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How Science Has Changed the Way Businesses Hire Kronos Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S2
The ability to accurately predict how well applicants will perform on the job
before actually hiring them has long been considered the Holy Grail of hiring.
2009 Business Outcomes Study Report PreVisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S3
Leading companies across the globe have recognized a dramatic impact to
their bottom line through the use of talent measurement. In some cases, the
result can be in excess of one hundred million dollars, as documented in this
report. How did they realize these incredible results?
Death of the Big Board: The Next Generation of Recruiting The RightThing . . . . . . . . . . .S4
As the economy continues to shrink, increased pressure for companies to max-
imize their resources, time and money has come to the forefront. Recruiting
2.0 has emerged and with it, a whole new generation of best practices.
Focus on Process to Reduce Your Recruiting Costs Taleo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S5
In good times, trimming operational costs is an ongoing goal. In tough times,
its a necessity. In both good times and bad, recruiting occurs. Growth increas-
es headcount in good times and opportunistic or replacement hiring happens
in a slow business cycle.
Learning For the Sustainable Enterprise SkillSoft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S7
Sustainability is now a hot trend, and often it is associated with environmental
responsibility. However, the environmental benefit is just one of the positive
outcomes of a sustainable approach.
Best Practices in Recruitment
PREMIUM SPONSORS
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Best Practices in Recruitment
How Science Has Changed the Way Businesses Hire
KRONOS I NC.
T
he ability to accurately predict how well applicants will
perform on the job before actually hiring them has long
been considered the Holy Grail of hiring. And, consider-
ing that the most important decision a company makes about an
employee is the first onethe decision to hiremanagers have
every incentive to select the right candidate each and every time.
But predicting performance is just plain hard. In a recent study
conducted by the Recruiting Roundtable, companies reported
that 50 percent of their hiring decisions turned out to be mis-
takes.
1
Which puts the odds of making a good hire on par with a
flip of a coin.
The first challenge recruiters face is that, in order to even begin
to predict performance, they need to be able to evaluate past per-
formance. But reliable performance data has been typically hard to
come by. Or, at least, difficult to interpret. And, because hiring
managers dont, as a rule, possess crystal balls, consistent predic-
tions about job performance have remained elusive. Until recently.
Enter Selection Science
Advances in selection science over the last decade have sparked
an evolution in technologies that are proving themselves increas-
ingly effective in helping organizations improve the quality of
hireespecially with hourly or frontline employees.
So, what is selection science? In brief, selection science is the
systematic analysis of key factors that influence job performance.
It places a particular emphasis on the development and use of
specific metrics that have been shown to accurately predict
job-relevant behaviors. The fundamental theory behind this
approach is that an applicants underlying personality drives
behaviors that result in specific performance outcomes.
Psychological research undergirding modern selection science
shows that future workplace performance is largely determined
by three distinct sets of behavioral and attitudinal criteria:
What the candidate has done
What the candidate can do
What the candidate wants to do
Although selection science now recognizes all three areas to be
important predictors, traditional recruitment has tended to focus
on what job applicants have donepast duties and previously
acquired skillsto the near exclusion of the other two criteria.
Advances in the last 10 to 15 years, however, particularly in the
development of effective volitional or want-todo metrics, sug-
gest that future job performance is determined as much by what
people want to do as by what they can do or have done.
When is Section Science the Right Choice?
The application of selection science to pre-employment assess-
ments has proven to be most effective in hiring scenarios where
the knowledge or skills associated with a position can often be
obtained in a few weeks. And in situations where hiring success
is measured in such quantifiable terms as sales per hour,
customer service scores, length of employment, and involuntary
termination. Jobs of this type are commonly referred to as
frontline or hourly workers. Given the sheer size of the front-
line workforce (nearly 70 percent of all U.S. workers)and the
high churn associated with these positionseven a modest
improvement in hiring, retention, and performance could drive
hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars, to an organiza-
tions bottom line.
