Skill Set Proof

One thing I found interesting on the elance site that I hadn't seen in past explorations of the platform is how they test skill levels. In the past, users would claim skills, but it was up to their future performance to determine if they really had those skills, or if they could produce portfolio examples of them. Some things aren't easy to prove in a portfolio, however, such as office skills, or blogging skills. I took four of their new 'tests' today, each was about 30 minutes in length (they are timed with a maximum of 20 to 40 minutes per test predetermined) and rated in the top 10% for creative writing (US non-fiction), creative writing (US fiction), office skills, and online article writing and blogging (US version). I like that a lot. I can take a test to help determine and prove my proclamation of proficiency. We'll see how, or if, clients accept that as proof, or not.