I want to talk to you again about CADsmart. I have posted about it a couple of times now (here and here) giving you some information about the software. We first spoke about what it does, generally speaking. Then we took a look at the assessments and how they work. Now I want to look at CADsmart from the manager’s aspect. What can we do with the information we just collected? CADsmart really excels in the larger firms and for assessing interviewees. It doesn’t perform as well with small firms that have four or five CAD techs. If you are managing only five CAD users, then you already know where they struggle and where they excel. But if you have twenty, fifty, a hundred, or more, then you don’t have the time to know them as well. That’s where CADsmart can help. I also like it when assessing interviewees. It provides a fair environment for the tester, which gives you a more accurate assessment. Many firms have customized their CAD environment and that can intimidate and overwhelm a candidate if they are trying to get a job by taking a test in a place they are unfamiliar with. Sometimes upper management doesn’t understand these types of situations. CADsmart is a fairer assessment process.
Now that we have assessment data on our CAD users, how do we get to it and what do we do with it? Access is easy enough. Go to CADsmart’s website and log in. You will need an account to be able to do this. We will talk about getting an account later on. When you log on there are several options available to you. You can go directly to the performance charts, or go to the assessment results.
The performance charts provide a quick visual guide to the information collected. You can see your scores sorted by group (employee, interviewee, etc.) The charts provide you with a performance spread in one graph and a stage performance in a second graph. This gives you an overall look and a more detailed comparison. There are different color codes to help you differentiate between the groups and the benchmark. Hopefully the benchmark is the lowest set of scores you have! Everything here is online, but you can get the data and print it, transfer it to a PDF, or export it to a spreadsheet. There are many ways to see the data and to get it to use for yourself.
The assessment results tab is where you can go to get more detailed information about the individual test results. You can sort the data by any column and in any order. You can sort it and then resort it by clicking on the headers. You can add and sort your users results by groups. The default groups are Employees and Interviewees. In my test I added groups for our departments; engineering and surveying. This is a nice feature if you need to manage the results from different offices or departments.
The assessment results tab lists each user by name. If you click on the users surname it will open up a window that provides the basic testing data (time, date, CAD platform) and recommendations for training based on the assessment results. If you click on the result score, another window opens up providing a more detailed analysis of each stage. It provides the end score, the time taken, and an analysis. The analysis lets you know what the candidate did incorrectly! This is a great feature because it can better explain to you why they scored the way they did. How useful is an assessment that just says, “You scored an 85%.”? Not very. At the end of the assessment results it compares the score and time with the benchmark letting you know how your skills compare. When you are finished, you can click the print button to print out the certificate (that’s what they call the data sheet.) I was disappointed that CADsmart didn’t provide other output devices as in the Performance Chart Tab like the PDF and Spreadsheet options. That’s how you look at and use the assessment data. It’s very simple to use.
There are other tabs too that you would expect; account details (name, address, password, etc.), resources (this is where you download the assessment software and instruction guides), software settings (turn off testing options like the clock, intro movie, welcome message, and extra candidate labels), booking system (where you can schedule assessment times), support (where to go if you need help), and logout (that one’s obvious!)
You can see that with CADsmart, managers have many tools available to them to better assess the CAD skills of their users. There are many resources to go to for help (like the managers’ video) and more instruction. CADsmart also has some customization features that might help you out too. Overall I feel that CADsmart is a good program and a great service. It is easily used and implemented.
The biggest question is; how much does it cost? CADsmart has two methods, the Premier and the Classic. The premier provides unlimited use and with all the assessment data, recommendations, the whole thing. The Classic level of subscription only provides unlimited use of the Assessment Software and access to your data. This might be enough for some managers. It will depend on you, your needs and your budget.
The pricing varies from the classic to the premier and by the number of users. It seems to me that they are looking for a general usage amount. The website states that you can assess your users as many times as you want including as many interviewees as you have.
The price difference on 1 to 15 users from the classic to the premier was only about $300 (U.S.), ranging from about $1500 to about $1800 per annum. The price on 100 users ranged from about $6300 to about $7500 per annum. You will need to check for yourself as prices may change. They also provide pricing for other countries. The more users you add the higher the price.
Depending on the amount of employees you have, the price will obviously vary. If you have about 100 users, then the cost will be about the same as one license of your CAD software! I think that is a good price and well worth the money spent. I feel that CADsmart is a good investment in your company.