An Integrated Approach to Hiring
Using standardized web, database, and computing technology,
candidate responses from pre-employment assessments can be
captured in the form of electronic records that forms the starting
point for detailed analysis.
After the employee has been on the job for a while (or when
theyve left the organization), their initial assessment and appli-
cation data can be matched to their work history to create a
closedloop recordi.e. how current and past employees
answered the pre-employment assessments and how they then
performed on the job. Well designed hiring software can then
compare a new applicants responses with those of current and
past employeesenabling it to make predictions about the new
candidates future job success. Predictions that rely on statistical
probabilities, rather than a hiring managers best guess alone.
A Workforce That Improves Over Time
Increasing the accuracy of hiring decisions can be accomplished
with an integrated approach that brings together the advances in
selection science, data analysis techniques and automation.
When applied to high-volume hiring environments, the impact
to an organization can be significant. Your hiring strategy
evolves from being focused simply on minimizing the cost-of-hire
to truly improving the overall quality-of-hire.
The result? As the quality of hiring improves, important benefits
accrue to the organization: hiring managers begin to have more
time to coach and develop their workers, instead of managing
employee churn, leading to greater employee satisfaction and
productivity, cost savings, and, ultimately, profitability.
1
Half of appointments a mistake, study finds, Institute of Leadership & Management (October 2008)
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Best Practices in Recruitment
2009 Business Outcomes Study Report
Talent Measurement ROI: The Documented Impact of Employment Testing
PREVI SOR
L
eading companies across the globe have recognized a dra-
matic impact to their bottom line through the use of talent
measurement. In some cases, the result can be in excess of
one hundred million dollars, as documented in this report. How
did they realize these incredible results? Through an employment
assessment program that enabled them to identify the employees
most likely to sell more, produce more, drive higher customer sat-
isfaction, and stay on the job longer.
To meet senior managements increasing need for quantifiable
metrics around workforce performance, talent measurement is
becoming more sophisticated. Successful organizations understand
that recruiting, screening, and placement processes must be linked
to sales, revenue, and profit. However, even when great processes
are put in place, the quality and success of talent decisions is im-
pacted by the quality of information used to make those decisions.
For the third year in a row, this report provides concrete
evidence directly connecting employment assessments to specific
business outcomes.
The findings in this report represent studies that PreVisor com-
pleted with client organizations both in the U.S. and globally.
These studies represent a wide range of industries and focus on a
multitude of job typeshourly, professional, managerial, sales,
and customer service. This report summarizes many key business
results these companies found, as well as some important trends
uncovered through analysis of all the studies.
Report Findings
In the 2009 report, 33 Business Outcome Studies were con-
ducted for clients across multiple industries, including financial
services, telecommunications, retail, and hospitality.
Three of the 13 findings from the report are highlighted below.
Over $2 million saved annually by reducing repeat trouble
call rates. At a cable telecommunications company, broad-
band technicians who earned higher scores had lower repeat
trouble call rates on their service calls, reducing the number of
unnecessary service visits and saving the organization an aver-
age of $1,450 per year per technician. Across the entire organ-
ization, this equates to an annual savings of over $2 million.
High-scoring sales force has potential to drive another $137
million annually. In a retail organization in the automotive
parts industry, sales associates who earned higher scores on
an assessment solution had sales variances that were 9%
higher and generated more than $51,000 in annual sales
compared to low scorers. Distributed across the entire sales
associate workforce, this difference amounts to $137 million
annually.
An 11% increase in average number of calls handled picks
up 18 more productive days per employee each year. In a re-
mote agent position in a call center outsourcer, employees
who had earned higher scores on a call center assessment so-
lution handled calls 11% faster, translating into over eight
hundred additional calls taken per year. Compared to those
earning low scores on the assessment, each high-scoring em-
ployee actually contributed eighteen more productive days
per year to the organization.
For a comprehensive list of all 13 findings, please go to
http://www.previsor.com/results/outcome/2009.
