Cancer Research is the UK’s leading charity dedicated to cancer research, with its national office in Central London. They are working hard to improve our understanding of cancer and develop better ways to prevent, diagnose and treat the disease. Cancer Research has two different graduate schemes that it recruits for and had previously used paper-based assessments as an integrated part of their assessment centre process. They were looking for a more cost-effective way of screening candidates whilst trying to reduce costs at the same time.

Cancer Research UK’s key objectives were to find a way to make the sifting of applicants easier for their graduate scheme. All graduate applicants would be asked to complete a range of ability tests and, on this basis, their results would determine whether they would be taken to the next stage – the Assessment Centre. Within this, candidates would be asked to complete a parralel version of the test in a secure environment to act as a verification of their original test results.

To ensure a fair process was implemented, an external organisation was required to process the psychometric results and give feedback.

PreVisor provided Cancer Research with a selection of different options and worked together with them to see which option was best suited in terms of budget and business outcomes.

A team of Occupational Psychologists identified that PreVisor’s suite of online graduate ability tests, specifically numerical and verbal tests from the online PreVisor platform, was the ideal solution. A ‘bureau service’ was carried out as this best fitted Cancer Research’s timetable and staff resourcing. This meant PreVisor taking full responsibility for the administration of these graduate tests whilst allowing the graduate team at Cancer Research to focus on other areas of the busy campaign.

Candidates accessed the tests online through PreVisor’s secure server. They were given a unique link enabling them to complete the tests in the comfort of their own environment making them feel at ease and able to produce their best performance. Reports containing results were available to download within seconds of a candidate completing the test.

Consultants from PreVisor then provided confidential feedback to the management at Cancer Research explaining the results of this part of the recruitment process.

Cancer Research were delighted with how the process evolved and have now decided to continue using PreVisor’s graduate tests. The intuitive nature of PreVisor’s Select2perform test platform has made it possible for Cancer Research to deliver this on a self-managed basis.