Chemistry Brings Science to the Art of Recruitment

Recruitment is now becoming less art and more science, thanks to the work of Chemistry ñ a very different type of recruitment company.

ìBusinesses say, ëour people are our most important assetí, yet typically recruit poorly. Recruitment methods have changed little over the past 25 years and itís simply not good enough,î says Chemistry founder and managing director, Roger Philby.

ìCurrent hiring techniques are often based on little more than gut instinct: however, our research has shown that clients want and need more than this. They tell us that what they fundamentally need is a recruitment service that enables their business to perform better, by knowing that they are hiring the right people ñ not just hoping. In response to this, we have developed an approach that is anchored firmly in scientific, rigorous and hard data analysis.

ìThe resulting improvement in choosing the right candidate for the role is dramatic: unlike recruitment methods that are based on CV and interview alone - which get three out of four appointments wrong - we get three out of four right.î

Success at Yell
Leading international directories company, Yell, provides an excellent example of how the structured Chemistry approach delivers results in practice.

ìIn looking to address staffing issues such as high churn or a failure to attract suitable calibre candidates, many organisations believe that their recruitment processes must be ineffective and so need to be improved,î says Philby. ìYet, unlike most companies, Yell understood that there is a more fundamental question which must be asked first, namely, what are we looking for?î

In looking to improve overall sales performance and staff retention, Yell recognised it had a large number of well-established high achievers and wanted to understand those characteristics common to sales success within the company.

ìIn working with Chemistry, our objective was to incorporate these more directly into the sales process,î confirms Yellís HR director, Phil Barr, ìas any improvement in selection accuracy and consistency would have a major impact on both sales and profitability.î

The most critical phase therefore was for the Chemistry team to profile Yellís top performers, in order to establish what to look for in the selection process. For Philby, ìthe starting point therefore had to be to identify what ëtalentí looks like in Yellís sales organisation and describe it in a way that can be measured through the recruitment process.î

Such an assessment includes comprehensive subjective and objective analysis of both the role and the individual. Critically, unlike traditional methods that centre - often exclusively - on prior achievement and experience, Chemistry employs a range of tests to assess key predictors of performance ñ these include: intellect, values, motivation and behaviours.

ìPreviously, we would have placed strong reliance on a candidateís previous employment record,î confirms Barr. ìHere, however, if other building blocks of this model identify the right predictors of performance, then related experience becomes less important.

ìSuperficially, related experience may provide a greater degree of comfort in the hiring process, but it unnecessarily restricts the pool of potential recruits who may otherwise be ideally suited to both our company and the role in question.î

ìThe result is that Yell now has a very clear Talent specification that encompasses the required intellect, values, motivation and behaviours,î confirms Philby. ìBy adopting the ëChemistryí approach, Yell is now well-placed to drive performance improvement, simply by hiring more of the right people, every time.î