AccuHire HCMS Frequently Asked Questions
Employers, recruiters and hiring managers frequently asked the following questions in order to gain a detailed understanding of the functions and benefits offered by AccuHire.
Q. How did you conceive the idea for AccuHire?
A. We invited key organizations including Hewlett-Packard, Co., Hallmark Cards, US West, Sprint, and others to share their recruitment and retention challenges.
We identified five areas that caused significant delays in the recruitment process and set out to create a comprehensive Internet-based solution. We also concluded that as long as resumes were the main decision point of the initial selection decision, we could not dramatically improve the speed or the quality of the selection process.
Q. Why did you decide to create a system that minimizes the role of resumes?
A. Resumes allow the applicant to control the content and pose the following problems:
Resumes are not standardized and can’t be assessed quickly or consistently
May require someone to manually scan and enter them into a database
Force recruiters and hiring managers to spend time reviewing each resume
Generic resumes force recruiters to make job suitability decisions
Resumes may be inflated or written by professional resume writing services
Resumes may be loaded with keywords and add to delays in filling openings
Resumes aren’t consistent and can’t be statistically analyzed
Resumes may be outdated
Virtually every organization today must compete with speed and innovation — no matter what the industry. We quickly realized that we could improve the response rate and the volume of applicants if we created a position-specific “checklist” and allowed the applicant to post a resume at the time they applied or at a later date if they didn’t have a ready resume. Your recruiters would know instantly which applicants meet or exceed the position’s requirements even without an applicant’s resume.
Q. We use the resume to evaluate applicants and decide which one to invite for an interview. How does AccuHire help us make this decision if resumes aren’t the main decision point?
A. AccuHire’s I/O psychologists studied the process that recruiters and hiring managers use to evaluate resumes. Approaches varied from cursory reviews of resumes to using a checklist in order to bring some consistency to the selection process.
We quickly concluded that a computer was the best resource for consistently assessing the suitability of each applicant against your position-specific criteria. A computer doesn’t discriminate, doesn’t get interrupted, and doesn’t fail to ask all of the questions.
In essence, we didn’t eliminate resumes, we simply improved the process by structuring the resume and asking each applicant to respond to a consistent set of position-specific questions (position-specific “checklist”) in order to assess each applicant equally, fairly and instantly.
Q. How easy is it for us to build position-specific checklist?
A. Extremely easy! It’s as easy as going down a list of questions, selecting the questions and weighting your preferred responses. Our Position Builder allows you to select questions from the Background, Education, Employment History, and Job Fit/Work Style categories.
Q. How does AccuHire accommodate technical or highly specific position requirements?
A. AccuHire has a built in Question Builder that allows you to write highly specific skill/experience requirements and responses.
Example:
Let’s say a job requires a minimum of 4 years experience working with UNIX systems. You simply type in your question/responses and select your preferred response. AccuHire does the rest.
Example:
How many years of Unix experience have you had to date?
a. None
b. Less than one year
c. Between one and two years
d. Between two and three years
e. Between three and four years
f. Between four and five years
Applicants read the question and select the response that best describes their experience with respect to the question. AccuHire instantly scores the response and tracks the score.
Q. How will AccuHire help manage our applicant workflow?
A. Once a position is created using AccuHire’s Position Builder, AccuHire manages the entire process from posting the job on your company’s Web site to applicant screening. AccuHire instantly assesses and ranks each applicant against your position-specific criteria. Your recruiters and hiring managers can take immediate action on highly qualified applicants while your competition is still waiting for resumes.
Q. How much time can we expect AccuHire to save our recruiters?
A. Substantial! One estimate by a national employer concluded that AccuHire recaptures as much as 86% of the time spent sourcing, searching, reading, and ranking resumes.
Your recruiters and hiring managers can spend the extra time conducting in-depth, highly targeted interviews and make better hiring decisions.
Q. Our current system requires us to scan resumes into a database before our recruiters or hiring managers can access them via a keyword search, resulting in significant delays and added expense. How does AccuHire speed up this process?
A. Entering resumes into a database is extremely time-consuming, expensive, and often ends up in lost opportunities in any job market. AccuHire bypasses this time-consuming process by using a position-specific checklist for immediate access to applicants.
Q. Our recruiters often recruit for multiple positions. How does AccuHire help them improve their selection accuracy?
A. AccuHire helps recruiters improve their accuracy by; 1. Screening applicants against a position-specific checklist and 2. By generating position-specific interview questions and follow-up probes. Even novice interviewers or those with minimal position experience can conduct highly effective behavior-based interviews.
