Personality takes preference at ASDA

Criterion Partnership, the business psychology consultancy, has developed a pioneering initiative to match candidatesí personalities to ASDAís 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 íTop 10 Best Big Companies to Work Forí and also named Scotlandís 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 Partnershipís 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 applicantsí 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.

ASDA required the new system to streamline its recruitment process, as the paper-based system used before was hugely time intensive. The company also wanted to ensure both successful and unsuccessful candidates would complete the application process with positive impressions of the ASDA brand and its values. In addition, Criterion identified the need to reduce the volume and improve the calibre of candidates progressing to interview.

Judith Colbert, resourcing manager at ASDA, adds: We want our new colleagues to be as enthusiastic about the companyís work and future as we are. As such, we needed an application process that would represent this.

Using its understanding of ASDAís business needs and wealth of psychological experience, Criterion designed an online application product made up of four elements:

* An application form, which assesses applicants by scoring their responses

* A bespoke cognitive test which simulates the demands of the role and measures candidates abilities

* A bespoke personality questionnaire, to measure factors essential for success with ASDA

* Scored work experience and education questions

The system filters candidates, automatically progressing those most compatible and flagging others for further investigation by the resourcing teams.

In addition, Criterion designed the programme to gather open-ended information which is used to generate suggested questions for interviewers. The system also creates a summary document on each candidate, equipping interviewers with understanding of applicantís competencies and allowing them to prepare further questions.

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