What It Really Takes to Implement Talent Assessments Globally

Show Notes 📝

00:00 Introduction  
01:15 Meet the guest and icebreaker question  
03:00 What clients underestimate about implementing assessments  
07:47 How to balance between what clients want and what they actually need
10:20 A favourite client moment, and why
14:00 The role of Professional Services teams in protecting the integrity of assessment
17:10 What does scalable actually mean?
13:45 Balancing science and delivery  
19:30 Science or Fiction?  
29:59 Key Takeaways

Show Transcript 🗒️

Caroline Fry (00:00)
Welcome to The Score, where we make sense of hiring trends, we sort science from fiction, and find out what's new in talent acquisition from top experts in the field.

Nicola Tatham (00:08)
I'm Nicola Tatham, Chief IO Psychologist at Sova with over two decades of experience designing fair, predictive and science-backed talent assessments. I'm here to cut through the noise and talk about what actually works in hiring.

Caroline Fry (00:22)
and I'm Caroline Fry, Head of Product. I spend my time turning smart assessment ideas from Nic into tools that work scalable, inclusive, and ready for whatever AI throws at us next.

Nicola Tatham (00:33)
So each episode we're joined by a guest to unpack a big question in hiring.

Caroline Fry (00:37)
because talent deserves better than guesswork.

Nicola Tatham (00:40)
So today we're joined by Nick Brown. So Nick is Sova's global director of professional services. So he owns the end-to-end delivery of Sova's projects, ensuring implementations are on time, on budget, and aligned with client goals. So no pressure, And crucially, Nick also has over a decade of recruitment and talent acquisition experience under his belt.

making him the perfect person to join us today to chat about what it really takes to deliver accurate, scalable and science-backed hiring solutions.

Caroline Fry (01:15)
Okay, Nick, welcome. We like to kick things off with a light question. What is the weirdest, funniest, or just most baffling interview question you've ever come across? Whether you were the one being asked or you were watching it happen in your career in recruitment and talent acquisition.

Nick Brown (01:29)
So the weirdest one or probably the most cliched one I've heard of, I wasn't asked it, but as a recruiter, was recruiting people who went and met hiring managers. And one of the hiring managers used to ask candidates, if you were an animal, what animal would you be? I think we've all heard this one before. And some of the answers were quite good. Obviously you get the usual lions and tigers.

Caroline Fry (01:49)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Brown (01:56)
But one candidate said they'd be a chameleon, adaptable to any situation. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a terrible question, a terrible answer. So you get what you're given really, don't you?

Nicola Tatham (01:59)
Genius. Yes.

Caroline Fry (01:59)
Mm-hmm.

Nicola Tatham (02:05)
So I guess play that back, what would you be Nick if you were an animal?

Caroline Fry (02:08)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Brown (02:09)
probably a bald eagle. don't know.

I genuinely have no idea. Yeah. I mean, it's just a silly question, isn't it? Yeah.

Caroline Fry (02:15)
Yeah.

Grand, majestic, authoritative. Yeah. Okay. I like it.

Nick Brown (02:18)
Yeah, bold. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Nicola Tatham (02:22)
Anyway, we digress. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. thanks for joining us. we're going to give you a bit of a grilling today, go through quite a few questions with you. So hopefully it won't be too painful and you will enjoy this.

Caroline Fry (02:23)
Mm-hmm.

Nicola Tatham (02:33)
You know, we know you've been on both sides of the table. So you've acted as a recruiter, a buyer, and now you're actually leading the delivery. What would you say is one thing that people often sort of underestimate about implementing assessments and assessment solutions?

Nick Brown (02:48)
The internal effort, I think, is the most common one. So having been both sides of the fence, everyone is obsessed with how long a vendor, an assessment company like ourselves or otherwise, can take to do something. How long does it take you to build it? How long does it take you to configure it, deploy it, train us, give us the keys so we can go and start playing with the assessments? But quite frequently, they don't give consideration to their own internal.

challenges of getting resource available, whether it's for integrations or simply the change management of, particularly if they're enterprise and global, of chaperoning potentially, know, hundreds of different stakeholders internally to roll something out and what that might mean in different regions, you cultural differences and so forth. So.

