Leading virtual interviewing solution provider discusses challenges in recruiting and hiring home agents
ATLANTA — (June 14, 2012) — HireIQ Solutions, Inc., the innovative company that improves the hiring and recruiting process for customer-facing organizations, said today that innovations in business processes and technology are fueling the rapid expansion of the work-at-home agent market – a trend it expects will continue unabated for the next several years. Companies that actively promote home-based customer care employee programs can realize myriad benefits including increased customer and employee satisfaction, reduced attrition and reduced operational costs. Work-at-home programs can also help promote a company’s green agenda.
In its 2012 U.S. Contact Center Decision Makers Guide, leading analyst firm Contact Babel reported that the number of contact center organizations that use home agents has increased from 22 percent in 2007 to 42 percent in 2011. Furthermore, home agent industry expert Michele Rowan says that the number of home agents is increasing at a rate of over 30 percent per year and, for the first time, the growth in home agents has exceeded that of offshore agents used by United States-based companies.
The growth of home agents can be traced, in part, to the adoption of business processes and technologies that help make the management of these employees as effective as if they were located in the brick-and-mortar contact center. Virtualization and the proliferation of broadband technology means that home agents have access to all the same resources as their center-based peers. Also, offering a home agent program can enable an organization to reach potential employees that might otherwise be unavailable to them.
Home working arrangements provide some unique challenges, as well. Home agents are generally responsible for the procurement and upkeep of their technology, so they must be more resourceful and technology-adept than those agents who have an army of information technology support personnel at their fingertips. These employees must also demonstrate that they are motivated to stay on-task and remain focused, despite a lack of direct social interaction that center-based agents enjoy.
Organizations supporting home agent programs face special challenges in recruiting and hiring. Hiring managers not only have to determine a candidate’s basic customer interaction skills, but also must dig deeply into a candidate’s technical aptitude, motivation and ability to work well in the absence of direct supervision. Many home-based agents never personally meet their line management so their ability to effectively receive – and give – constructive feedback remotely is of paramount importance.
“The home agent model yields many benefits for the employee and employer alike,” said Kevin Hegebarth, vice president of Marketing and Product Management at HireIQ. “The effectiveness of any organization’s support of home agents is dependent not only on the business processes and technologies it has put in place, but also on the amount of trust between the organization and the worker. The growth in home agents is unlikely to slow anytime soon and companies that put in place progressive business processes are those that will see the most benefit from it.”
HireIQ’s virtual interviewing solution, InterviewIQ, can effectively manage recruiting and hiring of home-based agents. As an “always on, always available” SaaS offering, InterviewIQ enables companies that use home agents to screen them anytime, anywhere for the customer interaction, technical aptitude and motivational skills necessary to be successful. Candidates can also complete their interview at a time of their choosing, including at times when the company’s recruiting staff is unavailable, thereby expanding the pool of prospective candidates to increase the overall quality of hire.
HireIQ Solutions, Inc. helps customer service organizations improve hiring decisions, reduce recruiting costs and increase talent performance using its innovative virtual interviewing applications. HireIQ’s flagship product, InterviewIQ, uses rich media, web and voice response technologies to automate the phone screening process, resulting in better-qualified candidates presented during the hiring process. Employees hired using HireIQ’s suite of hiring optimization products demonstrate increased speed to competency, reduced attrition and improved sales and service performance. HireIQ is a privately held company based in Atlanta, GA. For further information, please visit www.hireiqinc.com. Follow HireIQ on Twitter at www.twitter.com/hireiqinc.
Leading virtual interviewing solution now pre-integrated with Taleo’s Enterprise talent acquisition suite
ATLANTA — (April 5, 2012) — HireIQ Solutions, Inc., the innovative company that improves the hiring and recruiting process for customer-facing organizations, announced today that its InterviewIQ solution has earned Taleo Passport certification to provide virtual interviewing services through the Taleo Enterprise talent acquisition platform. Joint HireIQ and Taleo Enterprise customers can now take advantage of pre-integration between the two solutions to seamlessly create, administer and evaluate virtual interviews.
