Geopost uses high performer research results in recruitment

The company

Geopost is one of Europe’s leading distribution and logistics companies. It is owned by La Post, the second largest postal group in Europe with interests in Mail, Parcels, Logistics and Financial Services. Its UK brands include Parceline, an Express Parcels Carrier with a reputation for innovation in delivery process including a revolutionary route control and signature capture system.

The problem

The company only recruited sales people with a minimum of two years sales experience for its new business team because it knew that only those sales people who could cope with the demands and rejection of cold calling could be successful.

They found it difficult to attract good people away from their existing employers and the standard of candidates on the market was often poor.

The solution

Sales Director Dwain McDonald participated in the high performer research project which showed that aptitude for sales roles could be measured more effectively by assessing differences in an individual’s biology than by psychometric tests of personality or intelligence.

He saw the potential of using Biometric Profiling to identify youngsters with no or limited experience but having the aptitude to be a high performer. It was tested to see if it could differentiate between high and low performers in the sales team in a ‘blind’ pilot exercise that showed it to be accurate. Then sales managers were trained to integrate the Biometric Interview into their normal interview. Finally 15 junior sales executives were recruited using their scores against high performer benchmarks to predict their potential.

The results

Dave Moores, Northern Regional Sales manager and the project manager said: “We have recruited 15 juniors who are a few months out of their training and already we can see we have some real winners. Retention has also improved which shows that we really are assessing aptitude for the role regardless of skill or knowledge. It has also allowed us to be more tolerant of our new starters.”

The future

Now Geopost will use the performance results from this first batch of recruits to tune the Biometric criteria to their culture and the new business role more precisely.

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