Employment Testing: The Future State
There are several trends emerging in employment testing that
are influencing the development and evaluation of assessment
solutions. Some of these trends include:
More use of computer adaptive testing. Computer adaptive
testing (or CAT) is a type of assessment in which test items
are drawn from a large pool of questions on the basis of a
candidates previous responses. CAT assessments are consid-
ered to be more accurate and since candidates do not all
receive the same set of questions, these tests are much less
vulnerable to cheating.
Increasing emphasis on realistic multi-media assessments.
Test development efforts are moving increasingly toward
high-tech, multi-media simulations that model a day in the
life for a given job role. In addition to being more engaging
for candidates, these assessments can serve as a realistic job
preview by simulating actual job activities.
Whole-person assessments on the rise. Whole-person assess-
ments employ a variety of different assessment methods that
specifically target those characteristics of the candidate
(behavior, ability, skills, and traits) that are most relevant for
achieving critical business outcomes. Furthermore, whole-
person assessments have been determined to be more predic-
tive than tests that isolate a single competency.
The above findings and trends are only a sample of those found in this com-
plimentary, comprehensive report. To view this report in its entirety, please
visit: http://www.previsor.com/results/outcome/2009.
Using the results of the business outcome study, we were
able to calculate a profit gain of roughly $24 million
on an investment of just over $100,000.
Michael D. Blair Manager, Recruitment,
Selection & Assessment EMBARQ
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Best Practices in Recruitment
Death of the Big Board: The Next Generation of Recruiting
THE RI GHTTHI NG
A
s the economy continues to shrink, increased pressure for
companies to maximize their resources, time and money
has come to the forefront. Recruiting 2.0 has emerged
and with it, a whole new generation of best practices. Historically,
utilizing big boards to attract candidates seemed to be the best
solution as it required little time and initial effort. Today, thats all
changing. With an innate need for highly skilled employees, com-
panies are seeking more robust and cost effective ways to attract
top talent.
Job Boards in Decline
The proliferation of big boards in the late 90s brought a revo-
lutionary new way to find and recruit for jobs. They helped to
expand candidate pools for recruiters and opened a whole new
window of opportunities for candidates. Today however, raised
concerns on rising costs, strained resources, and lack of quality
are becoming a reality.
Big board traffic continues to fall as niche board and social
networks gain in popularity.
Client data from The RightThing shows a dramatic decrease
in the percentage of hires sourced from big boards over the
last year.
Candidates looking for jobs have grown frustrated with the
lack of communication, information and security risks asso-
ciated with posting their personal information.
The proliferation of job board aggregators such as
InDeed.com and SimplyHired.com are eliminating the need
for candidates to visit individual sites.
As recruiting 2.0 evolves, big boards today are becoming what
classified ads were to the 80s and 90s.
The Rise of Recruitment 2.0
While the war on talent may be at a cease fire, there is still
unique pressure to find highly qualified candidates. Best-in-class
companies are shifting their focus to direct outreach and passive
recruiting initiatives which provide better outcomes with a more
cost effective price tag. As Recruitment 2.0 offers refined solu-
tions for the future, the following three initiatives are gaining
momentum.
Recruitment CRMs
Although the nations unemployment rate continues to rise, its
vital for todays leading companies to proactively market and
continuously connect with potential candidates regardless of
hiring plans. Offering a cutting edge, cost effective tool that facil-
itates better hires, the concept of recruitment CRM is growing in
popularity. With relationship building and active outreach one of
the only ways to ensure quality, this smart solution makes sense.
By building out a proactive pipeline and initiating continuous
communication, companies can essentially build their own
exclusive talent pools to dip into on demand.
Maximize the benefits of recruitment CRMs:
Create and send branded e-mail campaigns
Take advantage of lead source tracking features
Use automatic ticklers and calendar systems built into soft-
ware that allows for organized and predetermined outreach
initiatives
Social Networking
With LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and more, social networking
has proliferated over the past year and will continue to offer rich
pools of qualified active and passive candidates. In fact, accord-
ing to a new study released by Nelson, social networking has
overtaken e-mail as the most popular internet activity. In-house
data collected from The RightThings clients revealed that social
networking was three times more effective in finding candidates
than big board sourcing for both exempt and non-exempt posi-
tions and is a great way to build both active and passive
pipelines.
