Provision of Off-the-shelf Testing/Assessment Content Services for Recruitment

The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to provide the United Nations (UN) Human Resources Services Division (HRSD) in the Department of Operations (DOS) with the latest knowledge and capabilities of the market with respect to latest methodologies, solutions, systems, services and potential vendors for the provision of testing/assessment content. The testing content must be proven to mitigate bias and support the diversity, equity and inclusion goals of the Organization. The content would be used as part of the UN staff recruitment process. The UN is open to either acquiring the license of usage on the proprietary content (preferred) or subscribe to managed testing services / platforms. The information gathered through this RFI will be used to determine the UN’s procurement strategy pursuant to availability of solutions, scope, cost estimates, timeframe, and resources required by the UN. The Human Resources Services Division (HRSD) offers expertise in the areas of talent acquisition and process innovation, testing and examinations, in addition to workforce planning and organizational design across all job families (see attachment 1) and facilitates testing/assessment and supports entities without recruitment delegation as required. It centrally administers the Young Professional Programme and manages rosters of pre-qualified candidates across all job families. More than 100 entities across the UN Secretariat have delegated recruitment authority and conduct individual recruitments. Accordingly, testing/assessment content will be used for centralized as well as decentralized recruitment processes and may be stored in a common testing platform. We are interested in assessment/testing content that includes a variety of question types and formats. This would include cognitive and non-cognitive (e.g., reasoning, personality, situational judgment, job knowledge), as well as both closed and open-ended (multiple choice and constructed response / job simulation). The testing content should also be appropriate for (linked to) one or multiple Generic Job Profiles, job families/job networks; knowledge, skills, abilities and other traits (KSAOs); UN values and behaviours; capabilities listed in the UN 2.0 Quintet of Change, as listed in the annex. Providers are invited to offer either content that ideally can be uploaded into a UN-owned testing platform (which is Moodle-based) or on a provider-owned platform, if needed. Each assessment solution must meet the following criteria: • Describe the link between the assessment solution and what is being measured (e.g., KSAO, UN value or behaviour). • Content, images, design and scenarios reflect cultural and gender diversity and respect cultural and gender sensitivity. In scenarios or case studies, there should be a good diversity of characters (i.e., variety of gender, age, nationalities, etc.) . Language used should be bias-free, inclusive, and racially neutral. • Support and on-going services, including helpdesk and troubleshooting. • Online tools and services must be accessible worldwide, including locations with low bandwidth or limited connectivity. • Tools and services must be available in English and preferably in French as well. • Tools and services must have an easy-to-use interface and allow for easy training of users. • Tools and services must incorporate adequate encryption of personal data. • Tools and services must be accessible and adaptable to the needs of persons with disabilities.