CEO Chat: The New Retail-Fit Report

Mike Campanella is the CEO of Prevue and the original advocate in bringing Prevue Assessments onto a cloud-based platform. Constantly looking for ways to change and improve our hiring product line-up, Mike shares in an interview about the release of Prevue’s latest project: the all-new Retail-Fit.

What led to the design of the Retail-Fit?

A lot of our customers love the Prevue and love the complexity of the product but feel that for their labour, high turnover, or hourly worker type positions it’s overkill. We don’t necessarily agree with that completely, but at some point, you have to accept that if your customers are saying one thing, you’ve got to reservice your approach. The biggest pushback, we found, was on the length of our current assessments. Our customers felt that 35 to 40 minutes to do a full assessment was too lengthy for their candidates. Even the personality questionnaire, which on average takes about 20 minutes to complete, still felt like a lot for these types of roles. We found that there were some high turnover industries where the number of assessments run would be large, so we needed to address the issue of licensing to bring costs down. What we learned from chatting with our customers was that time and cost are a big deal.

We developed the Prevue Screen, designed off the foundation of our personality questionnaire, but by using only core questions, we were able to establish a valid and reliable 48 question assessment. Candidates would take the 48-question assessment and their answers would be compared against some key requirements for the position to drive out a red, yellow, and green indicator.  We knew that this product would be great for these high turnover industries; retail, hospitality and the like. The adoption of the Prevue Screen by our current (and new) customers has been impressive, and the feedback that we’ve received has been extremely positive.

Is the Retail-Fit part of an evolution?

What we found was that our customers still wanted a little bit more than just a red, yellow, or green screening indicator; they wanted a report. So, we designed a product to help them on their front line, to help them screen. But, they still wanted something to help them [with interviewing]. We looked at our customers who were talking about this the most, and the greatest industry demand was retail. The response we got from the retail industry was that they loved the simplicity of a quick 5-minute questionnaire, and they loved that it was easy to use & take, because it’s compatible with any device. They loved the red, yellow, and green [suitability indicators], but, they wanted some more information. From their feedback, we kept that first part with the colours and then we added to it a little synopsis about the individual, about a paragraph long, and then included interview questions with not just the question itself, but some suggestions on what they might want to look at as far as ideal answers. This was because the one thing that we did notice from the onset was that there were many junior hiring managers in retail roles, and they appreciate the feedback and guidance.

What makes this product stand out compared to other retail-oriented assessments already on the market?

In the marketplace, I see a lot of companies servicing the retail industry particularly, but all they’ve done is taken the existing product they have and repackaged it to the industry. We’ve actually designed this from the ground up, strictly for retail. We’ve worked with people in the industry – core clients in the retail industry – and ensured that the language is written in retail lingo, and so everything about it is for retail to use. There’s not a lot of products out there, most products that I’ve come across, are trying to go to retail and offer them their products saying that their product will work in retail. The Retail-Fit only works in retail. The other thing too, that I think is unique about it, is that it’s easy to take. Literally, you can have a situation where someone walks into a shoe store or a clothing store, and as well as fill out an application, if the person at the store wanted to, they could have them take this particular assessment. Take 5 minutes with a phone, or iPad they may have at the location and it can tell them right away if this person is a good fit. You have a situation now, because it is so mobile-friendly and accessible, that they could actually conduct the assessment onsite and if somebody is a good match and shows as green [on the assessment result], they can complete an interview on the spot, instead of letting them leave the store and potentially not getting them to come back. As we know, good people, you want to grab them when you got them. Not only does this product speak to retail stores, it speaks to the type of hiring practices and the people looking for these kinds of roles. Typically when someone is applying for jobs in retail, they are applying to lots of different retailers, and it’s not uncommon for someone to literally walk the mall and just hit store after store [with their applications]. You want to stop that. If someone is a good fit, you want to chat with them right away. Our Retail Fit report is designed to work within the retail environment comfortably.  Click here to view a sample of the Retail Fit report.

What is pricing going to look like?

We priced it as an unlimited use license, and we priced it very economically. We want to encourage lots of usage. Retail is historically a high turnover industry, and generally there is a large applicant pool, so it’s not uncommon to interview 8 people for one position or have 50 to 75 applicants online for one role. Companies should be assessing everybody, and to ensure that it was being used to its fullest potential, we did not want to charge on a per person basis. We decided to offer this report on an unlimited-use license, based on company size. Unlimited use, unlimited support, all-in.

When can companies get a hold of this product?

It’s available right now. We’ve just soft launched it both to our direct customers and to our network of resellers, so it’s available to the public now. The Retail-Fit is out of beta and is 100% production-ready.

Read more on how the new Retail-Fit can be a part of your hiring: https://www.prevuehr.com/solutions/retailfit/