HireIQ joins Taleo’s broad and elite network of Passport Certified partners. The partnership between HireIQ and Taleo helps joint customers extend their electronic talent management processes to include text-response and voice response virtual interviews and language assessments, streamlining the cumbersome and time-consuming steps of early-stage candidate screening. Nearly half of Fortune 100 companies and over 5,000 organizations worldwide across all industries use Taleo’s on-demand talent management platform.
“We are delighted to have completed our Taleo Passport certification,” said Dan Drechsel, chief executive officer at HireIQ. “The certified, pre-integrated solution ensures joint customers of a well-developed, thoroughly-tested integration that can be quickly and easily deployed in their environments.”
InterviewIQ uses media-rich web and voice response technologies to lead an applicant through a series of text-based and voice response questions that are configured to each customer’s unique requirements. Interviews conducted through InterviewIQ can be designed to test the applicant’s customer service aptitude, critical thinking, math skills, grammar proficiency and communication skills. As a web-based application, InterviewIQ allows applicants to complete their interviews when it is convenient for them and stores their responses for a recruiter or hiring manager to evaluate later. This effectively expands the reach and effectiveness of a company’s recruiting team. InterviewIQ is provided on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) basis which means customers can be using the application and interviewing candidates within hours.
For more information about HireIQ’s Passport certification or to activate the integration, please visit Taleo’s Solutions Exchange website at solutionexchange.taleo.net/sx/solution/428/InterviewIQ.
ABOUT TALEO
Taleo helps organizations improve the performance of their business by unlocking the power of their people. Through its cloud-based platform, Taleo optimizes recruiting, performance management, learning and compensation – and integrates them all so managers have the insights they need to achieve Talent Intelligence. From small and medium sized businesses to large enterprises, more than 5,000 organizations rely on Taleo every day to pursue growth, innovation and customer success. More information about Taleo is available online at www.taleo.com.
Leader in virtual interviewing technology taps software industry veteran for his extensive senior leadership expertise and human capital management knowledge
HireIQ Solutions, Inc., the company that improves the hiring and recruiting process for customer-facing organizations, announced today the appointment of Dan Drechsel as its new chief executive officer. Drechsel is an accomplished executive possessing over twenty-five years of experience in senior management positions with a number of leading software and information technology services businesses. In his new role, Drechsel will extend his proven track record by helping HireIQ continue its revenue growth trajectory, further its innovative product offerings, and position the company for additional fundraising.
HireIQ’s hiring optimization solutions help companies increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the hiring process, especially those with high-volume hiring requirements such as contact centers, retailers, travel and hospitality, and technology businesses. The company’s flagship product, InterviewIQ, uses web and voice response technologies to guide applicants through an automated virtual interview, which can be subsequently reviewed and scored by a hiring manager or recruiter. HireIQ’s novel approach means that recruiters are more effective since they no longer need to spend unproductive time trying to reach applicants in order to conduct a phone interview. Companies using HireIQ report improved time-to-hire, improved hire quality and increased post-hire operational performance.
“HireIQ is starting to gain strong momentum based on real customer success with our solution,” said Dave Gould, HireIQ’s chairman of the board. “Dan has developed and grown market leaders like S1 and has been a top-performing executive at industry leaders SAP, ADP and Dun & Bradstreet. He is the ideal CEO to leverage this momentum and build HireIQ to be the premier company in this exciting new market. We are very pleased to have him on board.”
Drechsel brings over 25 years of senior leadership experience from a broad range of industries. He most recently was chairman and CEO of FTRANS, a business process outsourcer that revolutionized the use of trade credit in small and mid-sized businesses. He also ran SAP America’s banking and insurance businesses. Drechsel was also chief operating officer of S1, the pioneer of online Internet banking, where he helped the company grow to a $200 million software and data services provider to over 3,400 financial institutions. He is a sought-after speaker on the topic of technology in the human resources suite and has authored a number of articles on the subject.
“HireIQ has pioneered innovative technology in virtual interviewing and applied it to the persistent problem of candidate sourcing and hiring,” said Drechsel. “Our virtual interviewing solutions deliver real, measurable customer value and the company is poised for very rapid growth. I’m delighted to be a part of the HireIQ team.”
