Nurtur Aveda, an acclaimed cosmetology and esthetics school that provides industry-leading education, has been using Wonderlic admissions assessments for years. Wonderlic has helped them find and select students most likely to succeed in their program. Students get hands-on experience catering to a diverse clientele in the classroom salons of their three campuses. These real-world environments prepare them for a lucrative career in the beauty industry after graduation. This proven success inspired them to test out Wonderlic hiring assessments for finding the best fitting staff as well.
Wonderlic was so great to work with; their entire team is filled with individuals that go the extra mile.
Meg Collins, Nurture Aveda HR Director
The Challenge
Like many beauty institutions, Aveda has a slew of positions to hire for including instructors, administrators, and office staff, to name a few. This means that HR director Meg Collins, PHR, has quite the task in ensuring the salon has a professional team that can operate efficiently, while simultaneously recruiting top instructors with the right aptitude and personality to thrive in an Aveda classroom. Finding top tier beauticians is essential – they’ve seen what happens when someone cuts their own bangs.
Before adding WonScore to her hiring repertoire, Collins’ process was pretty standard: post a job on a job board, get hundreds of applications, and spend endless hours reviewing them. In fact, she averaged two days screening candidates, coordinating and conducting phone calls, and sending what she hoped were the best candidates up the chain for further review.
Unfortunately, this common process led to poor fitting hires who weren’t up to the demanding, multi-tiered roles in teaching, cosmetology, and esthetics. Many misrepresented themselves in the application and interview, and once hired, didn’t last long. This cost Aveda valuable time and money. Clearly, Collins needed a more efficient way to find the candidates best suited to her institution’s specific roles.
The Solution
Aveda needed a makeover a la Wonderlic. Collins began using Wonderlic hiring assessments to pinpoint the individuals most likely to flourish at Aveda. She quickly (and happily) found that the easy-to-interpret results and intuitive candidate reports allowed her to get an immediate feel for who would be a top performer.
The Results
By using Wonderlic assessments, Collins has slashed her screening time by 75 percent. Let that sink in… 75 percent. And after less than a year of working with Wonderlic, she’s weeded out the poor fits and greatly improved Aveda’s quality of hires. By year’s end, she expects to reduce turnover by 15 to 20 percent and save at least $21,000 in recruiting, hiring, and training costs. Now those are some beautiful results.
