Opening a Pearson Vue testing centre

Discussion in 'Training & Development' started by Pseudonym, Mar 31, 2018.

  1. Pseudonym

    Pseudonym Kilobyte Poster

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    Right so, I live in a pretty big city (Liverpool). And currently I have to travel to Manchester or across the water to take exams. Manchester currently has 4 or 5 of these testing centres, so it makes me wonder if opening one here would be a profitable venture.

    There was one open briefly last year. It was my understanding that they were doing health and safety courses/CSCS courses & things like that in the same location. So perhaps, they were having to turn away large groups of people in order to accommodate a few sporadic IT testing folk.

    Anyway, what's everyone's thoughts on this? Is there anything I'm missing here, as to why this mightn't be as profitable as I think it could be? Obviously, initial outlay would be computers, monitors, peripherals, server. Then there's the office rent, internet connection & I'd have to pay somebody a wage to administer the tests.

    It looks like you get paid per exam, & you only have to open a minimum of 8.5 hours a week.

    Just a thought. Any input welcome.
     
  2. SimonD
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    SimonD Terabyte Poster

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    As I understand it the proctor can't be technical in any way, I am honestly not sure if it's financially beneficial to do this as you mentioned you have the upfront costs for hardware, you have the continuing support costs (internet, office, PC etc) as well as ensuring that the entire testing area is properly under surveillance etc.

    Possibly reach out and have a chat with people like Pearson / Prometric etc to see how much they charge to be one of their testing centres etc.
     
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  3. JK2447
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    JK2447 Petabyte Poster Administrator Premium Member

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    Hi @Pseudonym. I didn't realise you were in Liverpool like me! In all of the years I've sat exams, I've seen many come and go, which leads me to believe there's not enough in it for the exam proctors. There used to be a place by Otters pool where I passed my first XP exam, a place by the Jaguar factory in Speke. I recently had my AWS SA exam booked for a place in Kenny, which closed down so I've got to rebook my exam. Possibly there's not as many exam takers in Liverpool as we'd think, who knows
     
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  4. Sparky
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    Sparky Zettabyte Poster Moderator

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    I always thought the course (Microsoft or whatever) would make the money and taking of the exam was a nice to have but generally does not bring in the cash on its own.

    As said it would be good to have input from Pearson or Prometric.

    Why not put some Certforums branding on the test centre and take payments with Bitcoin? This time next year we will be millionaires!
     
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  5. dmarsh
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    dmarsh Petabyte Poster

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    Generally training centers or colleges run them as its a zero cost add on service.

    To fund the rent, staff, electricity, hardware, etc from getting £2 per exam means you'd need to do hundreds of exams every week, and there generally isn't enough demand.
     
  6. Nyx

    Nyx Byte Poster

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    Pretty sure I've read some posts on here regarding this years ago, as far as I remember there's no money in it at all...

    Availability of test centers was one of my main reasons to do ms exams at home.
     
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  7. JK2447
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    JK2447 Petabyte Poster Administrator Premium Member

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    That’s a good point Nyx. With more and more exams available to do at home. Potentially this will kill off physical exam proctoring.

    While I think of it. Is it just me in the north west of England, or are testing centres usually quite dishevelled? Over the years I’ve sat exams in places reminiscent of crack dens. Never forget sitting one in the Prometric HQ in Manchester tho. Very posh and I even had a metal detector run over me. Oooo
     
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  8. Sparky
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    Sparky Zettabyte Poster Moderator

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    Know what you mean – some of the places I ended up in Glasgow were quite rough. Only had to look at other places when the usual test centre was fully booked.
     
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  9. SimonD
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    SimonD Terabyte Poster

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    Unfortunately not all exams are possible at home and the last thing you really need is for kids to wonder in and then cause the exam to be cancelled.

    I am really not sure how I feel about testing from home in all honesty.
     
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  10. Pseudonym

    Pseudonym Kilobyte Poster

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    Thanks for all the replies guys and sorry I'm only just replying now.

    Honestly, in hindsight this was just one of those hairbrained 3:30AM ideas that I get from time to time. I think by the time I'd woken up in the morning the idea was fundamentally flawed. LOL

    Anyway yeah. I won't be opening a test centre.

    I saw you mentioned that you were in Liverpool some time back, but didn't get around to saying anything about it haha. Are you from around here? And yeah, that was also a possibility I'd considered, that there just weren't many test takers. I wish there were still exam places in Speke or otterspool though! I don't live too far from either of them.

    There was a place in Kenny? It's so strange how fast they come and go. I did one exam in a place in up Kirkby last year, & that had disappeared within a month.
     
  11. JK2447
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    JK2447 Petabyte Poster Administrator Premium Member

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    Mad isn’t it mate and sorry beacaue I don’t mean to put you off. You could end up the norths biggest test centre who’s to know.

    Huyton me at the moment. Mrs is from here so we moved here a few years ago when her mum become a widow. Likely move next year
     
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  12. Pseudonym

    Pseudonym Kilobyte Poster

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    Nah, honestly. I'm just intent on opening a business one day. So I have these ideas from time to time, until I identify a flaw.

    Ah I see. You thinking of moving away from the city or just finding another area within?
     
  13. SimonD
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    SimonD Terabyte Poster

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    I actually toyed with the idea of starting a training centre, however this would have been a diverse training centre running courses in IT, cooking / health as well as gardening and fitness, was going to go into partnership with my folks but struggled to find the right location (had to be large enough for residential stays as well as large enough to be able to change the rooms around as needed).

    It's still something I think about so will see how the future goes.
     
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  14. Pseudonym

    Pseudonym Kilobyte Poster

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    Nice. Sounds interesting. I'd be interested to hear how you get on if you ever do decide to take the plunge
     
  15. Kopite_21

    Kopite_21 Gigabyte Poster

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    Hi Pseudonym,

    I'm from Kirkby but now live in Jersey. Was the place on the Industrial Estate?
     
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  16. Pseudonym

    Pseudonym Kilobyte Poster

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    Haha, small world.

    It was up by QVC. I don't know whether that's the industrial estate you mean or is there another one? I'm not too familiar with the area, although my girlfriend is from Kirkby too.
     
  17. Kitkatninja
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    Kitkatninja aka me, myself & I Moderator

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    We used to be a testing centre for PearsonVue, Prometric and Certiport (we're still a Certiport testing centre)... It may have changed, but you only (used) to get money back if you did X amount of exams per quarter (can't remember what that threshold was cause we never reached it)...

    The last place where I worked was also a testing centre, but they made the money from the professional training that they did... It worked while there was Government funding (as it was a college, so the professional exams where incorporated into various IT qualifications), however as soon as the funding dried up, people stopped attending/booking on the training so the exam centre had to close :(
     
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  18. Kopite_21

    Kopite_21 Gigabyte Poster

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    Yeah sound like the Industrial Estate
     
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  19. nisseki

    nisseki Byte Poster

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    I'm surprised that Liverpool doesn't have any test centers.

    In Birmingham they had about 2 in 2016 when I did my Microsoft cert but now there's 5!
     

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