ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008 - (Page 40)

EXPERT’S ANGLE Secrets of Recruiting Success BY MALCOLM MCCULLOCH Here is a tale of two centers. The Green Center needed to hire a new agent as quickly as possible. The recruiting team promptly provided four applicants for the hiring manager to evaluate. These candidates were prescreened online for basic hiring qualifications. The next step was an in-depth assessment using a service-orientation test and a series of interviews. The process identified one individual as “highly qualified” — meaning the researchbased evaluation process indicated that this applicant would be a safe bet to be a superstar performer and a low turnover risk. The second center, the Red Center, had the same immediate need to hire one agent. The recruiting team produced one applicant for the hiring manager to evaluate. The candidate received a low passing score on the service-orientation test and went through a series of interviews. With only one applicant to consider for hiring, the applicant was judged, well, “good enough. ” The center hired the individual. After three months, the agent in the Green Center was performing well. The agent in the Red Center, on the other hand, performed poorly and left in a fit of misery. The moral of the tale? The number and quality of applicants from which to evaluate and hire is critical to building a talented call center workforce. And the purpose of recruiting is to attract individuals to build this applicant pool. The Red Center could have benefitted from knowing the following key recruiting practices: icmi’s insight Best practices in call center recruiting from LIMRA International’s Malcolm McCulloch. YOU CAN’T BE SELECTIVE IF ONLY ONE APPLICANT COMES TO YOUR DOOR. If only one individual responds to your recruiting efforts, you don’t have options to be selective for talent. You take what comes. And what comes may turn out to be a regrettable hire. Recruiting needs to create a pool of applicants from which you can make choices. IT TAKES A HIGH-QUALITY RECRUITING PROGRAM TO ATTRACT HIGH-QUALITY APPLICANTS. In your dreams, talented ing recruiting programs. With a little time and effort, your center can enhance its recruiting program and increase workforce performance. USE PERSONAL RECRUITING SOURCES individuals are pounding on your call center’s front door begging for a job. If only it worked that way! Even if you do have many people coming to your door, there is no guarantee they will be well qualified for call center success. Top centers use effective recruiting strategies to attract highly talented applicants, not just people looking for a job. If you don’t, you cannot build a quality workforce. POOR RECRUITING FEEDS A REVOLVING DOOR. Centers with poor recruiting and hiring habits suffer from perpetual staff turnover. They constantly find themselves behind the eight ball and do not have the “luxury” of recruiting a pool of quality applicants. By hiring in haste, they end up with a workforce of marginal performers who are ill-suited for the job. These agents soon leave and need to be replaced. The revolving door continues. Good recruiting practices feed quality applicants from which centers can assess and hire talented agents who will stay. The good news is that there are many proven techniques for improv- Some sources of new recruits are clearly better than others in attracting quality individuals to your call center. When recruiting sources are split into two categories — personal and impersonal sources — you’ll see why. Personal sources are those where information about the job is communicated to applicants by people, usually in a face-to-face meeting. A classic example of personal sourcing is an employee referral system. Impersonal sources, on the other hand, communicate information with no human contact. The information is self contained and usually communicated in writing. Impersonal sources include newspaper ads and Internet job boards. Why Personal Sources Are Better Applicants who are funneled to your center by personal sources are consistently higher in quality than individuals recruited through impersonal sources. Why? 1. PRESCREENING. Personal recruits are more qualified because they have been prescreened by current agents or managers. Your employees have a good idea of necessary qualifications and refer candidates www.icmi.com | APRIL 2008 40 http://www.icmi.com

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ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008 Operations: Small Call Centers, Big Potential Ad Index Contents Editor's Page Contact Center Spotlight People: Assessment Tools Recommended Reading Technology: Speech Recognition Special Feature: Best of Show Strategy: Service-to-Sales Success Expert's Angle - High Volume, High Stakes: A Better Strategy for Hiring Experts Angle - Secrets of Recruiting Success/Job Brands: Changing Applicant Reactions to Your Openings Experts Angle - Speech Analytics: Uncovering the Voice of the Customer

ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008

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