I think it's always something whenever I'm engaged in pre-sales with customers and they want to understand more about implementation, I always say we can do this to a certain degree as quickly as you want to go, but how quickly can you go is often the question I ask

Nicola Tatham (03:54)
I guess it's within your power or your team's power to support clients with understanding what's down the road, you know, from the very early conversations that we have, even with the pre-sales conversations almost.

Nick Brown (04:04)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. think the thing about a good project manager will be doing is thinking two steps ahead of the client around what's coming down the road, but also, you know, those lessons learned from other similar clients that have gone through similar transformations. No two clients the same, they're all different, but certainly, you know, some of those considerations of pace is often, most clients want to go really, really quick.

and get it done, but you have to balance time versus quality all the time. And usually it backfires if you prioritise pace over the quality of delivery. So it's not that I'm trying to get clients to go slower. I'm just trying to get clients to consider what they really need to do to make it successful to land internally with their stakeholders, but also with their candidate marketplace as well. Cause as ever, you know, your reputation is everything these days.

We do share lots of pre-reading before they kick off and homework to try and drive them to think about the right things, but they should also reflect on what they've done when they've implemented other HR technologies, whether it's assessments or not for that previously. So I think that's always a consideration. Yeah. I think as well, there's, there's always a lot of folks with assessments on

in again, in the buying process is making it as scientifically accurate as possible from a customer side. But again, when you get in there, when we're in implementation phase, often they start to realize how difficult it can be to get, you know, all the, all the right people on a focus group or doing a survey or participating in a rigorous job analysis. so their data points might not be that great as well. So again, it's

You know, we're here to support, consult and help, but there's still a bit of work that, you know, client needs to do as well. so yeah, that's really important. I think.

Nicola Tatham (05:54)
Sorry, know Caroline, you were going to ask a question, but I've got a burning one that I want to jump to. I think obviously every client, as you've just applied, that solution that's custom, that's fast, that's scientifically sound. How on earth do you manage those expectations and sort of juggle, you know, they'll spin all those plates.

Caroline Fry (05:58)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Nick Brown (06:11)
Yeah, I think particularly if it's a large implementation where there could be multiple strands or products that they want to implement is trying to take a phased approach, whether that's in terms of the different products they're implementing or the different regions. So, you know, for me, that's really important. I'd also say as far as having the right project team from a client perspective engaged.

So, you do you need 15 people on every call from your side? Do you just need one person on every call? Usually the number is maybe four five people to sort of own certain topics. So I think that's one thing just from a doing perspective is thinking really carefully about who's involved in that. And then making sure that team is empowered as well internally.

Normally most clients that we work with do want, they come to us as experts, right? So we're paid to have an opinion and we want to guide them on it. So I think we just have to always be forefront on that.

And customers need to, yeah, absolutely, listen, take note. Of course, they know their companies far better than us. So they know sometimes, Nick, we do have to do it this way, but here's how we can navigate that and pragmatically deal with that if we need to.

Nicola Tatham (07:21)
Thank you.

Caroline Fry (07:21)
Yeah, think,

thanks. I think related to that, Nick, as I listened to you, it's really dawning on me how much you straddle that divide between sort of the breadth of what you do, the consultancy, the advisory piece that your teams offer. And I think you were sort of touching on this, that there's obviously in many cases, macro or micro level.

Like there's things that clients ask for versus what they actually need and how you and your teams go about navigating that gap, especially when you know, you're flexing between being the sort of experts and advisors, but also, you know, hearing what the client's asking for and the unique, you know, aspects and challenges within their organisation.

Nick Brown (08:00)
Yeah. And I think one of the things that we do or I have done in this, know, at Sova and in my previous life, both working for the vendors and in-house as well is to spend a decent amount of time on discovery, right? You know, we are, you know, we are working in a SaaS industry. So often sometimes customers just want to, they want the keys to the car and go and drive it, right? But what we want to do first is do some discovery. So why have you bought

Why are you investing in assessments? Is it to replace something that isn't accurate? Is it a user experience issue? Is it a candidate experience issue? Is it a quality of hire? There's so many different reasons you might be investing in that. So we want to spend some time, of course we do that in the sales process and the institutional architecture process, but equally when we get into implementation, we want to revisit that because often we're moving from the buying team to the

some of the end users will be working with recruiters, recruitment managers, potentially product owners internally, and they will have more hands-on experience. They'll be saying, well, this isn't what isn't working for us, or this is a problem in our recruitment funnel that we're trying to fix. We think assessments will help with X, Y, and Z, but it might not cover this piece. So by understanding what the problem actually is,

we can configuring, running the project, delivering the project in a way that's gonna bring value to that.

so yeah, I think, I think that's the thing that I always want people to spend some time on is, you know, at kickoff in the first couple of weeks, why are we here? What, what, what do want us to achieve? Not just, we want you to implement an assessment. Yeah, but why? Yeah. There's constant saying why. So I think that's really, really important.

