When it comes to advancements in HR and Talent management technology, the recent trend has been to focus on the impact Artificial Intelligence (AI) can have in shortening the duration of the traditional hiring processes, while reducing the burden of manual tasks like screening resumes and interviewing. However, we know that 50+ years of Industrial/Organizational Psychology research shows that resumes and unstructured interviews are full of biases – and also poor indicators of how well applicants will perform once they are on the job. This begs the question – why are we taking human processes that a rigorous scientific discipline has shown to be inaccurate, and then training machines to make the same mistakes that HR professionals (in spite of their best intentions) already make today?
This is the question the team at Plum are looking to address by combining the power of I/O psychology with the promise of AI for HR professionals. Plum automates years of research by focusing on the core predictors of on-job performance such as work ethic, attention to detail, and effective communication – allowing HR professionals to focus on the top candidates – often individuals that would have been overlooked in the traditional hiring process.
Elevating the power of I/O Psychology research
Plum is not based on new or pseudo-science; instead their focus and passion has been to automate the most advanced Industrial/Organizational Psychology to ensure companies hire, grow, and retain top talent. Driven by the research of PhD level I/O Psychologists and submitted by over 180 thousand job applicants Plum’s proprietary assessment evaluates thousands of data points. The company’s SaaS platform is a scalable, cost effective software which provides the organization with the ability to predict with certainty the quality of hires, the development of employees, and transformation of its culture.
Hiring, performance, and corporate culture are all areas that have long depended on “trust your gut” decision-making. Today’s hiring tools use artificial intelligence only to speed up the hiring process, but not to ensure the best hire.
Caitlin MacGregor on Founding Plum
After graduating from the University of Guelph, Plum’s CEO Caitlin MacGregor went on to build two businesses, goQ Software being the most recent where she provided leadership as its President. Through these business experiences and a few years of intense travel through
Ireland, India, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Japan something became evident to Caitlin. The need to predict certainty in businesses was universal, and global businesses large and small could no longer risk their future success based on the cost of bad hires.
It was with this necessity and purpose that Caitlin founded Plum, knowing that she as an entrepreneur would want this level of clarity if she were to ever find or grow another business.
Caitlin had discovered the predictability and certainty that came with psychometric assessments at her previous company. After hiring candidates she would have otherwise overlooked if it wasn’t for the assessments, Caitlin began to realize that not only was she finding amazing talent that was a perfect fit in their roles, but she was avoiding the time, energy, and money costs that used to come with employee turnover.
Plum Assessments; combining the best of both worlds
Plum marries advanced Industrial/Organizational Psychology and Artificial Intelligence to improve the quality of hire. The company offers a psychometric assessments for every stage of Human Capital Management. Specifically:
PlumHire: Plum combines cutting-edge Industrial/Organizational Psychology with proprietary algorithms to deliver advanced scientifically-validated psychometric assessments at the top of the hiring funnel – giving companies unprecedented predictive capabilities across their entire applicant pool.
PlumGrow: Plum’s Professional Development Guides functions to increase staff engagement, retention, and performance. PlumGrow provides the straightforward process to establish meaningful career growth for the staff.
PlumCulture: Plum democratizes culture and creates cultural alignment across departments and management levels by surfacing the key drivers of the culture. Through a 10 minute survey that asks the entire company staff to define what’s most important about your organization’s culture, Plum delves into how individuals see the current culture, and how specifically they want to see it changing.
An Opportunity to do things faster, and better
A human will read 300 resumes and will shortlist 30 of them. Current Artificial Intelligence (AI) competitors are training their AI tools to pick the exact same 30 resumes that the human would pick; in essence mimicking human limitation.
The more ambitious opportunity that comes with advancements in AI is not to scale traditional (and flawed) hiring methods, but to collaborate with advancements in I/O Psychology, which consistently states the flaws of resume-screening and points towards the predictability of on-the-job success that comes with assessing for personality, problem-solving, and social intelligence.
In fact Plum’s approach is 400%-500% more predictive than a resume and Plum’s customers say, given the chance, they would hire 93% of their Plum assessed employees all over again. The industry norm for the “hire again” rate sits at 60% for non-Plum assessed employees.
Plum & the Future Stare of Work
By 2034, almost half of today’s current jobs will be automated. 65% of today’s students will be applying for jobs that don’t exist yet. Plum exists to lead the revolution into this new landscape.
The company highly believes that the future of work doesn’t have to be bleak. Plum is an invaluable partner that puts people first during this transition into a new economy. How? First, by honoring the past; Plum automates years of Industrial/Organizational Psychology research that has stated, time and time again, that credentials and education do not correlate with top talent. The organization is looking forward to putting the people with the right personality, problem-solving skills, and social intelligence into the new roles that will inevitably arise in an economy of automation – and that’s exactly what Plum does.
