CARQUEST Hires Proactively Using Assess Systems’ Teammate- and Professional-Level Assessments
Headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, CARQUEST sells replacement products, supplies, accessories and equipment for virtually all automobiles, including trucks, off-road vehicles and equipment, recreational vehicles, buses, and agricultural equipment, as well as boats. CARQUEST has been in business more than 40 years, with more than 3,400 retail locations and 38 distribution centers across North America.
Every year, CARQUEST hires thousands of teammates. The company requires excellence in every position to support its specialized model of sales, delivery and customer service. Each new hire must possess and demonstrate the potential for exceeding customers’ expectations.
Slow Process That Discouraged Both Applicants and Employer
To hire the right talent quickly, hiring processes must be efficient and customized for both applicants and the organization. When CARQUEST began using non-exempt candidate assessments from an outside vendor in 2005, the company found they were too long for many candidates to complete. The costly Web-based personality and ability surveys often took 45 minutes or more, resulting in discouraged candidates who failed to finish the application process. Many solid, capable candidates were lost. Any completed assessments gave CARQUEST only general candidate descriptions without any concrete insights about the potential fit of the candidate.
CARQUEST wanted to replace its assessments with affordable ones that would reduce assessment time, increase the number of candidates completing assessments, differentiate candidates, provide hiring recommendations and improve the quality of decision-making information that managers received.
Assessment Improvements and Rapid Implementation
CARQUEST identified Assess Systems as a best-in-class provider. With its 10- to 15-minute Select assessments for non-exempt employees, clear hiring recommendations and supplementary interview questions, Assess Systems was ideal. Assess Systems could offer a short implementation time by leveraging its standard, proven, criterion-validated assessments—along with CARQUEST-specific enhancements—for the kinds of positions CARQUEST targeted.
Satisfied with Assess Systems’ highly efficient teammate-level assessments, CARQUEST went forward immediately. "Assess Systems helped us get tailored assessments targeted specifically to our job roles up and running and integrated into our recruitment management system in under 30 days," stated Faithe Hart, Vice President of Talent Management. Reports on each applicant give supportive, detailed information for making hiring decisions. "The reports are easy to use and deliver real value to our hiring managers," Faithe added.
Professional-Level Evaluations for Corporate Restructuring and Ongoing Assessments
After the successful implementation of teammate-level assessment tools, CARQUEST requested Assess Systems’ expertise for professional-level assessments. Due to its history of acquisitions, CARQUEST aimed to quickly and systematically evaluate performance and future potential for more than 1,000 sales and management positions. The goal: rollout of a fully reorganized company with a more efficient sales hierarchy, a more effective management team, better use of talent and improved succession planning. CARQUEST intended to use the professional-level assessments — called Assess — on an ongoing basis.
After designing competency models for each targeted position, Assess Systems deployed Assess personality assessments that link innate capabilities to competencies in the models. This empowered CARQUEST to better match employees’ job potential and preferences with job role and performance.
In addition to an effective restructuring, CARQUEST benefits from the competency models and the repository of talent data that emerged from the evaluations. CARQUEST now leverages the repository for ongoing talent management, growth and succession planning. Integrated into the Peopleclick RMS™ system with a customized results dashboard, Assess helps CARQUEST make sound hiring decisions quickly. As performance data on new hires becomes available, Assess Systems conducts validation studies against actual employee performance to customize the assessment scoring so the tests are increasingly effective for CARQUEST.
Streamlined Candidate Experience With Shortened Time to Hire
Job applicants now have a streamlined, automated experience at CARQUEST. Supervisor feedback has been very positive regarding new-hire quality, suitability and performance. Customized assessments for one key role screened out 74 percent of performers rated average or below by supervisors, while strongly recommending 64 percent of above-average rated employees.
With the use of Select and Assess , CARQUEST has implemented a proactive talent acquisition model by continuously accepting applications. The company usually has 10 to 20 candidates sourced, assessed and sorted, so when a position opens, a top candidate can be contacted. This has dramatically shortened hiring times from 21 to less than five days.
CARQUEST is impressed with the effectiveness and efficiency of its hassle-free customized assessments, as well as the exemplary dedication, service and responsiveness of the team of experts at Assess Systems. "We’ve found them to be one of our best suppliers to work with," Faithe said. "They provide exceptional customer service and are very responsive to our requests."
The CARQUEST logo is a registered trademark of CARQUEST Corporation. Peopleclick RMS is a trademark of Peopleclick, Inc. All other trademarks, registered trademarks and service marks belong to their respective owners.
Assess Systems helped us get tailored assessments targeted specifically to our job roles up and running and integrated into our recruitment management system in under 30 days. The reports are easy to use and deliver real value to our hiring managers in the field.
As an HR-XML Certified provider, our software systems conform to the standards of the HR-XML consortium for exchange of HR-related data. This allows our assessment systems to integrate seamlessly with other conforming HR software, such as HRIS, applicant tracking systems (ATS), and Recruitment Process Outsourcers (RPO).