Nicola Tatham (09:37)
Thanks.

Identify what those metrics are and what you're going to be compared against at the end of the project, basically, yourselves and everybody else from the client side. What does success look like.

Nick Brown (09:50)
Yeah.

There's, there's

yeah, sorry, Nic. Yeah. That's the scientists there. Give me the metrics. Give me the numbers. Yeah, exactly. you know, and I, I'm, I'm maybe jaded, cause I'm 20 years in this industry, not 10 years. So, but like the numbers are often quite hard to, sometimes find for customers. I mean, they will have some of them. So I'm always used to dealing with an incomplete data picture from

Nicola Tatham (09:57)
Bye.

Caroline Fry (09:57)
Yeah.

Nick Brown (10:15)
funnels or whatever, but yeah, you're absolutely right. think it is just that value piece constantly is coming back to that as well.

Nicola Tatham (10:23)
without naming names, unless you can, or you particularly want to, what's been one of your favorite client moments recently and why?

Nick Brown (10:32)
I don't think there's one standout, but having worked in SaaS implementation as an implementer for the last eight years, I think it's just the delight you get to see working with recruiters, particularly as a former recruiter, when we've implemented something that is not only gonna make their life

easier and more efficient, but they're going to be able to spend time on the things that actually matter in their job. So I think that's where, and seeing that particularly at those sort of go live training weeks where you've done all the hard work and you're standing up a solution and seeing the delight from the team. And that's when it's gone really well, right? And the solution is on the money in terms of what it's there to do.

that's always really satisfying for me. you know, whether that's, you know, a classic example 10 years ago for me was moving from a firm that were using lots of phone interviews and the recruiters were literally sat there, you know, it could be four hours a day doing phone interviews. And you can imagine how boring that must get for them as much as exciting and finding out if you're doing it day in day out, that's quite a churn.

and to moving them to a video interviewing solution to perhaps something with combined with, you know, an assessment and they get all these data points from the candidates they're reviewing instead of doing. They're spending more time on the quality candidates and doing more of a sort of white glove service with those, that job satisfaction that you're seeing, is

you know, not always front of mind in the buying process, because it's often driven around efficiency and saving money and so forth and quality of hire, but actually people that are in the middle there getting a lot more job satisfaction is really nice to say I always enjoyed that.

Nicola Tatham (12:28)
Hmm.

Caroline Fry (12:30)
I think as usual, it's the impact on real people that ends up giving everybody the sense of satisfaction. I know that's true for us, even though, you know, we all work in tech, in technology, in SaaS, it's still the humans. That's why we're doing this and that's what it matters.

Nick Brown (12:44)
Yeah, right. And, you know, of course there's hiring managers that I've worked with where, you know, again, they get really embracing of, you know, assessment data and outputs and see the value that brings. You know, I worked with a really large defence company who, their graduate scheme, very prestigious, and they had a lot of hiring managers really engaged.

their graduate and apprenticeship hiring was almost part of the community because they would be hiring from the communities often in places with not big populations. So when they would get to an assessment center, having the candidates gone through perhaps a new assessment, you know, it was so real for the hiring managers and the recruiters to hear their interviewing people that live down the road from them often. So they really paid heed and were big critics, you know, things weren't working. So when it did work.

how that's always really, really satisfying. But equally, when you're widening the net out for them and seeing some things transform and disrupt, again, it's really exciting, really interesting.

Nicola Tatham (13:45)
So we're talking about data, we're talking about implementation, speed of delivery. What role does your team, i.e. the professional services team play in protecting the integrity of that science while still keeping clients happy? I guess you're sort of acting as a gatekeeper of sorts there. How do they achieve that?

