Gild, a Web service that lets job seekers prove their mettle to employers with challenges and tests, announced it is coming out of a closed beta test today at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco.
The job-finding site gives users a way to differentiate themselves from other job candidates by proving their worth in specific areas, such as programming or mathematics and logic, with challenges. Gild provides employers with the results and a direct score that helps show where candidates stand. The challenges are company-sponsored and usually consist of a few questions, and usually have rewards like iPads and iPod Touch devices.
The companies sponsoring challenges can get real-time feedback about the top performers and offer them an invite right then and there. After taking a challenge, a user can also see how they ranked among the other users that have participated in the challenge. Users can also take specific qualification tests, along with the challenges, that will flag them as specialists in certain skills on their main profile page.
The main profile page serves essentially as a LinkedIn profile — users can even import their information from LinkedIn — with a resume and some other details that will help employers get a good picture of the candidate. Users can submit their resumes and qualifications for jobs that Gild automatically recommends based on their qualifications, and they get feedback as to where they stand with respect to the rest of the candidates based on their scores. Gild even offers recommendations to improve their standing among the rest of the candidates, such as through taking additional tests and becoming qualified for new skills.
The site is free for professionals and charges companies for hosting challenges and using the service to find candidates. Gild went into a closed beta earlier this year in May and has already attracted 60,000 users. The San Francisco, Calif.-based company launched the company in 2003, and has so far raised $10 million.