TestInvest Skills Benchmarking Platform
The Background
TestInvest is an emerging Australian HR-tech startup tackling one of the least structured decisions in hiring: how to know, objectively, whether a candidate can actually do the job, and what it would cost to close the gap if they cannot. In the traditional recruitment process, skills are inferred from resumes, self-assessment and interview impressions, while the real cost of training a promising-but-underqualified candidate is guesswork scattered across the heads of hiring managers and L&D staff. The result is mis-hires, slow shortlisting, and no consistent way to compare candidates on readiness versus upskilling cost.
James Anthony Consulting (JAC) was engaged by TestInvest to design and deliver a robust, scalable SaaS platform that replaces subjective assessment with real, test-driven data, giving recruiters and employers a single environment to assess, benchmark and plan development paths for candidates.
The Platform
The TestInvest platform unifies candidate testing, role benchmarking, skill gap analysis and costed development planning into a single web application built for the roles that matter: candidate, recruiter and hiring manager, and administrator.
Recruiters define job role profiles with target skill requirements, assign role-based assessments to candidates, and review auto-scored results against those benchmarks. Candidates register, complete timed or untimed skills tests online, and have their submissions scored automatically by skill area. The system generates skill gap reports comparing results to the role profile, produces personalised development plans (PDPs) based on the gaps identified, and estimates the cost of training against chosen internal or external providers.
At the analytics tier, the platform lets recruiters compare multiple candidates side by side, rank them by readiness and cost to upskill, view role-based performance trends across cohorts, and track a candidate's progress over time through re-testing. Candidate reports and PDPs can be exported as PDF or emailed directly to the hiring team.
The Innovation
What makes TestInvest genuinely new is not any single feature but the way it turns hiring into a data-driven, cost-aware decision. A candidate's raw test result is only the starting point. The platform converts that result into a skill gap against a specific role, converts the gap into a concrete development plan, and converts the plan into a dollar figure. For the first time, a recruiter can line up several candidates and answer the question that actually matters: not just who scores highest, but who represents the best value once the cost and time to make them job-ready is factored in.
For an industry that has long relied on intuition, this reframes the shortlisting decision around readiness and return on investment.
Our Role
JAC was responsible for end-to-end delivery: solution architecture, database design, UX design across all user roles, full-stack development of frontend and backend, alpha testing of every release, production deployment and security hardening. TestInvest's founders held the product owner role, supported by JAC's project manager as scrum master and JAC's UX designer running structured review sessions throughout.
Our Approach
Delivery was structured around JAC's V-model-within-Agile methodology, sequenced into themed releases that delivered value early and de-risked the core workflows first: core testing and reporting for accounting and bookkeeping roles, then candidate development and PDP costing, then side-by-side comparison and analytics, then admin and content management, and finally integrations and collaboration.
The stack was chosen for longevity. React on the frontend produced a modern, recruiter-friendly UI. Django on the backend gave TestInvest a clear path to future AI features such as automated PDP generation and gap analysis. PostgreSQL handled the relational complexity of candidates, roles, tests and results, with Celery and Redis managing scoring and asynchronous jobs. AWS hosting through the AWS Activate program kept early-stage running costs low while leaving headroom for scale.
Sprints ran at half-monthly cadence, each closing with a showcase demo on a dedicated staging environment, with priorities reviewed at the start of every phase to stay aligned with current business needs. Security hardening was performed prior to public release, including Mozilla Observatory baseline scanning, nmap scanning, framework-appropriate server hardening and code linting.
The Outcome
JAC delivered the TestInvest platform on its planned release schedule and within the agreed budget. The outcomes included:
A working, hosted MVP+ serving candidates, recruiters and administrators, covering testing, auto-scoring, skill gap reporting, PDP generation, costing and comparison analytics.
An auto-scoring test engine that evaluates submissions by skill area and benchmarks them against configurable role profiles.
A costed PDP pipeline that turns identified skill gaps into a concrete, priced development plan per candidate.
Side-by-side candidate comparison and readiness-versus-cost ranking, exportable as PDF or emailed directly to hiring teams.
A security-hardened production environment ready for commercial onboarding.
Its first paying subscribers onboarded onto the live platform, validating the commercial model.
An API extension that allows TestInvest to integrate with external systems such as applicant tracking and learning management platforms, opening the way to ecosystem partnerships and embedded workflows.
A clean React-and-Django codebase owned outright by TestInvest, architected to extend cleanly into future AI-driven features without rework.
Working with JAC on Startup and SaaS Product Delivery
Getting a startup platform from concept to first paying customer is a different discipline to enterprise software. It calls for tight scope control, early and visible increments, sensible technology choices that keep burn low, and a delivery partner who ships on time without gold-plating. JAC builds MVP+ platforms in structured, phased releases so founders can put working software in front of users and investors early, secure their first subscribers, and expand the feature set as traction builds. The TestInvest engagement was taken from proposal to a live, subscribed, API-enabled product on schedule and on budget.
If you are a startup founder looking to take a product from concept to first subscribers, on time and on budget, with a codebase you own and a clear path to scale, we would be happy to talk through what a delivery plan could look like.
