What if you could shortlist a handful of the very best candidates for a job role from anywhere in the world using a process that was both fair and unbiased? This is what the TestGorilla platform does.

Companies are under so much pressure to find the very best talent and, at the same time, push towards greater diversity and inclusion. This has led to companies looking to other regions and countries to find people and also explore ways to remove bias from the process.

On the other side of this is the person looking for their dream job but coming across all kinds of constraints and often finding it much harder to get noticed than they imagined.

The currency that we’re all expected to use to navigate through the process is the CV (or resume). The problem is that the CV has been around for nearly a hundred years and it feels like we’re trying to move swiftly across the country in a horse and cart. As I’m sure many of you have experienced, the CV is a very poor predictor of job success. I mean, does anyone even read them anymore?

This is the problem that TestGorilla solves. Put simply, their platform automates candidate evaluation at scale. It reduces the workload and increases the probability of getting the right person for the role. At the same time, it removes barriers and levels the playing field for candidates no matter where they are.

The company’s co-founders are Wouter Durville and Otto Verhage. I have been so impressed with the power of their vision and the way they are approaching this huge opportunity with both innovation and intelligence. They are passionate about how disconnected, unfair and inefficient the current way of evaluating people is and how TestGorilla can unleash the world’s talent in a way that is scalable and democratized and results in a much better chance of success.

Using TestGorilla, companies can choose from a large library of tests depending on the role. The platform manages the process, scores each candidate and provides a comprehensive dashboard for every hire.

The tests cover a wide range of subjects and attributes that help a company to match candidates to the role they are hiring for. Additionally the tests span across different industries, roles and company size. The test developers are experts in their field and receive a license fee every time their test is being used which ensures a high level of quality. There is also additional functionality like setting time limits, using video and even anti-cheat monitoring!

Within Notion, we had been setting evaluation tests within the hiring process for some time. But we were finding it time-consuming to manage. Additionally, we introduced anonymised hiring to remove biases from the process. This involves setting tests and having no visibility of a candidate's background or CV until the very last stage of the process.

The TestGorilla platform is a much more advanced and automated version of what we were moving towards within Notion. We have used it successfully within Notion for a number of hires. The platform’s ability to automate the shortlisting of candidates so that we can focus our time on the people who are the very best fit for the role is truly impressive.

As the company scales they will bring in more subject matter experts to develop more tests. This will drive exponential growth in usage and further enhance their ability to connect the dots between tests, results and job success.

TestGorilla will extend the reach and level the playing field in the hiring process - two things that are so very much needed in a world where talent is scarce and inequality so embedded. So I’m thrilled to be announcing our investment in the company and really look forward to working with Wouter and Otto!

Why Notion? A note from the founders...

Notion recognised TestGorilla's potential early on and reached out to us a few months before we began raising capital. From the beginning, we were impressed by their extensive B2B SaaS experience.

It was clear that their support would be invaluable. But it was their entrepreneur-friendly approach and excitement about our mission that ultimately convinced us that Notion was the perfect partner for TestGorilla.