Beyond the Resume: A Case Study

 Jul 3, 2013

Turnover hurts. It’s that simple.
There are many direct and indirect costs for all concerned when a new hire doesn’t work out as planned. The opportunity costs of lost matches with better suited prospects is the most important consideration, but that is really just the beginning.
Professionals in human resources often estimate that the cost of losing an employee is about 1.5 times that employee’s annual salary. Here is how they come up with that number:

Direct costs include:
– paperwork processing
– replacement advertising
– interviewing costs such as reference checks
– salary for administrative staff involved in a variety of tasks related to hiring

Indirect costs include:
– loss of productivity as others take on new tasks
– a blow to office morale
– industry reputation
– lost skills and training time

Matching Skills To Dispositions
Beyond an applicant’s skills and experience, employers need to examine what motivates prospective employees. It may be task-focused work, social/relational activities, or even a need for creative expression. Personality profiles, which compare the characteristics of top performers already on the job to prospective new hires, can bridge the great unknowns.

Case Study
A great example of how hiring based on personality profiles leads to better long-term employees is covered in our case study: Beyond the Resume.quote This is a complex, inside look at the collaboration between our placement specialists at 500 Staffing and a large rental water heater provider in Canada. A great deal of responsibility comes with the kind of success our client had. Their customer service line receives more than 3.4 million calls each year, with around the clock coverage and an expectation that 80% of calls are answered within 20 seconds. Maintaining adequate staffing for that kind of operation had become a serious expense.

Like most companies today, our client was drowning in resumes and struggled to sort out the unqualified candidates. The volume of applicants did not allow more than a cursory skimming of most resumes. As they quickly discovered, being successful at the job search and the interview didn’t mean the applicant would make a great customer service agent. As a result, up to 50% of each new hire class would either drop out or perform poorly on the job. It was a quick calculation to discover how much of their training investment was wasted on each class.
By working with us, they were able to use insightful Psychometric Assessments tailored to the needs of their hiring process. Matching the personality profiles of high performers with applicants produced profound results. “Our recruiting strategy did a complete 180 and it was quite refreshing since we finally were getting the right people,” according their Director of Customer Care & AR.
You can learn about what they did by reading our full case study: Beyond the Resume: How hiring based on personality leads to long-term employees

Understanding People
No one should have to suffer through working in the wrong job. With all the available technology at our fingertips, it seems as though matching people with their true potential should be our top priority as employers. This is one of the central reasons that we seek to understand people and the unique advantages each can bring to the work force. We believe that it really can change the world… one employee, one employer, one company, one connection at a time.