New version adds workflow wizards, data visualization, reporting and analytics features
ATLANTA — (January 4, 2012) — HireIQ Solutions, Inc., the innovative company that improves the hiring and recruiting process for customer-facing organizations, announced today the availability of the latest version of its flagship virtual interviewing solution, InterviewIQ. Driven by extensive customer and market input, the new release includes features that improve usability and workflow, including a position creation wizard and editor; new data visualizations; new reports; and enhanced candidate disposition options. Since InterviewIQ is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application, the new release is available to all current customers.
Customer service organizations such as contact centers, retailers, hospitality, and travel and leisure providers are under constant pressure to staff their organizations with well-qualified employees. The new features further improve the efficiency and effectiveness of recruiters and provide them with the necessary tools to more quickly identify best-fit candidates for open positions. As a result, recruiters provide better service to their stakeholders by hiring candidates that are more likely to stay with the organization longer and will perform better from the first day of hire.
“Call center operations are particularly challenged in maintaining a healthy pipeline of well-qualified applicants,” said Paul Stockford, principal analyst with leading analyst firm Saddletree Research and the research director for the National Association of Call Centers. “Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the recruiting suite has a positive downstream effect on customer service operations, resulting in increased agent and customer retention, improved sales and service performance, and reduced operating costs. HireIQ’s InterviewIQ is an important link in delivering these benefits.”
InterviewIQ uses media-rich web and voice response technologies to lead an applicant through a text and voice response virtual interview that is configured to each customer’s unique requirements. Customers can design these interviews to test a wide variety of applicant characteristics, including customer service aptitude, critical thinking, math skills, grammar proficiency and communication skills. As a web-based application, InterviewIQ allows applicants to complete their interviews when it is convenient for them and stores their responses for a recruiter to evaluate later. This effectively expands the reach of a company’s recruiting team.
Market-Driven Enhancements Satisfy Real Needs
HireIQ actively solicited input from key stakeholders, including its customers, industry sources and valued partners, helping to ensure that the new features developed would satisfy real business needs. Key features of this latest release of InterviewIQ include:
Data Visualization and Reports. A number of new reports and graphs have been added to help recruiters, their management and key stakeholders more readily see key recruiting metrics. These include the number of candidates in each stage of the interview process, the performance of recruiters in evaluating and scoring interviews, and individual candidate results.
Additional Disposition Options. Users can now document certain details about candidate hires. This allows customers to better measure key retention metrics and identify the types of interviews that yield longer agent tenure.
Workflow and Wizards. As part of its ongoing effort to streamline interviewing processes and increase recruiter efficiency and effectiveness, the new version includes a position creation wizard and editor, and in-line candidate scoring.
“This new release spotlights our ongoing commitment to developing hiring optimization technologies that have real business value in the market,” said Joe Gruca, chief executive officer of HireIQ. “Our InterviewIQ virtual interviewing application is a proven and valuable solution with a demonstrated ability to greatly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the recruiting organization, further increasing its value to its key stakeholders.”
ABOUT HIREIQ SOLUTIONS, INC.
HireIQ Solutions, Inc. helps customer service organizations improve hiring decisions, reduce recruiting costs and increase talent performance using its proven predictive performance technology. HireIQ’s flagship product, InterviewIQ, uses rich media, web and voice response technologies to automate the phone screening process, resulting in better-qualified candidates presented during the hiring process. Employees hired using HireIQ’s suite of talent performance optimization products demonstrate increased speed to competency, reduced attrition and improved sales and service performance. HireIQ is a privately held company based in Atlanta, GA. For further information, please visit www.hireiqinc.com. Follow HireIQ on Twitter at www.twitter.com/hireiqinc.
ATLANTA — (December 22, 2011) — HireIQ Solutions, Inc., the innovative company that improves the hiring and recruiting process for customer-facing organizations, announced today that it has signed on as sponsor of Business Transformation Radio (BTR), an Internet radio program that arms today’s business leaders with key strategies to grow and transform their businesses.
BTR is recorded at Atlanta’s Dreamland Studios and is produced and hosted by seasoned marketing veterans Todd Schnick and Todd Youngblood. The show’s guests include influential and dynamic market leaders who have demonstrated their ability to grow and transform businesses from start-up stage through rapid growth and exit. In addition to spotlighting business visionaries, the show also features novel solutions to difficult business problems and innovative uses of technology.