Maximize your social networking strategy:
Join industry specific blogs or user groups
Always make sure your own information on social networks
is up-to-date
Devote time each week to expanding your network
Deep Web Searches
Deep Web search techniques using Boolean logic, X-Ray, flip
search and more are also a highly successful and increasingly
popular way to identifying passive candidates; however, conduct-
ing the search is only the beginning. Its important to note that
once a search string is executed, successful deep web searches
require time and effort to dig further through results to find the
relevant information.
Maximize your deep web search:
Attend a class to understand how to build effective search
strings
Take advantage of technology that utilizes automated
overnight search options
Once candidate is found, use traditional follow through
methods to connect
As Recruitment 2.0 continues to shape a new generation of talent
acquisition tools, resource allocation in employment branding,
company value proposition, and online recruitment training will
continue to rise. Additionally, recruiting and retaining Gen Y will
also play a major factor in the evolution of best practices as will
technology innovations and Web 2.0.
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Best Practices in Recruitment
Focus on Process to Reduce Your Recruiting Costs
ALI CE SNELL, VI CE PRESI DENT TALEO RESEARCH
I
n good times, trimming operational costs is an ongoing goal. In
tough times, its a necessity. In both good times and bad, recruit-
ing occurs. Growth increases headcount in good times and
opportunistic or replacement hiring happens in a slow business cycle.
Creative recruiting strategies in tandem with the latest technology
developments provide the opportunity to reduce recruiting costs
while powering exceptional business results.
Target Direct Cost Savings
Total recruiting process expenses are the combined sum of external
costs and internal labor costs. Most organizations can impact
recruiting expenses with direct cost savings. While additional sav-
ings on indirect costs can be realized from process improvement and
efficiency gains, there are direct cost savings and benefits readily
available in three broad areas: sourcing, assessments, and green
recruiting.
Sourcing: Reduce Agency Costs
Agency search firm fees can cost an organization up to 35 percent
of a new employees annual base salary. These fees typically come
from the hiring department budget and may not be visible to HR.
The use of internal mobility programs, referrals, candidate pipelines,
and corporate career websites can reduce or eliminate agency spend.
Efficient collaboration when working with agencies should
include clear identification of candidates referred, complete access
to all candidate information and history, and automatic notification
and correspondence. That way you can optimize the value from
third-party agency fees.
Sourcing: Reduce Advertising Costs
You can realize significant cost reductions by placing all job
positions on the corporate career website. Youll reap a substantial
number of candidates at minimal cost compared to job boards and
other sourcing options.
Recruitment advertising spend is a common form of maverick
spend. Without proper controls, sourcing decisions are made with-
out metrics or analysis. Now, online tracking and reporting delivers
insights on sourcing channel performance. You can monitor resume
volumes, number of hires, and employee performance by source to
strategize on high return sources.
Sourcing: Internal Talent Pool
Internal talent pools provide a way to reduce sourcing and adver-
tising costs while delivering the bonuses of improved productivity
and retention. Internal redeployment reduces costs and ramp-up
time while increasing retention and employee satisfaction.
Internal hires have a dramatically lower time to productivity. The
Mellon Learning Curve Research Study found a 50 percent faster time
to productivity on average among eight categories of workers. Direct
cost savings from internal hires are attained through lower sourcing,
signing bonuses, relocation, onboarding, and severance costs.
Sourcing: External Talent Pool
Strategic recruiting requires identifying and matching people with
a given set of skills to a particular job while efficiently allocating
sourcing expenditures. Use an eRecruiting system that powers exter-
nal talent pool management with a candidate relationship database
to automate prescreening and candidate matching while communi-
cating with targeted candidates.
