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Workforce science uses data gleaned from a number of sources – pre-employment personality assessments, employer data (everything from how long a person’s been in the job to how many vacation days they’ve taken to where they’re located and who their manager is) and publicly available macroeconomic data from government agencies such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics – to help determine which applicants are more likely to stay on the job, which in turn lowers attrition and recruiting costs.

  1. Choose a vendor that will do more than just generate reports.

“Go beyond that vendor relationship and make sure that you find a partner who will take the time to really understand your business and really understand the problems you’re trying to solve and the questions you want answered,” says Amy L. Kaufman, vice president of global talent and HR for the Results Companies, a call center organization with about 2,000 employees in the U.S. After implementing a workforce science approach to its recruiting process in 2011, The Results Companies found that candidates who underwent the online pre-employment screening process stayed 20% longer than those employees who did not.

  1. Remember the human element.

“There are some amazing interfaces out there, some beautiful dashboards – great stuff – but you need to make sure that in your big data relationship there is a human relationship and a strategic partnership,” says The Results Companies’ Kaufman. “Otherwise you’ll just end up with more reports that don’t solve your problem.”

  1. Talk to other customers.

Ami Lane, senior recruiter with retail chain The Limited, recommends that before deciding to go with a specific vendor, that employers talk to current customers, “discuss wins and challenges, discuss results, make sure that they can get some post-deployment studies done.” The Limited uses pre-employment online testing that categorizes candidates into four groups. Candidates hired from the top two groups “turn over far less frequently than candidates in the bottom two recommendation categories,” says Tara Plazaran, manager of staffing with The Limited. “We are definitely seeing a correlation between recommended hires and retention.”

Originally posted on ebn

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