“We’re thrilled that HireIQ Solutions has come on board as charter sponsor,” said Schnick, who is executive producer of Business Transformation Radio. “Today’s executives are constantly looking for ways to accelerate their business growth and are anxious to hear how others have achieved their success. HireIQ’s sponsorship will help bring these stories to light.”
InterviewIQ uses media-rich web and voice response technologies that enable businesses with high-volume hiring requirements, such as call centers, retailers, travel and leisure companies and others, to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their recruiting staffs. Interviews conducted through InterviewIQ can be designed to test an applicant’s customer service aptitude, critical thinking, math skills, grammar proficiency and communication skills. InterviewIQ is provided on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) basis, which means customers can be using the application and interviewing candidates very quickly.
“We’re proud to sponsor Business Transformation Radio,” said Joe Gruca, chief executive officer of HireIQ. “Busy executives and business leaders are always looking for strategies to accelerate their business growth and to learn from the experiences of others. BTR provides an innovative means for executives to hear directly from influential leaders in a format that’s convenient for them.”
To hear episodes of Business Transformation Radio, please visit the show’s home page at: transformation.dreamlandinteractive.com/. To book an appearance on the show, please contact the producers. Follow Business Transformation Radio on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bizxformradio. Show podcasts are also available on iTunes.
For a complete listing of HireIQ news, please visit www.hireiqinc.com/about/press/.
ABOUT HIREIQ SOLUTIONS, INC.
HireIQ Solutions, Inc. helps customer service organizations improve hiring decisions, reduce recruiting costs and increase talent performance using its proven predictive performance technology. HireIQ’s flagship product, InterviewIQ, uses rich media, web and voice response technologies to automate the phone screening process, resulting in better-qualified candidates presented during the hiring process. Employees hired using HireIQ’s suite of talent performance optimization products demonstrate increased speed to competency, reduced attrition and improved sales and service performance. HireIQ is a privately held company based in Atlanta, GA.
HireIQ Solutions, Inc., the innovative company that improves the hiring and recruiting process for customer-facing organizations, announced today that leading contact center outsourcer Interactive Response Technologies (IRT) has selected the company’s virtual interviewing application to support employee recruitment and acquisition. IRT will initially use HireIQ’s InterviewIQ to screen prospective employees in its four largest U.S.-based contact centers. The agreement also allows IRT to expand its use of InterviewIQ to its offshore operations in the future.
HireIQ provided IRT with a one-month trial to help prove the value of its virtual interviewing technology before the company formally committed to a purchase. During this period, IRT reported that it was able to screen significantly more candidates and reduce the amount of time required to conduct an initial telephone interview with a candidate. Furthermore, IRT indicated that employees who successfully completed the InterviewIQ process were more motivated, better skilled and more knowledgeable about IRT.
“Our employees are absolutely key to providing world-class service to our clients,” said Dick Eychner, IRT’s president. “Our clients represent some of the most recognizable and demanding names in the mobility and home entertainment markets, among others. They hold us to a very high standard of performance and our hiring practices help to ensure we constantly meet or exceed their expectations. Since we started using InterviewIQ, the quality of prospective employees has risen dramatically. HireIQ’s virtual interviewing technology enables our recruiters to focus their efforts on the detailed evaluation of applicants instead of trying to get them on the telephone for an initial interview.”
InterviewIQ uses media-rich web and voice response technologies to lead an applicant through a series of text-based and voice response questions that are configured to each customer’s unique requirements. Interviews conducted through InterviewIQ can be designed to test the applicant’s customer service aptitude, critical thinking, math skills, grammar proficiency and communication skills. As a web-based application, InterviewPlus allows applicants to complete their interviews when it is convenient for them and stores their responses for a recruiter to evaluate later. This effectively expands the reach and effectiveness of a company’s recruiting team. InterviewIQ is provided on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) basis which means customers can be using the application and interviewing candidates within hours.
