Summary
Paramount Global recognized a lack of diversity in the team that connects advertisers to Paramount’s diverse, passionate fan base. As such, Paramount proactively sought to diversify the sales team’s entry-level workforce pipeline to develop the next generation of leaders within advertising.
Read on to discover how Paramount Advertising broke the cycle of reactive hiring and overcame its entry-level hiring challenges.
Challenges
Paramount’s Advertising and Human Resources organizations identified the following business challenges in hiring for the company’s media sales team.
Lacking data and objectivity for hiring decisions
The company did not have objective data to assess candidates accurately and consistently, hiring for speed at the expense of quality. As a result, the company faced ongoing difficulty hiring and retaining talent.
Struggling with diversifying workforce
Media sales team members, based in major U.S. cities, showed a lack of both racial and gender diversity, despite diverse applicant pools. Former hiring criteria for the Associate roles were limiting candidate pass-through.
Dealing with a high volume of applications
Recruiters were caught between too many applicants and attrition. A reactive hiring cycle led to low recruiting efficiency and in some cases reduced productivity
The Objectives
Enable more informed hiring choices
It was critical to implement a tech-driven assessment solution powered by accurate and unbiased science. The resulting objective data would enable more informed hiring decisions to improve quality of hire.
Increase diversity of talent pool and final hires
Paramount Advertising wanted to find a way to mitigate the effects of unconscious bias and find diverse, high-performing talent.
Streamline recruiter effort and time
Improving efficiency for the recruiting team was important to Paramount Advertising. Finding the right entry-level talent would improve productivity, minimize recruiting efforts and drive valuable cost savings.
The Solution
After thorough review of behavioral science-based digital assessment providers, Paramount selected Harver to help enable objective talent decisions through:
- Gamified behavioral assessments to measure cognitive, emotional, and social traits, including attention, decision-making, and risk tolerance.
- Structured video interviewing, including pre-recorded questions tied to role competencies.
Together, these solutions helped identify top candidates, including diverse quality talent who otherwise may have been overlooked during the previous recruiting process. Paramount and Harver’s industrial and organizational psychologists and people analytics experts implemented a rigorous multi-phase process to test the performance and effectiveness of these newly leveraged capabilities.
Results
By implementing Harver alongside a strategic re-envisioning of its talent acquisition strategy, Paramount Advertising was able to accomplish all of its objectives. In two years, the company has seen dramatic improvements within its Advertising department by hiring for quality, diversity, and efficiency.
Higher quality, data-driven hiring decisions
With Harver integrated into the sales team’s hiring process, the company now has a science-backed solution. Using Harver’s objective and accurate assessment data, it has increased the ability to hire and retain high-performing entry-level sales talent.
Key metrics:
- 87% register-to-complete rate
- 95% positive candidate satisfaction rate
- 12% higher performance of highly recommended and recommended candidates
- 56% reduction in attrition compared to baseline
Diversity upswing for Advertising team
The team has seen promising shifts in diversity from data-driven hiring support, expanded sourcing, and a standardized hiring process. Paramount Advertising now has a stronger, more diverse leadership pipeline within the department.
Key metrics:
- 254% increase in ethnic diversity
- 25% increase in gender diversity
- 50% of top performers are now ethnically diverse
Significant time savings for recruiters
Paramount streamlined recruiter effort by focusing on best match candidates as recommended by Harver assessment data. Adding this objectivity helped free up recruiting time, even as applications increased by more than 80% post-implementation.
Key metrics:
- 30% savings in recruiting time and cost
- 83% increase in applications compared to baseline
