first performance-based certification program. This was the third time this week she had awoken to a call from a test-taker halfway around the world.

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Last week, you may have “met” Edward — the sales rep tasked with expanding his software company’s reach into APAC.

Despite the fact that Edward possessed more than a decade of SaaS experience, he was having trouble closing deals.

Interestingly, his disappointing conversion rate wasn’t due to poor product knowledge, distracting coworkers or lack of sleep; it actually stemmed from venturing into uncharted territory.

Last year, his organization surprised everyone when it quietly skyrocketed to $100M ARR. Suddenly, IT buyers of enterprise-level companies were contacting the sales rep with increasing frequency.

The problem?

These individuals were significantly more risk-averse than the decision-makers whom Edward was accustomed to working with.

Each lead peppered the sales rep with numerous questions in an attempt to answer one indirect question: Are you credible enough to ensure that MY organization will get what IT needs without fail?

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