Nick Brown (14:03)
Yeah, I think it's a really good point actually. And I used to sort of say to, I've worked with enough IOs that I can do a bit of an impression of them over the years. But I used to call it like the idiot's guide. I can provide the idiot's filter to sometimes what an IO is doing. That's not to say, the IOs I've worked with are amazing, smart, brilliant communicators.

Nicola Tatham (14:11)
Please don't! Not while I'm on the floor!

Caroline Fry (14:17)
you

Nick Brown (14:29)
but again, sometimes we're dealing with some really complex topics and you know, if it's a large recruitment function and some of those recruiters might not have had exposure to assessments before that's where my team should be able to speak and explain things and communicate things in a way that that team might not saying that Nic, your team couldn't, cause I know they can, but just sometimes it's being a bit of a double act.

in sort of, you might have the IO explain the science and this is what we'd recommend, this is what we do. And often, we're adding an extra voice in there to say, well, this is what it means in practice. So, you we'd recommend that. So I think often we can be, yeah, the middleman, the kind of gatekeeper between the client and the IO, because maybe sometimes the IO is looking for that's very much that structured scientific, you know, we should always aim for the best. And that's exactly where we start.

But obviously the PM or the implementation team might be in with that client and be able to sort of say, well, actually I've worked with this client for long time. I know what's achievable with them to get through, you know, to get something live for them might need this, or I know they might struggle to facilitate such a, you know, intensive job analysis in that time scale or whatever else. So I think it's sometimes just being that very pragmatic person in the middle.

But equally being, as you say, Nick, a protector of, what's our minimum professional standard as a vendor in this space, as an assessments expert, we all know this is, this is a red line. We won't do this if we haven't got this. So I think it's being a double act. It's being a team to say, yeah, actually it's, you know, we're not being difficult. This is, if you're buying an assessment, this is how we're going to do it. And that's our professional standard.

Nicola Tatham (16:13)
They've got to speak both languages basically, haven't they? think that's what I'm hearing. They're the constant across the project. Like you say, the IOs can sort of jump in and out at various different stages. So your team needs to be able to speak both languages. They don't need to know the whole dictionary, but they need to be able to understand the science and be able to explain it so that the customer understands why they're being asked to provide X number of people to take part in a pilot or a job analysis or whatever it is.

Nick Brown (16:40)
Definitely, yeah, think often some of the best project teams I've worked with are working in tandem with the client team. So for example, as you say, when we get to training, we're not just focusing on training on the platform, but we're also giving a basic understanding of what the assessment is doing, is scoring. We're not doing a three hour IO heavy explanation of the science and the history of assessments.

but we're certainly giving them enough so they can feel confident explaining to a candidate, this is why the assessment looks like this, this is what it's doing, this is what it's looking at when it's scoring you.

Caroline Fry (17:18)
In your opinion, what does scalable actually mean in our space and where do people go wrong trying to scale?

Nick Brown (17:27)
is where you, when you're rolling out globally and it's complex, is trying to manage that localisation versus perhaps consistency that you're striving for with the quality assessment that you're wanting. I think that they're not opposites. You can do that, but it's focusing your energy.

where it should be. For example, localising the branding, the videos you might be using, the things perhaps around the assessment that, you know, of course they need to have the right look and feel perhaps for a different brand of yours, because it's called something else in a different country or, you know, just the people that, you know, living there and needs to be representative of the candidate marketplace and so on. That's where you focus your energy. Is it, is it relevant to support an assessment in

you know, 15 different languages when your firm isn't operationalized in 99.9 % English. No disrespect to any languages as I sit here speaking English in England, but is it relevant that, you know, if your application is done in English, does your assessment process need to be in English? Yes, it might be, it might not be. Obviously I know Nic will say, well,

If you're giving someone a personality assessment or some form of cognitive assessment, you want them to have the ability to do it in their native tongue to give themselves the best piece forward. So again, there's a constant balancing act of making sure you're supporting localisation where it's relevant, but also maintaining a globally consistent structure if that's what you're aiming for. So I think that's one of the things that is important about something being scaled appropriately.

Caroline Fry (18:58)
Yeah.

Nick Brown (19:08)
appropriately. Outside of that, it's just the usual things with, you know, big integrations, you might be working with some of the big HR tech providers. So, you know, being able to work with that and have something that sits in a workflow that's, you know, making sense is often the other piece as well. And navigating some of those complexities is really, important.

