Hiring Agents Based on Previous Call Center Experience: Why This Approach is Hurting Your Bottom Line
by David Ostberg, Ph.D. -
July 22, 2009
Hiring Agents Based on Previous Call Center Experience:
Why This Approach is Hurting Your Bottom Line.
By David Ostberg, Ph.D.
As a call center recruiter or hiring manager, what’s one of the first things you do when evaluating a new applicant for an agent position? If your answer involves reviewing resumes or basic job applications so you can focus primarily on candidates with previous relevant experience, you’re likely overlooking individuals who could ultimately prove to be some of your organization’s top performers. By putting too much emphasis on previous experience (not to mention that an estimated 30% of all resumes often contain misleading or completely fictitious information), you may be unintentionally hurting your bottom line.
Although you have the best intentions for bringing in high performing agents, the rationale for looking beyond previous call center experience is simple:
Previous experience in an agent job ≠ High performance in an agent job
Stated another way, just because an individual previously held a job as a call center agent doesn’t necessarily mean he or she was good at the job or will be successful in an agent role in your call center. Think about this: you’ve inevitably hired, trained, and coached agents who have eventually terminated due to lackluster performance or poor job fit, yet once these agents are back on the job market, they’ll have “call center experience” on their resumes… and some well-meaning recruiter will likely make the regrettable decision to hire them despite the high likelihood that they will underperform yet again. As a result, because that recruiter put too much emphasis on previous experience, his/her call center’s clients, stakeholders, and bottom line will suffer.
Another way to think about this is that if you focus primarily on past experience, you are most definitely bypassing applicants that, after some basic training, could have proven to be superstars in your organization. Not only did you reduce the candidate pool you have to choose from and miss the opportunity to hire a great employee, but you’ve dismissed the applicant on non job-relevant criteria while increasing the size of the available candidate pool for your competitors.
Don’t let that recruiter be you.
Taking it one step further, if applicants have previous experience as an agent in a call center with processes and operations that differ significantly from those in your center, their previous experience may actually make it more difficult for your coaches to train them on your organization’s ways of getting the job done.
This, however, is not to suggest that you should automatically screen out applicants with previous relevant experience, but you should be asking yourself why you’re screening on experience and what true value that approach provides. Is it possible that you’re taking that approach just because that’s the way your organization has always handled recruiting? Think of the saying…”If you always do what you’ve always done then you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
So… how should you be evaluating all of the applicants who want you to hire them?
In order to find your future superstars – your best collectors, customer service VIPs, technical support gurus, and sales luminaries – you need to make sure your recruiting team focuses on the traits and interests that separate the best from those who will just scrape by at a level that won’t get them fired or who won’t even make it through training. Your team needs to be able to get an accurate measure of what the individual can do and wants to do. Hiring experts agree – when hiring frontline, hourly employees, experience is considerably less important than are aptitude, workstyle, and motivational fit. However, getting a true measure of these applicant traits can be challenging, unless you put the right scientifically-designed and proven tools in place.
Assessment tools that are scientifically-developed and based on client performance data can predict an individual’s likelihood of behaving or performing in certain desirable ways on the job. Well-designed workstyle and aptitude assessments capture information on what applicants can do by measuring stable characteristics associated with job applicants’ personalities and natural abilities. For example, some jobs may be a better fit for individuals who have a high stress tolerance and are conscientious, while others may be more suitable for employees who are persuasive and results driven. Although every human being is unique, our differences fall along a continuum for every possible personality and ability dimension.
Assessment experts can create valid predictions about how a person may behave in various situations by developing assessments that measure where an individual falls on various job-relevant dimensions of personality or ability. The benefits realized from this approach to recruiting are that hiring managers and recruiters can make decisions about how job candidate will perform on the job without relying on potentially misleading information about the person’s previous job experience. As a result, these “can do” measures are usually the most appropriate type of screening tool for hourly and entry level jobs and should cover a significant portion of the assessment solution.
With respect to what job applicants want to do, selection tools can assess applicants on their position-specific motives, aspirations, preferences, and interests. Despite these tools being less effective for predicting actual job performance, they are very well-suited for assessing candidates on affective metrics such as job/culture fit, employee satisfaction, and retention. Realistic Job Previews (RJPs) fall into this category, allowing candidates to take a ‘sneak peek’ into the position and larger organization and self-select out of the application process if something looks mismatched with their interests, preferences, and expectations. Consequently, a well-designed RJP is critical for filtering out applicants who will not be suited for the environment and task demands characteristic of call center work and who would likely not be successful in training and/or would not survive the first few months on the job.
Of course, assessments do not come without criticism. Typical concerns are that they don’t work, they’re not fair, and they’re too ‘fake-able’. However, research indicates that well-designed, validated assessments can predict performance and early retention more accurately and fairly than traditional subjective approaches. Well-designed hiring tools help remove bias that hiring managers and recruiters unintentionally bring to the process. Although a wide body of evidence demonstrates how powerful and accurate well-designed assessments can be, there are, unfortunately, many poorly-crafted, inappropriately-applied assessments on the market. Because so many unproven, poorly-designed assessments and hiring platforms are available today, it is critical that organizations take time to investigate how and by whom the tests were developed. Further, although many vendors take a “one-size-fits-all” approach, no assessment is as effective and accurate as one that has been designed and validated by experts for specific positions within specific industries.
Although there’s no such thing as a perfect solution for every selection challenge, a well-thought out process that incorporates multiple hiring tools such as a realistic job preview, basic qualifications screening, validated assessments, and behaviorally-oriented structured interviews can significantly improve the quality of call center hiring decisions. Consequently, call centers that invest the time and resources into evolving their recruiting processes will see a dramatic improvement in the productivity of their workforce, while improving retention and reducing the burden on their hiring professionals... and boosting their organization’s bottom line.
David Ostberg, Ph.D., is an Industrial and Organizational Psychologist with 10+ years experience designing and evaluating selection systems for hourly employees in service industries. A member of the American Psychological Association and Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology, Dr. Ostberg is currently the Vice President of Selection Science for Evolv On-Demand and can be reached at dostberg@evolvondemand.com. For more information, visit www.evolvondemand.com or call (866) 971-4473.
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