TestGorilla’s Commitments

This blog post highlights TestGorilla’s commitments to the following:

Social impact

TestGorilla’s purpose is to make the world a better place by eliminating hiring bias and making equality of opportunity a reality. This explains our mission: to place 1 billion people in dream jobs. How are we doing this? With skills-based hiring that allows anyone to complete an assessment, anywhere in the world, asynchronously. The accessibility this creates means more people have the opportunity to land their dream job, regardless of their qualifications, location, background, or experience.

Talent assessments for skills-based hiring

We are always adding to and updating our test library so that our customers can build the best multi-measure talent assessments possible. Our tests are valid and reliable, and they can be used at the top of the hiring funnel to help employers to make bias and stress-free decisions about which candidates to interview and hire. This is known as skills-based hiring. 

A world without hiring bias

Traditional hiring practices, where resumes and cover letters sit at the top of the hiring funnel, are outdated, inefficient, and wide open to bias. There is a huge amount of data that highlights this problem: from the gender employment gap to the paper ceiling and “who you know” culture, resumes are limiting equality of opportunity all over the globe. 

We want to change that. So we’re revolutionizing recruitment with skills-based hiring.

When talent assessments are used at the top of the hiring funnel, and employers start their hiring processes with data, rather than background information, bias is less able to creep in. According to our research, 91% of employers who use skills-based hiring see an increase in diversity.

The impact of what we do in numbers

Skills-based hiring is the vehicle that can take us to a world where people hire bias-free, using data, rather than qualifications, background, and experience, to hire top talent. 

TestGorilla has made a large social impact since it was founded in 2020. To date we are helping over 9000 companies hire faster, better, and less biased. Together, these companies have filled 130k jobs using our assessments, with more than 2.3 million candidates assessed in total. This means that 130k data-driven hiring decisions have been made and 2.3million candidates have been able to demonstrate the skills they really have with TestGorilla. 

The impact doesn’t stop there. With skills-based hiring, companies actually hire better talent, saving them money and time and increasing diversity, performance, and retention. 

Our data shows that 54.3% of candidates prefer a hiring process that includes talent assessments, whereas only 26.6% don’t. 72.1% of those hired using skills-based hiring were either happy or very happy in their current role, compared to 62.9% of those who were recruited via other methods. This means that almost 10% more skills-based hires are happy at work.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I)

The external social impact potential of our product is directly connected to DE&I. By helping employers reduce the influence of hiring bias, we set them up for success when it comes to creating diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces.

Considering we are a series A start-up, we still have a lot of work to do internally around DEI. We are proud that from the start, we focused on hiring globally to include and hire as many cultures as possible and offer worldwide access to remote working opportunities at TestGorilla. This being said, a core focus of our People and Culture team is to implement an entire guide on belonging and DE&I in the coming year.

We practice what we preach

During our own hiring processes, we prioritize DE&I by using our own product at the top of the funnel. As a result, we have an incredibly diverse team of people – all hired through skills-based hiring. Check out some of our best skills-based hiring stories here!

Our people

The TestGorilla team is a truly diverse group of 147 people that are spread across six continents and 48 countries. Our leadership team is 50% female and our organization is 39% female, 57% male, and 1% non-binary.

TG plus

Our LGBTQ+ affinity group, named TG plus, provides a safe, inclusive space for LGBTQIA+ people at TestGorilla and their allies. We discuss, share, explore, inform… and have fun!

Celebrating a life outside of work

TestGorilla supports a globally distributed team with a presence on almost every continent and in every timezone. Our all-remote nature means that we do not have colocated office space anywhere in the world. We have established ways to help our people do their best work and maintain work-life balance whilst working remotely. 

Remote working

To make sure all TestGorilla people can celebrate the flexibility that remote working offers but also feel engaged and connected at work, we offer:

• A remote working budget of €1000 per annum that can be spent on anything you need in order to work happily and efficiently

• An annual on-site event that takes place in a different location each year and serves as a moment for our remote teams to connect IRL

• An annual employee engagement survey that is filled out anonymously. This ensures we can have a finger on the pulse of how engaged people feel and respond to any suggestions for improvement

• A company-wide remote social calendar that includes talks, well-being sessions, coffee breaks, and virtual social activities

Async working

We are big on asynchronous working at TestGorilla. Adopting async ways of working promotes greater flexibility for team members by making non-linear workdays possible and allowing them to work at times that best suit their unique needs and schedules. It’s key to keeping our remote workspace inclusive and considerate. To support async working, we have:

• An asynchronous working guide that outlines best practices for working and communicating asynchronously 

• No rules about when you work. Non-linear work days are encouraged and celebrated, and our people are empowered to work to a schedule that suits them

Unlimited PTO policy

Our unlimited PTO policy means that your work-life balance is truly in our own hands at TestGorilla. This policy fosters a culture of trust that we all value, and we expect all members of the TestGorilla team to use this trust with integrity. 

Career growth and learning

At TestGorilla we invest in the potential and ambitions of the people we hire. Continuous learning is not only encouraged here – it is a must! We have certain rituals in place that support and operationalize this philosophy.

Learning and development (L&D)

Learning and development is of exceptionally high importance across all departments; as such, we have a company OKR to have 80% of people complete 80% of their L&D plans in 2023. All TestGorilla employees have access to the following:

• An annual L&D budget of 3.5% of your annual salary

• L&D plan submission deadline after each January performance review cycle

• Managerial support and guidance in building your L&D plans, although the choice of direction you want to learn and grow in is ultimately yours

• The freedom to work on L&D during working hours

Performance reviews, promotions, and acknowledgments

We have bi-annual performance reviews at TestGorilla, and each comes with a round of promotions for the people who are exceeding their current positions and deserve to move up their career ladders. Assessment is based on:

• How your performance compares to the career ladder criteria for your job title

• How engaged you are with TestGorilla’s values

TestGorilla offers many other opportunities to celebrate people’s work outside of these biannual proceedings, some more casual than others. These include:

• An open-mic for shoutouts in weekly standups and a company-wide platform for async, written shoutouts

• Quarterly values awards where the panel consists of the previous quarter’s award winners

Internal mobility

As well as promotion rounds at each performance review stage, all company job openings are open to anyone at TestGorilla. All they have to do is complete an assessment like the rest of our applicants. We already have a few examples of horizontal career mobility: one of our customer success advisors is now a UX researcher, and one of our designers has recently taken up the role of growth product manager. Often, L&D plans will reflect ambitions to move internally.

Want to learn more about TestGorilla’s culture?

Check out our values and open roles on our careers page, or head to our news page to read the latest TestGorilla news!