Caroline Fry (19:27)
Mm-hmm.

I think you'll be pleased to know the hardcore grilling might be over. I think Nick's got a fun game for you now.

Nicola Tatham (19:40)
So fun.

So this is a little game that we call science or fiction. We're going to throw a few statements your way. Some are based on science, others not so much. I don't think they're all that cut and dry, but we will see. So your job. yeah.

Caroline Fry (19:53)
Don't give him a get out.

Nicola Tatham (19:56)
No, they're all one on the other. Your job is to tell

Caroline Fry (19:57)
Yeah.

Nicola Tatham (19:58)
us which is which, to help us just set the record straight on some of these statements. So I will start with my first one. If you can't explain an assessment to a candidate, you shouldn't use it. Is that science or fiction, do you think?

Nick Brown (20:11)
I think that's science. Yeah. I mean, I, I'm not basing that on any science that I know other than just experience, you know, that's a, I've mentioned it earlier. I think it's really important when you're standing up an assessment that everyone that is administering it, using it from a kind of a client perspective has taken the assessment, had a go on it, understands how it scores, what it's doing and be able to explain that

Obviously in this day and age, we talk about explainability of AI a lot, but you know, just being able to talk common sense to a candidate if they ring up and they're concerned or send an email in, being able to explain it in a way that they understand is really, really important. So yeah, I think that's a non-negotiable for me. I think any customer implementing assessments should be doing that, should be able to do that.

Caroline Fry (20:42)
Mm-hmm.

Nicola Tatham (20:59)
So the next one is fairness isn't a science problem, it's a design problem.

Nick Brown (21:04)
Oh, I think that's a bit of both actually. I mean, obviously there has to be science there. So you need to be scientifically fair and, you know, have the data to show it's fair. And when we look at adverse impact, for example, but then that leads to design decisions, right? It could be, you know, waiting. It could be the type of assessments you're using, for example, where different groups

form differently, right? Again, this is me impersonating Nic again now and IO, but I think, yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. Of course as well, now I'm impersonating Caroline from a product. Yeah. I was going to say from a product perspective, you need to be able to make sure it's designed, you know, with accessibility in mind as well. So, again, it's a question I get asked a lot in implementation is, you know, how would,

Caroline Fry (21:34)
Mm-hmm.

I was about to say.

Yep.

Nick Brown (21:55)
neurodiverse candidates deal with this or have you checked your platform for colour blindness or et cetera, et cetera. There's always some questions and considerations. So it's quite nice actually, because everyone's trying to do the right thing and be fair, a hundred percent. So yeah, I think it's a bit of both. think that.

Caroline Fry (22:07)
Mm-hmm.

Nicola Tatham (22:11)
Yeah, yes, I completely agree and you can't do. An assessment is not going to be valid if the science isn't there, it's definitely not going to be valid. But if the design piece is not correct, then it's not going to be being used appropriately. you know, it's all those candidate buy-in as well. You know, if they've got no faith in it, then your validity is likely to drop as well. So, yeah, I think that's a really good answer.

Okay, DE&I, so know Caroline's gonna slap my wrists if I don't say this in full, so diversity, equity and inclusion starts with how you define success, science or fiction.

Nick Brown (22:33)
100%.

Yes, science, think again, I think again, one of the things I love about assessments is ultimately you're trying to find a people that can successfully go and do a job, right? So that starts from a clear, you know, utopian point of view.

but obviously then we work backwards and make sure we're doing a fair and equitable process as we go through it. So I think, that's what I love about assessments is it's moving away from, you know, hiring manager hiring in that image or, you know, the dreaded cultural fit question. they'll, they'll get along with the team because they can come to the pub with us on a Friday night, you know, those sorts of things, which narrow your talent pool as an organisation. so I think, yeah.

you know, ultimately, I think it goes a long way. If you're hiring in a leveraging assessments, using the tools at your disposal and doing a fair process, then your DE&I strategy naturally without even necessarily trying should hopefully you should see some improvement in terms of diversity of hire through that because

you're starting off from a fair place. So yeah, no, think it definitely starts with that. Yeah.

Nicola Tatham (23:59)
Yeah, thank you. So we're nearly there. A scientifically valid assessment can still feel unfair.

