Hiring brilliant candidates they’d have previously overlooked

Spark NZ is New Zealand’s number-one telecommunications carrier with more than 5,000 employees. Much of its revenue growth depends on making the right hires for its contact centre, but results told a tale: there was something wrong in the process.

By replacing their expensive outsourced recruitment process with Sapia.ai’s AI Smart Interviewer for all of their contact centre hiring, Spark NZ removed bias from the screening process. This resulted in a fairer process for candidates; and better, more diverse talent for hiring managers.

And with significant reductions in both cost and time to hire, the team at Spark haven’t looked back.

The problem

An expensive outsourced recruitment service

• Hires were not meeting sales expectations
  
• An application process that wasn’t candidate-friendly
  
• Lack of diversity
  
• Recruitment was outsourced at high cost
  

The solution

A fair recruitment process powered by responsible AI

What candidates get

Sapia.ai provides a chat interview experience applicants can access from their own homes and answer at their own pace. Introverted or neurodivergent people – a tremendous asset in the tech industries – can interview in comfort, and everyone, no matter how they look or sound, gets a “blind” interview.

With open-ended questions that encourage you to be honest, hires get to feel a sense of belonging with Spark from the first moment.

What hiring managers get

Sapia.ai automatically integrates the results from the chat interviews into Spark’s applicant tracking system Avature. Hiring managers see not just the interview responses, but insights on the candidates’ personality traits and communication skills.

Questions are tailored according to different roles and draw out qualities like critical thinking, conscientiousness and accountability that make all the difference in a real workplace.

The outcome

A high quality and more diverse talent pool

Since implementing Sapia.ai, candidates are far happier with the application process, and managers are delighted with their diverse new hires. As one hiring manager said:

“The drive, willingness to learn, attendance, extra effort – we are seeing all these things coming through in spades.”

“The efficiency and cost savings have obviously been significant. But what really matters is the improvement and diversity of hires. We are now seeing candidates recommended that we would never have considered before and our hiring managers are thrilled!” – Heather Polglase, Head of Talent and the Contact Centre Business Owner, Spark NZ

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