“IRT has gained a well-deserved reputation for unparalleled service by focusing on the recruitment and development of high-quality and highly motivated employees,” said Joe Gruca, chief executive officer of HireIQ. “We are delighted that InterviewIQ is providing value to IRT’s recruiting team and we look forward to the time when IRT extends our footprint to its offshore operations.”
HireIQ Solutions, Inc. helps customer service organizations improve hiring decisions, reduce recruiting costs and increase talent performance using its proven predictive performance technology. HireIQ’s flagship product, InterviewIQ, uses rich media, web and voice response technologies to automate the phone screening process, resulting in better-qualified candidates presented during the hiring process. Employees hired using HireIQ’s suite of talent performance optimization products demonstrate increased speed to competency, reduced attrition and improved sales and service performance. HireIQ is a privately held company based in Atlanta, GA. For further information, please visit www.hireiqinc.com. Follow HireIQ on Twitter at www.twitter.com/hireiqinc.
Interactive virtual conference to explore how and why consumers are currently using social TV and what the ‘second screen’ will look like in the future
User Insight brings together product managers, brand managers, marketers and
social media leaders for first-of-its-kind event
ATLANTA (October 7, 2011) – User Insight, an international research firm, is hosting The Social TV Event, a virtual conference on October 20, 2011 to explore who in the marketplace is using social TV, who will use it in the future, how they will use it and how the latest technologies stack up. Attendees from across the globe will virtually engage in the conversation and receive an insider’s look at social TV products and services that are not yet on the market.
The Technology Association of Georgia’s president and CEO, Tino Mantella, will give the keynote address. All conference attendees will have access to top leaders in social TV product innovation by posing questions during the discussions through the Watchitoo live streaming platform. Panel members include Tom Thai, market and sales strategy lead at Bluefin Labs; Hillary Henderson, product director of Clearleap; Joe Conboy, director, product management iTV of Cox Communications; Dee Rambeau, vice president of customer engagement of PR Newswire; Chad Eikhoff, creative director of Trick 3D; Eric Holtzclaw, CEO of User Insight; Kevin O’Connor, president of User Insight; Chris Snider, senior project manager of Yahoo!; Dave Mowrey, director, connected devices of Yahoo!; and Mitchel McAlister, director of product of Yidio.
Technology innovators such as PR Newswire, SnappyTV, Trick 3D, Tweeplayer, WiO and Yahoo! will showcase their latest products and services through in-depth video interviews and promotional video shorts. The streaming of these pre-recorded videos will be accompanied by the live event video feed. In addition, leading digital marketing and PR professionals will share how they are taking these products to market and creating engaging content and messaging for specific personas. They will also discuss ways to measure the success of various social TV initiatives.
Tickets to attend the virtual conference are $150 (register by October 10, 2011 to receive the discounted rate of $120). The event is open to anyone interested in social TV, including technology professionals, product managers, marketers and public relations professionals, brand managers, reporters, social TV enthusiasts and consumers who are driving the dialogue on the second screen.
“This is the first event of its kind to virtually engage all who are interested in social TV, facilitating a unique dialogue about how, why and when social TV will change the television industry as we know it today,” said Kevin O’Connor, president of User Insight. “After spending nine months observing and talking with TV watchers and immersing ourselves in the social TV industry, User Insight is excited to share the findings from our in-depth consumer research and provide unprecedented access to those who are diligently working to be first to market with social TV products and services.”
During the event, User Insight will release the findings from its in-depth research about how people consume TV and related content. The research is focused on understanding behaviors exhibited in homes and how the social TV revolution stands to change how people watch, interact and consume TV and advertising content. During the past six months, User Insight created personas to understand which products and services companies should be building for the consumer, how consumers use current social TV products and what they will use in the future.
About User Insight:
User Insight, an international research firm headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States by Inc. Magazine three years running. Employing a consistent methodology and dedicating a full team of diversified industry professionals to every client engagement, User Insight gathers and analyzes the voice of the customer to provide insight to user behavior, create intuitive products and inform marketing strategy. Currently, User Insight has conducted research across the U.S. as well as in 15 countries for more than 300 clients spanning 25 industries. For more information, please visit www.UserInsight.com.