Nick Brown (24:05)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we've all been there doing an assessment and feeling like we're getting absolutely battered by it. So yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I've probably taken more assessments not applying for jobs in the last 10 years than did in the previous 10 years. And some of them I know are hard, but they're designed to be hard. And again, that's where candidate expectations need to be managed, that communication.

Caroline Fry (24:12)
Thank

Nick Brown (24:29)
have you put something on your website? We use these assessments, this is what you should expect. So you don't dishearten people and think, oh, this is really hard, but actually they might be smashing it, they just don't know. So I think that's often, yeah, a real concern of mine actually is that people feel that something's too hard and therefore unfair, where the reality is actually is making you sweat because you're giving it the attention, it's designed to be hard.

Certainly even with the personality assessments that obviously we've worked a lot with over the last couple of years, Nick, that it can even just like the imagery differences in some of the personality assessments can be quite hard. And I know that's by design because stopping you gaming it. So yeah, I think it's a natural thing. Sometimes it will be hard.

Nicola Tatham (25:15)
I would challenge that a little. I think there's a difference between unfair and really hard. I think if we break that statement down a bit, can still feel unfair. Unfair to me might, yeah, hard might be one if it feels hard and inappropriate for the role. So I think this just goes back to that sort of face and face validity piece. If you are asking me to burst balloons and I'm not, on a screen, I'm not very good at bursting balloons.

then that might feel unfair, even though it might be valid and predictable. So I've got to buy into it. So I think sort of goes back to one of the points that you just hinted at, which is around communicating with candidates upfront as well. this is what to expect in the assessment. This is why we're asking you to complete this assessment. So the comms, it's not, you you've talked about comms a lot from the sort of client rollout perspective, but the comms with candidates is so important, especially when we start to talk about.

candidates of neurodiversity as well. Just getting the communication right is vital. And then a really difficult assessment can still feel fair, even though you know you're going through a very challenging situation. So yeah, I think there's nuances to that statement. Yeah, we probably don't need any more time on it.

Nick Brown (26:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

No, you're better at this than me, Nic. Yeah. I, I, I'd agree. Actually. I've certainly think when we go back to our first question, which is, you know, inappropriate interview questions, like you said, it, it's quite hard to think of an animal that you describe yourself as. And like you said, it's totally irrelevant to the job. So it's a pretty, again, I'm simplifying. That's what I do. Um, but yeah, I, I agree with that. Definitely. think that's, that's a really good point.

Caroline Fry (26:31)
Thank

Nicola Tatham (26:52)
Yeah, you are.

Okay, so our last statement is psychologists are the original UX designers of hiring.

Caroline Fry (27:01)
user experience.

Nicola Tatham (27:02)
Thank

Nick Brown (27:02)
Yeah.

Nicola Tatham (27:03)
you.

Nick Brown (27:03)
Yeah. Being, being married to a user experience researcher. and like, feel like I'm work married to psychologist Nick as well. So I feel like I'm surrounded by them. I, yeah, I think I'd agree to some extent. I agree with, agree with that. think, I think it's. Okay. I'll give, I'll give my sort of, off the cuff response, which is I think that maybe not.

40 years ago, it was all about the science and some of the tests and that would be kind of not that user friendly and the way we'd approach things. think, again, in the last 20 years, I think so much importance has been put on user experience and it kind of goes hand in hand now. And I know so many of my IO colleagues will always be thinking, is it scientifically valid, but is this...

you know, is this appropriate in terms of the amount of time what we're asking the candidates to do is the experience delightful or not tech, not awful. you know, I think these days in the world we're living in and the way products are maturing is that not UX, not being awful is not good enough anymore. It needs to be delightful and you know, something that someone feels it's a good process to go through.

in terms of a user journey and so forth. So I do think that the two things go hand in hand to a certain degree. Are they the original thinkers? Maybe not. I don't know. I haven't known enough IO's long enough to say that, but I kind of think so in this day and age they are definitely always thinking like that. You're going to tell me off now Nick, aren't you?

Nicola Tatham (28:32)
It's it's that

multidisciplinary approach that we do, that we have no choice but to take now because we aren't professional UX designers as IOs, but we know people who are. Yeah. So Caroline will, will attest to the amount of hours that my team worked with her team when we're rolling out a new assessment, a new part of the platform. cannot, we cannot work in isolation. I'll say it anymore. I don't think we ever have, but I just think UX has become

Nick Brown (28:39)
Mmm.

