Catalyst IT Services is a technology outsourcing company from Baltimore, USA. Catalyst IT Services has screened more than 10.000 candidates in the past years. Screening each of those candidates by hand would have been a daunting process that would require a lot of employees and thus money. Founder of Catalyst IT Services, Michael Rosenbaum, came up with a big plan to change the traditional slow process of recruiting. Using technology and algorithms, they built a program that can screen an applicant based on how an obligatory survey is completed. Due to successfully implementing a big data hiring strategy they managed to bring down their employee turnover to 15%, compared to 30% for its US competitors. A remarkable achievement.
Using big data, the process of hiring the right candidate for the right job has become much better. In the past, the subjective opinions of hiring managers could result in the right person ending up in the wrong job and vice versa. The data-crunching process in place now is developed around an online assessment that candidates need to complete. During the process of completing the assessment, the software gathers thousands of bits of job applicant data. This data about how a candidate completes the assessment are often more important than what the candidate actually said.
For example, someone who comes across a difficult question can immediately skip it or he/she can go over it for a long time, going back and forth. This information tells a lot about how someone deals with challenges. The one candidate might be better at assignments requiring a methodical approach while another candidate is better in a different setting. Catalyst IT Services likes to call it the Moneyball-like model. Using analytics based on data and not perceptions, they managed to recruit talent and assemble highly skilled teams custom-tailored to their clients.
Analysing all those different attributes and matching it to specific situations can be done much better by a computer than a human. Especially because the method looks at much more variables than a human could ever do. Typically, they are looking at a couple of thousand data points. Data points such as time on a page in the assessment, keystrokes, public domain data, social network data, interaction data during the application, resume data, etc. Subsequently, the algorithms will calculate a probability score of how a candidate will perform over a certain period for a certain project. When the candidate reaches the threshold, he or she will be interviewed. A majority of those being interviewed are brought on board.
Using big data in the recruitment process is definitely an interesting approach, as recruitment has long been perceived as a task that could not be done by computers. Of course, also Catalyst IT Services still uses hiring managers to interview those candidates that reach above the threshold, but they have much more information at hand. Consequently they can make a much better informed decision that eventually will save them money as the right person ends up at the right job.