ATLANTA — (September 29, 2011) — HireIQ Solutions, Inc., the innovative company that improves the hiring and recruiting process for customer-facing organizations, announced today the immediate availability of the latest version of HireIQ InterviewPlus.
Driven by extensive customer and market input, this new release includes a unique communication analysis algorithm; the ability to test for grammar, math and critical thinking proficiency; interview scoring and analysis; and several features that facilitate better usability and workflow. Since InterviewPlus is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application, the new release is immediately available to all current customers.
The new features will enable organizations to more quickly identify those job applicants who possess the skills necessary to satisfy the customer interaction needs of the organization. Recruiters in these hiring organizations will be able to fill open positions faster with candidates that are better qualified. As a result, recruiters will provide better service to their stakeholders by hiring candidates that are more likely to stay with the organization longer and will perform better from the first day of hire.
InterviewPlus uses media-rich web and voice response technologies to lead an applicant through a series of text-based and voice response questions that are configured to each customer’s unique requirements. Interviews conducted through InterviewPlus can be designed to test the applicant’s customer service aptitude, critical thinking, math skills, grammar proficiency and communication skills. As a web-based application, InterviewPlus allows applicants to complete their interviews when it is convenient for them and stores their responses for a recruiter to evaluate later. This effectively expands the reach of a company’s recruiting team.
“InterviewPlus has helped us dramatically improve our recruiter efficiency and effectiveness,” said Jared Fletcher, vice president of Operations at Arise Virtual Solutions. “Our clients and stakeholders demand that the very best agents be assigned to their accounts and InterviewPlus helps us ensure that is the case. HireIQ works closely with us to understand our business and how its solutions can provide additional value. The features included in its latest release are proof that they take their customer relationships seriously.”
Market-Driven Enhancements Satisfy Real Needs
In planning for this new release, HireIQ actively solicited input from key stakeholders, including its customers, industry sources and valued partners, helping to ensure that the features developed would satisfy real business needs. The key features of the new release of InterviewPlus include:
Communication Analysis.
The attributes of better-qualified candidates tend to be reflected in their speech patterns.
InterviewPlus now includes an automated communication analysis algorithm that assesses a candidate’s recorded voice response interview to determine how well it fits the model for good communication skills. Best-fit candidates are placed at the top of a ranked list for evaluation, streamlining the
recruiter’s candidate review process.
Interview Scoring and Analysis.
InterviewPlus now includes an interview evaluation-scoring module that allows a recruiter to assign a quantitative score to an applicant’s interview. This scoring uses a common four-point Likert-type scoring scale which a recruiter can utilize to evaluate up to five discreet attributes of the interview. This feature is also helpful in calibrating interview evaluations to ensure recruiter consistency.
Configurable Tests.
Customers can configure text-based tests to assess a candidate’s math, grammar, communication and critical thinking skills. These tests are automatically scored by the InterviewPlus application and those applicants who score the highest can be identified at the top of a recruiter’s evaluation queue for review. This allows recruiters to quickly identify those candidates with the most desirable skills and advance them to the next stage in a company’s recruitment and hiring process.
Usability and Workflow.
As part of its ongoing effort to streamline interviewing processes and increase recruiter efficiency and effectiveness, the new version also includes several product usability and workflow enhancements.
“This new release of InterviewPlus highlights our commitment to developing recruiting optimization technologies that have a positive business impact for our current and future customers,” said Joe Gruca, chief executive officer of HireIQ. “Our InterviewPlus virtual interviewing application is a proven and valuable solution that improves the quality of candidate hires, reduces time-to-fill, and increases the recruiting team’s value to its stakeholders.”
HireIQ Solutions, Inc. helps customer service organizations improve hiring decisions, reduce recruiting costs and increase talent performance using its proven predictive performance technology. HireIQ’s flagship product, InterviewPlus, uses rich media, web and voice response technologies to automate the phone screening process, resulting in better-qualified candidates presented during the hiring process. Employees hired using HireIQ’s suite of talent performance optimization products demonstrate increased speed to competency, reduced attrition and improved sales and service performance. HireIQ is a privately held company based in Atlanta, GA. For further information, please visit www.hireiqinc.com. Follow HireIQ on Twitter at www.twitter.com/hireiqinc.