Candidate relationship management (CRM) can lower sourcing
costs by marketing new job opportunities to candidates sourced in
the past. By mining the talent pool, each new requisition will not
require sourcing a new pool of candidates. Managing and mining
the corporate candidate database can reduce sourcing costs per
candidate up to 50 percent.
Assessments: Reduce Turnover Costs
Assessments in recruiting can yield many benefits including better
productivity, superior candidate performance results, and lower
turnover. Reducing the rate of turnover provides considerable
savings. One Taleo customer calculated $2.6M savings by reducing
turnover four percent with assessments: 1,300 fewer hires were
needed at $2K per hire.
Assessments also save recruiter and hiring manager time as they
focus on a short-list of qualified candidates. Qualified candidates
hired for fit tend to stay with the organizationreducing unwanted,
expensive turnoverand produce quality work, driving revenue.
Green Recruiting: Reduce Paper and Processing Costs
You can reduce recruiting costs by automating the process and al-
so make a green difference starting at the online career site. If the
process is automated without paper, candidates know you have tak-
en the proper steps to enable green recruiting. In addition to the rep-
utational benefits, it is possible to calculate direct cost savings. eRe-
cruiting reduces energy use and pollution associated with
manufacturing, transporting, and recycling paper products. Process
automation also saves energy in mailing, storage, handling, filing,
and reporting tasks. Direct cost savings come from reducing paper-
work related to resumes, advertising, and onboarding.
In addition, Software as a Service (SaaS) eRecruiting software by
subscription is greener than purchased software running on local
servers that create redundant computing environments for a smaller
carbon footprint.
Improving the recruiting process through sourcing, assessments,
and green recruiting does not just save costs. It also positions the
company to improve the talent base during the recession while
retaining the ability to grow appropriately in recovery. For more
information, read Recruiting: Reducing Direct Costs and Reaping
Results available at www.taleo.comfrom Taleo Research.
Use the Recruiting & Staffing channel on the workforce.com website as
your information hub for finding and managing talent management, 24/7!
Get the most current stories, trends, strategies and special reports.
Search by subject or company. Get news you might have missed. Find
archived in-depth features. Visit the Commerce Center for a list of and
information about different segments within the category, such as
Assessment & Testing, Background Checks, Candidate Sourcing,
Contingent Staffing, Retention, Telecommuting and Workforce Planning.
Each directory includes profiles and links to resources and vendors,
cutting down on your research time.
The online hub for everything
and everyone you need to know in
Recruiting & Staffing.
> Go to: workforce.com/staffing
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Best Practices in Recruitment
Learning For the Sustainable Enterprise:
How Investment in Learning Drives Long Term Competitive Advantage
SKI LLSOFT
S
ustainability is now a hot trend, and often it is associated with
environmental responsibility. However, the environmental ben-
efit is just one of the positive outcomes of a sustainable
approach. Sustainability is a strong business principle that simply
means to sustain positive results over a longer period, for more
stakeholders, while continuously reducing cost and negative impact
of various kinds. Seen in this light, sustainability is not such a revo-
lutionary idea. It is simply an expansion of the time-honored
approach of doing more with less: producing more beneficial busi-
ness outcomes (productivity, revenue, customer satisfaction,
employee engagement, etc.) for less cost and less negative impact
(money, resources, energy waste, etc.). While this may seem a bit
idealistic, the recent economic crisis illustrates why it is important
to look beyond short-term results and narrow interests. A global
recession now looms as a result of an over reliance on short-term
strategies and a failure to recognize the interconnectedness of vari-
ous systems within a global economy.
Now that we have seen the domino effect that can occur, there is
a new urgency within many organizations to understand their inter-
connectedness, and how their risks and responsibilities intertwine.
Intense global competition is another reason that sustainability has
become such an important trend. Competition for resources, natu-
ral and human, is intensifying on a global scale. With the rise of
developing nations there are expanded market opportunities and
also expanded sources of competition. The only way that an organi-
zation can achieve sustained competitive advantage is to have a long
term strategy. This has spurred many companies recently to develop
long term talent management strategies, to ensure that they
will have a work force with the right mix of skills to support
future growth.