Q. My company is a large national employer and we recruit extensively at colleges and universities. How can AccuHire help us with our college recruitment efforts?
A. AccuHire allows your organization to dramatically improve your college recruitment efforts by pre-qualifying college applicants. Recruiters simply instruct students to apply online before the scheduled on-campus interview. Recruiters review the applicants and only invite qualified applicants to the interview. Other firms not using AccuHire are at the mercy of the sign-up sheet.
Q. We are a fast growing company and haven’t used any sort of applicant management system to date. How can AccuHire help us better manage our growth?
A. Fast-growing companies run the risk of making poor selection decisions due to the desire to fill an opening and the lack of interviewing skills by recruiters and managers. AccuHire’s Profile Builder allows you to target key performance requirements and instantly generates three sets of highly targeted interview questions in order to thoroughly evaluate each applicant!
Q. How can AccuHire help us improve our applicant selection and reduce turnover?
A. AccuHire automatically generates position-specific, competency-based, behavioral interview questions that target the essential competencies an applicant should possess in order to be immediately successful on the job.
Applicants hired through a structured interview process tend to excel in the position’s performance requirements from the start and are a better fit for the position and the company, thereby naturally reducing turnover.
Q. Why did you decide to create a competency-based system instead of one that relies on resumes?
A. Competencies encompass knowledge, skills, capabilities, attitudes, and behaviors that characterize excellent performance within a specific context. They become standards of success that support an organization’s vision, mission, strategies, and goals. Competencies add value through alignment, measurement, efficiency, and motivation.
Competencies:
Clearly articulate and communicate common standards of excellence
Can be tied to corporate goals both organizationally and individually
Can clarify and establish expectations for performance and outcomes
Clarify behaviors that support important values and principles
Can be used for coaching and training
Can be tied to compensation
Can be used for succession planning
Resume-based systems miss out on all of these incredibly valuable components. In addition, resumes do not lend themselves to statistical analysis thereby allowing companies to lose millions of dollars in incredibly valuable selection and performance information.
Q. Do you provide a standard dictionary of competencies with AccuHire?
A. Yes. We have developed 27 competencies that cover a wide range of performance requirements. Each client receives the standard competency dictionary in order to help them take immediate advantage of the functionality provided by AccuHire.
Q. Our organization has its own competency library. Does AccuHire allow us to include our own competencies or do we have to use yours?
A. You may include your own competency library. There will be additional consulting charges to implement a custom competency library. We will work closely with your organization to see if your competencies already exist and add the ones that aren’t included in the standard library. Unlike other products that require you to adapt to their process, AccuHire can be tailored to meet your needs.
Q. Do you have any data that compares the completion rates of online resume forms vs. AccuHire’s position-specific checklists?
A. Employers who request applicants to complete a resume template on their company Web site report a completion rate between 23-39%. One national client using our position-specific checklist method reported overall (all positions) completion rates of 96%. These statistics suggest that applicants would much rather answer a series of position-specific, multiple-choice questions than submit or create a position-specific resume. You should see an increase in your prospective applicant pool since we make it much easier for them to apply!
Q. How difficult is AccuHire to learn or to use?
A. AccuHire is very easy to use. We hired experts in workflow analysis to help us design a highly intuitive design that requires minimal training. Most of our users report that they learned to use the system on their own in a very short amount of time. In addition, key steps have instant-on help. Simply move your mouse to the underlined word and the instructions will instanly appear and disappear when the mouse is moved again.
Q. Some of the newer products out there allow recruiters and managers to screen for skills and qualifications similar to AccuHire. What advantage does AccuHire offer?
A. Skills and experience answer the basic question, “can the applicant do the job?” but fail to answer the more important (competency-based) questions like “will the applicant do the job” (motivation), and “will they fit in with your organization?”
AccuHire allows you to go way beyond the skills and qualifications by giving you the tools to probe the core performance requirements via structured, behavioral interviews that target key performance requirements. No other system offers such a comprehensive end-to-end solution.
Q. Our IT budget has been reduced greatly. How much time and resources will we need to allocate to implement AccuHire?
A. Your IT staff only needs to add one line of code for applicants to access your job site on our server. Typically this takes less than five minutes on your end. We take care of the rest.
Pricing and Availability
AccuHire is available now and is delivered to customers directly over the Internet on a hosted, subscription basis. Pricing is based on total number of employees, plus packaged service offerings for business process reengineering, configuration, and integration with ERP systems.
Additional Information
If you would like additional information or schedule an on-line demo, please call 913-219-7700 and ask to speak to a sales representative. Features and functionality subject to change without notice.