TUI Travel PLC (TUI Travel), which includes the brands Thomson and First Choice, is the world’s leading international leisure travel group operating in approximately 180 countries worldwide and serving more than 30 million customers. The Group employs approximately 50,000 people and operates a pan-European airline consisting of 146 aircraft. The company mainly serves the leisure travel customer.

Every year TUI Travel recruits hundreds of overseas resort-based seasonal staff, such as holiday advisors, childcare professionals, sports coaches and tour representatives. These roles attract thousands of applicants and were previously all screened manually, which required significant resources and therefore cost. In addition, as these are mainly entry-level positions, there was a limited ability to sift applicants based on skills and experience therefore it was difficult to identify candidates with the best fit until the assessment centre stage. TUI Travel was also introducing a new ‘Customer First’ culture and looking for ways to ensure new recruits were closely aligned to this new approach.

TUI Travel asked Alexander Mann Solutions (AMS) to help them improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their recruitment process through reducing resources required to screen the applications, and helping to ensure those put forward to assessment centre had a better fit to the key success criteria of the roles to improve the offer ratio at this stage.

Business Psychologists in AMS’s Assessment & Selection (A&S) team designed a unique Situational Judgement Test (SJT) to be used online as an integrated part of the initial screening process. SJTs present candidates with realistic scenarios based on the key challenges they’re likely to encounter in the roles. Candidates are presented with multiple choice options for dealing with the situations and their responses are then scored against a model developed in conjunction with Subject Matter Experts in the organisation’s business. This model reflects the key competencies and values required by the organisation and the way in which existing high performers respond to typical issues and events.

TUI Travel ran over 20 assessment centres and feedback from assessors was that quality of the applicants at the assessment centre was high and that the number of ‘no shows’ at the assessment day had reduced.
Also, the AMS A&S team conducted a statistical validation study on the effectiveness of the SJT, through looking at the correlation between SJT results and candidates’ assessment centre performance. This analysis revealed that the SJT was consistently predictive of candidate success and would enable TUI Travel to save time and money by reducing the number of applicants invited to take part in future assessments.

Additionally, the SJT methodology has proven to be a diversity-friendly approach, with lower adverse impact in areas such as age, gender and ethnicity, compared to many traditional methods of sifting.

TUI Travel are now able to sift out 30% of applicants in the initial stages in a quick, efficient, predictive and diversity friendly manner, while simultaneously improving the quality of candidates that attend assessment centres.

Not only did this technique enable TUI Travel to assess each candidate’s suitability against common situations, but it also helped candidates to ‘self-select’ in or out of the process as they learned more about what the job would really involve. This helps to ensure that those who progress through the process are engaged and therefore reduces the risk of drop-out. Furthermore Candidates found the assessment to be more engaging and informative, as it provides a true insight into the realities and demands of the job. It also gives successful candidates realistic expectations, which in turn tends to boost retention.

After administering and scoring the SJT online, TUI Travel evaluated each candidate’s performance and broader experience, and then invited those with the best fit to attend an assessment centre. This means fewer resources are required to screen candidates and run assessment centres, resulting in significant cost savings.

In summary, the testing proved to be a highly effective pre-screening tool which lowered costs at the same time as it improved:

• The quality and predictiveness of the online applications
• The quality of candidates attending the assessment centres
• The attendance at the assessment centres
• The offer/acceptance ratio
• The candidate experience
• The overall recruitment campaign – it was an interactive and up-to-date screening process which linked in with TUI Travel’s careers site

Commenting on the effectiveness of the tool, Sally O’Rourke from the UK & Ireland Resourcing Team agreed:

“The Situational Judgement Test developed by AMS enables us to quickly and efficiently deal with high volumes of candidates by screening out unsuitable individuals before too much time is spent reviewing their application. In addition, it also provides candidates with a realistic preview of the job, and helps them understand the role they’re applying for – this is important as some of our applicants have little previous work experience. The statistical research conducted by AMS on the validity of the test has really demonstrated and given us confidence that there is a strong link between test score and candidate quality, as well as reassurance that there is no adverse impact in relation to gender or ethnicity.”

The Head of Assessment and Selection commented:

“By ensuring only the most suitable candidates are taken forward to the next stage of the process, Situational Judgement Testing helps organisations to improve quality of hire and recruit in a much more cost-effective way. What’s more, feedback shows that applicants believe it adds real value to their candidate journey, as it gives them a true insight into the role they have applied for. This helps to increase the offer/acceptance ratio, and retention is improved too – all of which further adds to the cost-efficiency of the testing.”