Figure 3.10

You are interviewing a candidate for a position as a cashier in
a supermarket. You need someone polite, courteous, patient, and
dependable. The candidate you are talking to seems nice. But how do
you know who is the right person for the job? Will the job
candidate like the job or get bored? Will they have a lot of
accidents on the job or be fired for misconduct? Don’t you wish you
knew before hiring? One company approaches this problem
scientifically, saving companies time and money on hiring hourly
wage employees.
Retail employers do a lot of hiring, given their growth and high
turnover rate. According to one estimate, replacing an employee who
leaves in retail costs companies around $4,000. High turnover also
endangers customer service. Therefore, retail employers have an
incentive to screen people carefully so that they hire people with
the best chance of being successful and happy on the job. Unicru,
an employee selection company, developed software that quickly
became a market leader in screening hourly workers. The company was
acquired by Massachusetts-based Kronos Inc. (NASDAQ: KRON) in 2006
and is currently owned by a private equity firm.
The idea behind the software is simple: If you have a lot of
employees and keep track of your data over time, you have access to
an enormous resource. By analyzing this data, you can specify the
profile of the “ideal” employee. The software captures the profile
of the potential high performers, and applicants are screened to
assess their fit with this particular profile. More important, the
profile is continually updated as new employees are hired. As the
database gets larger, the software does a better job of identifying
the right people for the job.
If you applied for a job in retail, you may have already been a
part of this database: the users of this system include giants such
as Universal Studios, Costco Wholesale Corporation, Burger King,
and other retailers and chain restaurants. In companies such as
Albertsons or Blockbuster, applicants use a kiosk in the store to
answer a list of questions and to enter their background, salary
history, and other information. In other companies, such as some in
the trucking industry, candidates enter the data through the Web
site of the company they are applying to. The software screens
people on basic criteria such as availability in scheduling as well
as personality traits.
Candidates are asked to agree or disagree with statements such
as “I often make last-minute plans” or “I work best when I am on a
team.” After the candidates complete the questions, hiring managers
are sent a report complete with a color-coded suggested course of
action. Red means the candidate does not fit the job, yellow means
proceed with caution, and green means the candidate can be hired on
the spot. Interestingly, the company contends that faking answers
to the questions of the software is not easy because it is
difficult for candidates to predict the desired profile. For
example, according to their research, being a successful salesman
has less to do with being an extraverted and sociable person and
more to do with a passion for the company’s product.
Matching candidates to jobs has long been viewed as a key way of
ensuring high performance and low turnover in the workplace, and
advances in computer technology are making it easier and more
efficient to assess candidate–job fit. Companies using such
technology are cutting down the time it takes to hire people, and
it is estimated that using such technologies lowers their turnover
by 10%–30%.
Based on information from Berta, D. (2002, February 25).
Industry increases applicant screening amid labor surplus, security
concerns. Nation’s Restaurant News,
36(8), 4; Frauenheim, E. (2006, March 13). Unicru beefs up
data in latest screening tool. Workforce
Management, 85(5), 9–10; Frazier, M. (2005, April). Help
wanted. Chain Store Age, 81(4), 37–39;
Haaland, D. E. (2006, April 17). Safety first: Hire conscientious
employees to cut down on costly workplace accidents. Nation’s Restaurant News, 40(16), 22–24; Overholt,
A. (2002, February). True or false? You’re hiring the right people.
Fast Company, 55, 108–109; Rafter, M. V.
(2005, May). Unicru breaks through in the science of “smart
hiring.” Workforce Management, 84(5),
76–78.
Discussion Questions
- Why is it so expensive for companies to replace workers?
- In modern times it is possible that an employee could have a
number of different jobs in a short amount of time. Do you think
this frequent job changing could skew results for this type of
“ideal” employee selection? Do you think potential candidates can
use these screening mechanisms to their advantage by making
themselves seem like perfect candidates when in fact they are
not?
- What personality traits may not seem like a good fit based on
an initial screening but in fact would make a good employee?
- Do you feel that hard work and dedication could overcome a
person-job mismatch?