Scott Fuhr, Director of Marketing, SkillSurvey, Inc.

CH2M HILL, Which Is Helping the 2012 Olympics in London, Improves Candidate Selection with Automated Reference-Checking

According to Manpower Group’s annual survey of employers, engineering jobs are chronically among the toughest jobs to fill. Despite this challenge, CH2M HILL, a full-service consulting, design, design-build, operations, and program management firm, has found a way to improve the quality of its hires—even while reducing its days-to-fill and cutting costs associated with checking references.

Its secret? A web-based system that automatically gathers behavioral assessments on job candidates from their references. The online survey tool allows references to rate candidates on behaviors and skills that are predictive of success in specific types of jobs.

Great Effort, Little Value

CH2M HILL, which employs 23,000 people around the world who design chemical plants, super-clean rooms, wastewater treatment plants and manage nuclear cleanup operations, sets and maintains high standards in its internal practices. The company has been named to the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list five times, has been recognized for three consecutive years as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere Institute, and is one of only three partners helping to manage the planning, design and construction of the venues for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England. And its recruiting process—from the opening of a requisition to the actual hiring—has been highlighted by the Corporate Executive Board as a best practice.

Much of this recognition is owed to the fact that the company’s human resources function is progressive and continually seeking to improve its processes. Four years ago, CH2M HILL’s vice-president of enterprise talent acquisition and development, Tim Keefe, viewed the recruitment model through the lens of Six Sigma and identified areas for improved efficiency, particularly for the reference-checking process. At that time, the company depended upon a cadre of recruitment coordinators to conduct reference interviews and compile reports—a step that often took more than 100 hours for each open position. Yet, despite that effort, the necessary information wasn’t filtering through to hiring managers.

Keefe, a Six Sigma Green Belt, recalled, “Sometimes the only information making its way to the hiring manager was whether or not to hire. The people conducting the reference-checks couldn’t translate what they heard from references into information that helped the hiring managers really understand the candidates’ capabilities.” The speed-of-hire was also lagging because of the general inefficiency in getting references to speak by phone.

Automation to the Rescue

CH2M HILL found its answer in an automated reference-assessment solution that gathers and reports telling information on job candidates’ behaviors, qualifications and skills from their managers, peers, subordinates and business partners.

The web-based reference system, made possible by Web 2.0 technology, involves sending a candidate’s references an electronic survey that contains approximately 20 questions. The questions pertain to the skills and behaviors that correlate with success factors in a particular position. Approved by the candidates, the survey’s electronic reference format is easy, confidential and tailored to each job. It elicits powerful feedback from references via email because references are released from legal liability and know that their responses will not be personally-identifiable.

CH2M HILL piloted the system for three months in the United States and is now using it for every position in the United States and Canada. It is beginning to use it in the UK and the Middle East and has hopes of expanding its use into Latin America, China and Europe. Keefe’s team uses the solution after the initial interview, but before candidates are called-in for final interviews. “We bring the survey data into our debriefing sessions, because it basically puts another dial on the dashboard,” Keefe explained.

All-Around Improvement

In the three years that CH2M HILL has been using the solution, the company has seen impressive results, including:
· 4.51 references responding per candidate
· Among references, 2.48 are managers
· References respond within one business day
· Decrease in the cost of checking references per candidate by more than 95%

And, the feedback has impacted hiring decisions. Reviewers receive a bar graph of each candidate’s results on each of the behaviorally-based statements and take these values into consideration, particularly when they are torn between strong contenders. “If it becomes obvious that someone is known for developing more elegant or innovative solutions or is better at multi-tasking, that person could easily be moved to the top of the list,” explained Keefe.

By the same token, the survey also can reveal weaknesses that could negatively impact the course of a project to which the candidate would be assigned. When this is the case, even a top candidate is eliminated from consideration. For CH2M HILL, 7 percent of its candidates are evaluated by references as having high developmental needs, and the company avoids hiring from this group. See figure 1.

Figure 1:

Caption: Scores from references showed that 7 percent of candidates were considered “high developmental need,” identifying which candidates CH2M HILL might want to avoid hiring.

Keefe recalled one situation in which the feedback dramatically altered the course of a search. Following interviews for a CH2M HILL vice-president position, most senior hiring managers were ready to choose from what was deemed an excellent slate of external candidates. The survey results released before the debriefing sessions raised enough issues that the decision was revisited, and ultimately an internal candidate was offered the job.

An Expanding Pool of Candidates

The software also allows references themselves to “opt-in” to join a database of candidates interested in future employment opportunities, so CH2M HILL’s talent pool has been expanding by leaps and bounds. Over the three years, 60 percent (or 11,270) of those who have served as references for job candidates have opted into the passive candidate database, indicating that they wish to be notified of future employment opportunities at CH2M HILL.

Better Hiring

“At this point, we have overwhelming support for the system among hiring managers,” Keefe said. “It brings tremendous value to our recruiting process, as does the database of references who have indicated an interest in being contacted about future employment opportunities.”

The company that helps its clients build a better and more sustainable world now enjoys a better and more sustainable candidate selection process. CH2M HILL has gained greater insights into candidates’ behaviors and skill sets resulting in stronger cultural fits for new hires, and it has eliminated costly process inefficiencies along the way.

Scott Fuhr is with SkillSurvey Inc., the inventor and leading provider of Web 2.0 reference assessment solutions that increase quality of hire and improve recruiting efficiency. Its Pre-Hire 360® solution received an “HR Product of the Year” award from Human Resource Executive magazine. Fuhr can be reached at sfuhr@skillsurvey.com, or at 610-947-6300, ext. 1225. Follow Scott Fuhr on Twitter @fuhrsd.