I agree with the article ‘Employers not impressed by Jobcentre Plus’ £1k’ incentive’ (Recruiter, 11 November 2009) that stated it needs to do more to improve its service to employers.

However, I believe that a radical change to skills testing, beneficial to both the candidate and businesses, could be the route to its recovery. Placements made through the Jobcentre Plus scheme are currently being hindered due to a lack of trust and faith by businesses and organisations.

Sustained complaints such as ‘submitted candidates skills are not aligned to the job specifications’ and ‘candidates employed are unable to perform the tasks for which they are employed’ are undermining confidence. In this climate business and organisations will not use ineffective means to employ and adopt other methods.

HR departments of major corporate organisations and recruitment agencies have been using skills tests to successfully match candidates with vacancies for decades. Applicants using the Jobcentre Plus system are lucky if they get assistance from staff with their requirements, let alone a professional and efficient job matching service.

If Jobcentre Plus wants to truly succeed in its aims, it needs to open its eyes to the new technologies that can speed up the system and help place applicants in the right job, first time in a cost-effective way. Currently, the system is failing both businesses and candidates by its inability to supply industry with the right skills set.

There is growing frustration among the skills assessment industry over the Jobcentre Plus offering. It is an unfortunate reality that skills testing companies do offer the technology to help solve some of the unemployment problems posed by the recession but, from our experience, the Jobcentre Plus is not willing to consider it. Our concern is that without new technologies such as online skills testing, and a new way of approaching the job market as a whole, the Jobcentre Plus scheme will hinder more job applicants than it will help.

Jason Pierce, managing director of online skills testing company, Skillsarena