Fundraising Direct adopts an 80% 'no interview' model reducing time to hire to 1-2 days
Fundraising call center, Fundraising Direct, knew which of their 100+ agents performed well and why, but had no scalable or fool-proof way of applying these metrics to hiring. The manual interview process only captured 1 out of 7 core skills required for success. In addition to quality of hires, the call center also needed to manage frequent spikes in hiring.
Results
HiringBranch's benchmark assessment found that 'fluency in communication' and 'ability to build a rapport' were FundraisingDirect's most critical candidate hiring attributes for agent pledge success. With HiringBranch's four-in-one assessment identifying high scores on those soft skills for all new candidates, FundraisingDirect has see an increase of 10% in pledge revenue and cut interviews by 80% saving the company significant costs. Plus, this 'no interview' model has made hiring spikes need a breeze.
Background
Telephone fundraising provider, Fundraising Direct, delivers fundraising solutions to Canada’s leading not-for profit organizations and charities. Each year, Fundraising Direct hires and trains new employees for its results-based telephone fundraising campaigns designed to maximize fundraising pledges, build supporter loyalty, and support their clients’ missions.
Challenge
Screening candidates for conversational fluency
With a diverse pool of applicants, including many young university students, and despite extensive training - the performance levels of new hires varied greatly. Fundraising Direct had extensive data on the key metrics of campaign success and knew which employees performed well and why. However, they had no way of applying these metrics to hiring. The old hiring process was manual, based on interviews, and captured only 1 of the 7 core skills required for success.
Solution
HiringBranch’s automated speaking assessment
HiringBranch analyzed the metrics and designed a 20-minute automated speaking test that captured all 7 core skills. The skills include a high level of conversational fluency, the ability to establish rapport with the client, as well as the ability to follow instructions. During a short proof of concept period, HiringBranch gave the speaking test to 200 new hires within their first 1 or 2 days of joining. The 200 test results were then correlated with the new employees cumulative pledge scores, ranked in 1 of 4performance tiers (from top-tier performers to low-tier performers).
Benchmarking
HiringBranch’s assessment accurately selects the top fundraisers
The correlation results found that all the top-tier employees had significantly higher final scores than the lower-tiered employees (p < 0.01 ). The HiringBranch assessment was clearly able to select the top-tier candidates who raised the highest cumulative pledges.
The best indicators for top-tier employees were the scores on conversational fluency and establishing rapport with a client. This means HiringBranch’s AI-powered speaking testis accurately pinpointing conversational skills that matter for sales success.
With this proof in hand, Fundraising Direct was now ready to pass every candidate through HiringBranch’s speaking test pre-hire and send offers to only the best.
Results
More revenue, scaled back interviews and new training capabilities.
It didn’t take long for Fundraising Direct to cut 80% of all interviews, limiting interviews to special case hires and reducing hiring costs by 1.5 FTEs.
Sarah Wise, Operations Director
Fundraising Direct is confident for good reason: 72% of hiring campaigns surpass targets and pledges have increased overall by 10% making their clients and internal stakeholders very happy.
What's more, Fundraising Direct adopted HiringBranch’s training platform enabling candidates to train up with simulated calls as early as 24-48 hours after being hired. From application to on-the-job is one seamless experience for candidates.
Better still, Fundraising Direct can now scale up quickly during hiring spikes, when it's most needed.
Graeme Binning, CEO
There you have it. Lower costs. Drastically faster hiring. Authentic assessments and training. Better hires.
About HiringBranch
HiringBranch is an AI-powered hiring assessment driving down costs and improving performance for hiring teams around the world. HiringBranch evaluates not only what candidates say, but how they say it. Quick, accurate and authentic, it’s a soft skills and language assessment in-one-go. Serving hiring teams in retail, sales, health and IT of sizes 100 to 10000+, you too can hire confidently and effortlessly.
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