With This Technology You Can Hire in 24 Hours or Less. But Should You?

Recently, HireVue held their Digital Disruption conference in Park City, Utah. ‘Disruption’ is the latest in a string of buzzwords getting a lot of play these days and so even though it is in the name, rarely do you see technology that is truly disruptive. One of the breakout sessions featured Jason Creel from the startup Shipt. It was there that they were truly doing something disruptive.

Time to Hire: Breaking the Matrix

Shipt is a same-day grocery delivery service and they are growing fast. In 2 years, they went from basically nothing to 2 offices, 50 metros, 2 corporate offices and over 250 full-time employees and over 20K ‘shoppers’. They did that with 5 recruiters. Oh, and they only hire 10% of those who apply. At Shipt, they can go from candidate to contractor in 3 days and sometimes they hire in 24 hours or less.  That is not a typo. Their shoppers can apply, interview, have credentials reviewed, sign documents, complete a background check and start delivering groceries same day. All parts of the hiring experience are automated with the exception of reviewing the video interviews. By using HireVue Video Intelligence,  OnboardIQ for document signing and Checkr for background checks they have reduced hiring time by 80%.

The Gig Economy Dream Realized

So should we all try to hire in 24 hours or less? This process is working for Shipt, making it one of the fastest growing online marketplace. But is complete automation the best way to handle hiring?  The answer is, maybe. Pay special attention to the fact that they are using the right kind of technology in order to do it. Let’s look at these tools a bit closer.

HireVue OnDemand

First, they needed an interviewing process where candidates could apply when it was most convenient for them and recruiters could review on their time as well. It is convenient. Candidates don’t have to worry about uploading a resume or attaching LinkedIn profiles, they answer around 5 questions via video, some short answer written questions and they are done. The recruiters are the decision makers. And that is it.

“Our team couldn’t watch the interviews as quickly as they were coming in. Now we’re watching them in a matter of hours and we truly have the ability to have shoppers shopping within the same day that they apply.”— Jason Creel, Director of Recruiting and Launch 

 

OnboardIQ

As you read above, Shipt had some tremendous hiring needs. You can imagine what it would be like to keep track of 80 candidate interviews a day without the right system. OnboardIQ  works by automating candidate workflow, document signing, training, and onboarding (as you may have guessed by the name.) The best part is they have a communication dashboard that allows you from a single platform to communicate with multiple groups of people via email or text.

“Shipt considers OnboardIQ family. Whenever I meet with a potential retail partner, the first thing I ask is: Are you willing to work with OnboardIQ? If the answer is no, there’s no deal. Period. That’s how integral OnboardIQ’s workforce software has been to Shipt’s success.” – Jonathan Wilhite, VP of Finance and Operations at Shipt

Checkr

It wouldn’t make sense to have a short application process and then have a lengthy background check process. That is why Shipt uses a third party called Checkr. This may not be a good thing, but it is the same background checking company. From the Shipt website, they describe it like this:

We obtain various consumer reports for independent contractors in compliance with state and federal employment laws. This comprehensive background check is performed through a national third party vendor and includes searches of multiple federal databases.

And for the On-Demand service industry, they can do it all for about $25 bucks a pop.

All of this speed is great but where does that leave quality? In my assumption, it depends on the tools you use and what types of positions you are hiring for. Most companies that are using this model are hiring for the ‘gig economy.’ But this does not mean that you should not implement this strategy for full-time corporate positions. This speed to hire mentality will have to drip into the HR world if they are going to be able to compete for talent. As Jim Barnett, CEO of Glint was quoted in Fast Company magazine:

“Traditional metrics will need to be tweaked in order to properly measure these workers in terms of engagement and retention,” he says. “This will require significant gains in speed and agility in order to quickly identify work/projects in need of attention, source employees with the required skills, and staff project teams that can quickly perform the necessary task.”

But fast doesn’t mean careless. Using Shipt as an example, what recruiters will have to do is automate as much as possible and empower people to make hiring decisions. No amount of technology or automation will work if the hiring decision makers drag their feet. 24 hours still sounds a bit fast. But if your company is still taking 3 weeks to make a hiring decision, be prepared to lose candidates.

By Jackye Clayton

Jackye is an acclaimed thought leader and inspirational speaker on recruiting and DEIB topics. She brings years of experience recruiting across a variety of industries including tech, HR, legal, and finance. In her role as VP of Talent Acquisition and DEIB, she leads all related work at Textio, provides critical expertise to customers, and serves as a leading voice in the products Textio creates for the broader ecosystem. Jackye has been named one of the 9 Powerful Women in Business You Should Know by SDHR Consulting, one of the 15 Women in HR Tech to Follow by VidCruiter, and is on the Top 100 list of Human Resources Influencers by Human Resource Executive Magazine.