New Zealand

The appointment of a New Zealand distributor occurred in 1996. Hope-Cross Consulting Ltd, Managing Director Kris Hope-Cross, quickly built a strong and loyal customer base, accounting for over 40% of the New Zealand recruitment consultancies as well an impressive list of corporate, government and education customers.

Prior to this appointment, Kris spent 16 years in recruitment; 11 years with Drake, culminating in a role as the Auckland Manager for Drake Overload – the temp division of Drake Personnel NZ Ltd. The subsequent 5 years were operating the first Recruitment to Recruitment business in NZ placing recruiters and HR personnel in career roles, followed by then contracting to a large multi-national as their NZ GM for Office support perm and temp placements.

Other than the Hope-Cross Consulting business, Kris - since 2008 - volunteers for an organisation as their Events Manager – and continues to do so.

She also donates to various causes including SPCA, Starship, Ronald McDonald House, Diversity Works, Rescue Helicopters (Ak and Taupo – having had first-hand experience) and St John (also, first-hand experience in November 2013.)

Australia

From 2014, Kris entered the Australian marketplace marketing, distributing and supporting the recruitment and staffing businesses – initially on a small scale. Kris is now fully engaged in servicing the Australian marketplace and welcomes your enquiry.

The Case for Pre‐Testing Candidates Prior to the Interview

Testing candidates remotely can make your life easier. You can pre‐screen the candidates before they step one foot into your office.

This means fewer people to interview, a more efficient process, a quicker time to hire, and using your SkillCheck Online Testing Service resources to “capture” the best candidate before another employer.

It would be a no‐brainer, if only you could be sure that it’s not your candidate’s cousin’s uncle’s sister’s plumber’s spouse actually taking the test. And who’s to know if the candidate is looking up answers. Surely your candidates wouldn’t do that, would they?

It can be tough to decide whether or not to allow remote testing, but here are a few thoughts to help you navigate those rough waters. These are not “set in stone” rules by any means but you can use these thoughts to help make the decisions.

You can administer cognitive and behavioural tests remotely and then administer skills and knowledge tests within your offices. Candidates might be more likely to cheat on skills tests (i.e. Excel tests) and knowledge tests (i.e. accounting tests) than they are on behavioural tests, where the answers are less clear‐cut.
Advise candidates how much time it should take to complete each test. By not doing so , the candidate might initially think that, after starting the test, he/she will have hours to complete it, which may lead them to research possible answers.
If a candidate knows that the Microsoft Word 2013 test should take about 30 minutes, then they will usually complete it in a similar time frame ‐ around 30 minutes, not three hours.
Tell candidates that you will be re‐testing final candidates in your offices before the job offer is made. And then do so. This will reduce the temptation to cheat because the candidates know that they will have to test again.

None of these are fool proof ways to eliminate cheating, however, they can provide some peace of mind that you are obtaining an accurate picture of the candidate’s abilities.