21 Oct Big innovation at the Auscontact conference
The Auscontact conference is coming up in Melbourne this week, and I look forward to seeing some of the biggest new innovations in contact centre technologies, as well as sharing some of our own. Some of the innovations in collecting and using big data are going to be particularly exciting.
Prevailing wisdom says that prior experience is the most important factor when deciding to hire. However, the reality is far, far different. A seminal 20 year, 360 000 participant study by the Harvard Business Review found that there was no relationship between prior experience and on-the-job success. With no other sources of information available, contact centres had no choice but to rely on a candidate’s CV when making hiring decisions, but in recent years, this has all changed.
So what’s the answer to hiring the best applicants, regardless of their experience? Talent assessment. We started screening contact centre applicants on key personality and critical reasoning competencies – characteristics like customer focus, problem solving, and sales focus. Without fail, contact centres who implemented to talent assessment started hiring candidates they would have previously never considered. The result? Candidates selected by talent measurement outperformed those who had been those who had previous work experience across a wide range of measures including ratings by managers and sales conversion rates. If you’re still not convinced, you can confirm a candidate’s ability by testing them in a complete simulation of the specific job you want them to perform. Instead of having to assume that candidates are competent at the job based on prior experience, you can make sure of it by using our assessments.
The data speaks for itself, of employees who scored in the low range of customer focus only a third met their net conversion rate. Conversely, of those who scored highly in customer focus, almost 90% met their conversion rate. One large company studied found their times for phone screenings reduced by 20-50%, and a reduction of 20% in the total staff hours required for the recruitment process.
Not only does Talegent’s application screening allow you to identify applicants who will perform, but also reduce employee turnover rate by identifying those who are more likely to stick with the job. In today’s world, it is not enough to rely on traditional hiring processes, and a candidate’s experience alone will not translate to on the job performance. Give yourself the best chance of success, and hire the employees who you know will perform.
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