Companies usually hire people based on their diplomas and GPAs.

Listen to the conversation, and mark each statement as either true (T)or false (F)according to your listening.
M: While most high schools focus on preparing students for college, businesses in one community outside Chicago are rallying around a different approach, preparing students for work. We have Pat Hayes with us tonight to share with us her opinion. Welcome!
W: Thanks. I’m really glad to be here. I’m founder of a local company, Fabric Images, a textile printer. Filling 150 positions here the usual way, relying on diplomas and GPAs, left me frustrated.
M: Why is that?
W: What does an A mean to an employer today? Nothing. Where did you go to school? What level of course? Was it accelerated? Was it a college prep course? I don’t know.
M: So your job-readiness test called WorkKeys aims to get a better read on an applicant’s skill level.
W: That’s right. WorkKeys is an assessment about what you have accomplished in math, in reading and locating for information. Those three characteristics are in about, I don’t know, 98 percent of the jobs at some level.
M: Tell us more, please.
W: More specifically, WorkKeys uses actual workplace scenarios to measure how well individuals can decipher charts, graphs and other visual information, convert ratios, measurements, and make calculations across a variety of situations, and effectively comprehend memos, instructions and other authentic workplace documents.
M: Can every job that you have be profiled based on these core skills?
W: Sure. And for the first time, I saw a commonality of what an individual had and what I needed, and I could start putting the two things together.
M: Then how well does it work?
W: Though it hasn’t been evaluated by independent research, my company testimonials describe sharp declines in employee turnover and training costs.