Another important by-product of competition in a global eco-
nomy is the need to constantly innovate. Innovation is essential in a
world where unpredictable changes come at us from every direction.
Innovation can take the form of small improvements that reduce
costs or improve processes in small degrees, or in the form of break-
through ideas that transform entire markets. In either case, it is
people that make the difference. People are the source of innovation;
and people are the key to sustainability. It is not surprising then
that learning plays an important role in a sustainable strategy and
it is very often mentioned in the same breath with sustainable
competitive advantage.
Supporting the Sustainable Enterprise
There are three main ways that learning, especially technology-
enabled learning, supports the sustainable enterprise.
Learning Maximizes People Value
People are the ultimate renewable resource, and organizations that
provide learning to more employees, at all levels, are better posi-
tioned to compete in a global economy. Learning fuels creativity,
which in turn drives innovation.
Learning also drives higher levels of productivity and engagement.
The value of learning is multiplied when properly aligned with
critical roles by embedding relevant learning content into existing
corporate systems such as portals, Knowledge Centers and talent
management systems. Learning also helps companies attract the best
people and retain them longer.
Learning Helps Organizations Prepare for
the Unexpected
Technology and global markets are increasing the pace of change.
Having a learning culture fosters the agility and critical thinking
skills that are needed to compete in this fast-paced world. A robust
supply of learning resources helps organizations adapt to competi-
tive changes, technology developments and new customer demands.
On-demand learning resources can be used to solve unexpected
problems as they arise.
With Technology Enabled-learning, Organizations
Can Do More for Less
Technology and the Internet have liberated learning from tradi-
tional bounds, making it feasible to train more employees wherever
they are, at a much lower cost. Online learning can be used alone to
ensure basic skills and compliance, and it can be used as part of
more complex learning blends to address a wide variety of enter-
prise needs. Technology is also the key to delivering on-demand
learning resources to employees in the flow of work, allowing them
to solve problems quickly and efficiently.
In short, e-learning, in all its forms, increases the efficiency and
effectiveness of enterprise learning, and allows learning to be
delivered to many more employees, even in times of budgetary
constraint.
Summary
Sustainability is a broad concept that is becoming mainstream in
the business world. It is no longer associated solely with environ-
mental benefit, as many organizations are realizing that people are
the ultimate renewable resource. An investment in employees pays
long term dividends, literally and figuratively.
Bringing learning to all levels of the organization, on a broad range
of topics, truly unlocks organizational potential. It fosters the agility
and critical thinking skills that are essential to competing in a global
marketplace. And with the use of technology-enabled learning,
organizations can afford to train more employees at lower cost.
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For more information on the companies that
contributed to this white paper, visit their web sites,
or contact them directly at:
PREVISOR
14425 Penrose Place
Suite 150
Chantilly, VA 20151
Phone: (800) 367-2509
www.previsor.com
THE RIGHTTHING
3401 Technology Drive
Findlay, OH 45840
Phone: (866) 788-4464
www.rightthinginc.com
For information on participating in upcoming Best Practice White Papers, contact:
Jason Asch, Advertising Sales Director
(212) 210-0112

jasch@workforce.com
W
orkorce
M A N A G E M E N T
W
orkorce
M A N A G E M E N T
Irvine Headquarters
4 Executive Circle, Suite 185
Irvine, CA 92614-6791
(949) 255-5340
www.workforce.com
KRONOS INC.
297 Billerica Road
Chelmsford, MA 01824
Phone: (800) 355-4547
www.kronos.com
talentinfo@kronos.com
SKILLSOFT
107 Northeastern Boulevard
Nashua, NH 03062
Phone: (603) 324-3000
87-SkillSoft (877) 545-5763
Information@SkillSoft.com
TALEO
4140 Dublin Boulevard
Suite 400
Dublin, CA 94568
Phone: (888) 836-3669
www.taleo.com