T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be T3 – send me a note.

Today I’m looking at People Analytics Corporation (PAC) which sounds like it would be a talent or HR data analytics play, but in reality they are an Selection Assessment Technology play. The really cool thing about PAC is they didn’t start out as an assessment play, they grew out of the world’s largest career test, Sokanu.  Sokanu is basically a better, bigger version of one of those high school career assessments you took to find out what you would be good at as a career.  From millions of these assessments being taken, Sokanu discovered they had a giant data set that could be transformed into a very strong selection assessment, and PAC was born.

PAC does what great selection assessment companies should do which is help organizations understand what traits and characteristics define their top talent. Then, use this data to help you go out and hire more of that top talent.  The catch!?  They do this part for free!   They’ll come in and assess your entire organization, by department, function, etc., to build selection assessments based on your best talent.  Let’s be clear, to have great data, you can do this with a department of 10.  The reality is, you need anywhere from 50-100 do get statistically relevant data in a role. So, for the most part PAC is an enterprise play.

PAC’s UI is ridiculous easy to use to develop roles, turn those roles into jobs, and have your company specific assessments linked right to your job postings.  As candidates apply and assess, you use the dashboard to see who are the potential best fits for the jobs you are hiring for.  PAC also has a ‘faking’ compenent score within their assessment technology which shows you which candidates are trying to fake their results and look better.  Within the assessment you also get data returned that shows you ‘red flags’ of where candidates are probably going to come up short.

5 Things I really liked about PAC:

1. You are actually for Free going to come in assessment my organization and give me all that data? For Free!?  Yep.  This all by itself should get you to at least want to demo their product!

2. This isn’t just a personality assessment.  Most assessments are based on one component, usually personality.  PAC is based on five including personality, skills, organizational culture fit, needs and context.  It’s the most comprehensive selection assessment I’ve seen that is tailored to your organization, for the price.

3. The system was super easy for a talent or HR pro to use to develop new roles and pick the competencies and important factors needed by just clicking through, and you can add multiple raters within the organization by just selecting from a drop down menu.

4. Really fast and really accurate (the science behind this is awesome).  The average assessment takes about 12 minutes, and provides some really accurate data that has been proven reliable and valid based on millions completed. You can also compare results of a candidate to an existing employee already in position.

5. There is an employee development component that also comes out of this data for hiring managers to continue to develop the employee after hire, but one that can also be used with your internal staff already employed.

PAC is a new, young company that almost no one really knows about, but their product is one of the best I’ve seen when it comes to employee selection. They won’t be unknown for long! The average cost per assessment is $12-15 each, but it’s all based on volume, you guys know the game.  That is cheap, when you think about all you get on the front side with the analysis you’ll get of your own organization before you even pay for one assessment.  Plus, the assessments you’ll be giving aren’t just some generic assessment, but ones based on your own organization, own roles.

Check them out. I was really blown away by the demo.