Tag Archive: Cost Per Hire

  1. Is Resume Screening Software Biased?

    Resume screening software is a quick and easy way to scan lots of resume data without actually reading resumes.

    The option to automate resume screening – which most talent acquisition leaders say is the most challenging part of recruitment – is enough to perk the ears of any high-volume hiring team. That’s why resume screening software and AI screening software are growing in popularity. But are these tools effective? And do they solve, or perpetuate, bias?

    As companies increase their hiring volume, recruiting teams have to find ways to do more with less. Resume screening is incredibly time-consuming, taking up to 23 hours per hire. And we all know, the longer it takes to screen and hire, the less likely you are to snag a top candidate.

    With so many advancements in AI, why would humans still need to read resumes?

    A better question might be: With so many advancements in AI, why are we still so reliant on resumes? Resumes are problematic for many reasons:

    • They’re self-reported descriptions of work experience and education
    • They include half-truths, exaggerations, and lies of omission
    • They say nothing of knowledge, skills, or character
    • They put too much emphasis years of experience and gaps between jobs
    • Information is hard to verify, because a resume is not an official document
    • Job seekers can easily optimize a resume using keywords, or hire a professional resume writer

    What we’re doing when we use resume screening software is making an ineffective process faster. After news broke of Amazon’s resume screening tool that showed bias against women, this type of AI is under increased scrutiny. But, in Amazon’s story and others like it, it’s not the technology that’s to blame. It’s the underlying data – in this case, the resume.

    A 500-700 word document, even when it contains action verbs and job-related keywords, isn’t a good predictor of success. AI doesn’t change that.

    Luckily, there are other ways to screen candidates at scale:

    • Pre-screening questions are a simpler, lower-tech option. Instead of training AI to scan for keywords on a resume, you could simply ask candidates what is it you want know. Do you have four years or more experience in customer service? You can do this through your ATS, or in your video interviewing platform.
    • A pre-hire assessment integrated into the application process is another good option. This is how American Airlines fuels all their front-line hiring. According to Rob Daugherty, Director of Global Talent Acquisition:

    With a  name like American Airlines, we get a lot of applicants. It’s almost impossible to understand who’s a fit and who isn’t. The assessment helps us focus on candidates with the right personalities and skill sets.”

    • Video interviewing software has also proven its value in time and cost savings. By replacing the phone screen with pre-recorded videos, most companies see at least a 60% reduction in candidate screening time. At Virgin Atlantic, video interviewing enables recruiters to screen 3X more candidates per day.

    AI-driven technologies have unlocked exciting gains in efficiency. What’s important is that we’re driving efficiency in the right areas – not just hiring people faster, but hiring the right people faster. It’s also important that technology is used to inform our decisions, not make our decisions for us. Learn more about AI and the future of hiring in our on-demand webinar: How to Keep Your Hiring Process Human in the Age of Automation.

  2. Predictive Talent Analytics: Overcoming Barriers in HR

    Predictive analytics has become the standard decision-making framework for finance, marketing, healthcare, retail, logistics, and countless other business operations. Predictive analytics also powers our non-working lives, from Amazon product recommendations to travel itineraries and social media news feeds.

    Predictive talent analytics – where do we start?

    When it comes to adopting predictive analytics for talent decisions, however, HR still faces many barriers. In a recent webinar, HR Tech CEO Greg Moran talked about the top use cases for predictive analytics in HR, and barriers including a lack of analytical expertise, as well as silos in and outside of HR.

    To help HR leaders overcome these barriers and begin using predictive talent analytics, Greg answered the industry’s top questions on skills, silos, and technology in HR.

    HR is traditionally a soft-skills industry. How do we improve our analytical capabilities?

    The best place to start? An online class. An intro-level understanding of data analytics would be helpful to everyone in HR today. You don’t need a Ph.D. in data science, nor do you need to gain a mastery of statistical analysis. You can hire data scientists and data analytics teams for that. Your goal should be to adopt an analytical mindset where you can start to think in terms of ‘How do we apply data to our biggest business challenges, what kind of questions can we answer that we weren’t able to answer before, and how do we get access to the data and technology we need to improve the operations of our business?’

    Talent Acquisition and Talent Management departments are often disconnected. How do we connect these teams together so we have more access to data?

    This is really common area where silos form within HR. The first step is to build a business case for sharing data, which involves articulating the types of questions you want to answer and the results you’re aiming for.

    You can say, ‘As a talent acquisition organization, we don’t want to just understand our cost per hire or our time to hire. We want to understand how we’re impacting quality of hire and the overall performance of the business. The only way we can understand that is by getting access to post-hire data.’

    A big challenge in HR is being able to articulate bottom-line results. So, take your case a step further by saying, ‘We believe that by connecting performance data to pre-hire data, we can improve our hiring decisions for a 10% increase in sales’ – which, depending on your business, can have millions of dollars of impact. And that’s a compelling reason to make a change.

    There are a lot of IT products on the market. Which is best for HR analytics?

    The answer to this depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Before you look to technology, you first need to understand the business questions you’re trying to answer. Are you trying to solve for turnover? Are you trying to solve for performance, or diversity, or some other challenge? The technology you choose should be geared toward driving business intelligence in those areas.

    If you’re trying to solve for employee performance and turnover, you’ll benefit from using a predictive analytics tool in your selection process. A predictive talent assessment, for example, will analyze performance potential and turnover risk to identify your top candidates. Another good option is an employee engagement tool, where you can start to identify correlations between engagement, performance, and turnover. All of this you could potentially do on a spreadsheet, but the technology is there to provide efficiency and transparency into your processes.

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    To learn more about improving HR’s analytical capabilities and getting started with predictive talent analytics, watch our webinar: How to Gain an Edge with Predictive Talent Analytics