Caroline Fry (28:41)
That's where my team comes in.

Mm-hmm.

Nicola Tatham (29:01)
more more more important to our clients and to our candidates. yeah, think, and we sort of ended yesterday's, the last podcast we did on this, which is this multidisciplinary work in, it's so important to be able to provide great solutions for our customers. So that's the end of my statements. Thank you, Nick.

Caroline Fry (29:12)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nick Brown (29:21)
Thank you both. You're welcome.

Caroline Fry (29:22)
Yeah, and Nick, this has been really insightful, great for me selfishly, and I hope everyone to hear more about the value that your team brings. So thanks for your time and expertise. Just before we sort of close this episode, if there's one thing you want people to remember, what would it be?

Nick Brown (29:39)
I think it's, it's, you know, if I'm just talking about implementation, I think it's that consideration to, you know, we're not asking you to build a bridge or you do lots and lots of heavy lifting, but there is a little bit of due thought and consideration that you need as a client. If you're going to invest in some assessments is to think about

what you're trying to achieve and how you want to go about doing it. You know, yes, we can do things quickly, but there's still some good common sense things that you should think about as you roll this out internally, externally, what that looks like. So I think being thoughtful because we can certainly do most of the lift and heavy thinking for you, but there is going to need to be a bit of participation with that. And, know, I think that client vendor relationship is.

is really, important. yeah, that's what I'd say I'd want people to take away.

Caroline Fry (30:30)
Yeah, I think thinking back on everything that you've shared for me, from my product perspective, think the value that your team brings is that continued success in the enablement of the platform, including the assessments, like the effort that they put in working through with you, what they need, what they're targeting, what success looks like, and you guiding them and advising them through those, that process just means the outcome they get at the end.

is much closer to what they're looking for when they bring a vendor like us on. I think my appreciation of you was always very great, but I think, you know, hearing the detail of what you guys go through to really make sure that the platform, the assessments, the whole thing works as expected delights. That's a very product term that I'm really happy to hear you using so much like delights. The clients that we work with is

Nicola Tatham (31:05)
Yeah.

Caroline Fry (31:20)
Yeah, really great. So thank you from me for everything that you put into making what we do so successful.

Nick Brown (31:26)
You're very welcome. Me and the team. It's definitely, again, it's multidisciplinary, multi-team. So yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

Caroline Fry (31:29)
Of course. Yeah.

Nicola Tatham (31:32)
And I've always appreciated you, So.

Caroline Fry (31:33)
What about? I'm late to the party.

Nick Brown (31:34)
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, yeah.

Nicola Tatham (31:37)
I

think one of my takeaways from this is the importance of that partnership approach that you demonstrate with our clients and for clients to understand that when we do perhaps ask challenging questions or hold them to deadlines, all of that is coming from that sort of partnership headspace, which is we're in this together and we want to delight you and to achieve that.

we're going to have to challenge you, know, what do you want to measure? Why are you doing it in that way? Can you achieve this deadline that we're mutually agreeing to? I think partnership is a really key word that came out of the last few minutes that we've been talking through.

Nick Brown (32:10)
Yeah.

Yeah,

definitely. Definitely. We all want the same thing. I want, you know, when I work with clients, when I'm working with their project management team, I want them to go and get all the plaudits internally in the world because they've delivered something with real value to their business that could drive more profits, could drive better recruitment. It's so impactful at the end of the day, you're dealing with people and people's jobs. So, um, yeah, I'm quite passionate about that. So when it goes well, it's the best job in the world because you just see,

you know, within a short space of time, things can transform and have a really impact on what an organisation is trying to do. It can be challenging, but ultimately you do get there one way or the other, usually. So yeah.

Caroline Fry (32:56)
Thanks so much, Nick.

Nick Brown (32:56)
Thank you both.

Caroline Fry (32:59)
Thanks Nick for hanging out with us on the score. And to our listeners, if you enjoyed this deep dive into candidate experience, fairness, and making assessment rollouts actually work, don't miss what's coming next. New episodes drop every two weeks on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your talent assessment insights.

Nick Brown (33:16)
You two are so good at this, honestly. my goodness.

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