Onrec.com: Personality takes preference at ASDA
17/08/2006
Criterion Partnership, the business psychology consultancy, has developed a pioneering initiative to match candidates’ personalities to ASDA’s brand values.
As part of its nationwide store expansion programme, ASDA is preparing to recruit 7,000 new colleagues in 2006. The new online system has been created specifically by Criterion for the UK supermarket chain, to manage recruitment for management and head office positions.
ASDA is recognised as a top employer and last year was placed second in The Sunday Times 'Top 10 Best Big Companies to Work For' and also named Scotland’s best employer at the Scottish National Business Awards. As a result, the management and graduate employment schemes are hugely popular, attracting more than 10,000 applicants a year.
The company firmly believes in hiring its colleagues for their attitude rather than experience. ASDA is prepared to invest and train those whose personality best suits the company. Criterion incorporated this into its design and created an application process which gathers personality information and identifies candidates likely to flourish at the supermarket chain.
Commenting on its latest bespoke system, Criterion Partnership’s business psychologist, Alan Redman, said: "The ASDA system is unusual because of the vast scale of the project and the depth of detail it collects. Where as previously the company had relied on interviews and CVs to assess applicants’ suitability, with the new system this work is already done. Now, the company is seeing the top 20 per cent of candidates at interview rather than the top 50 per cent as before."
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