A fair, inclusive and efficient assessment solution for an Australian software leader

Leading ANZ business management platform provider MYOB needed to tackle the lack of diversity in its talent pipeline.

Here’s how Sova helped them do it.

Business Background

Leading ANZ business management platform provider MYOB has been at the forefront of Australia’s ascent as a digital nation over the past few decades. A digital skills gap has emerged in Australia, as talent pipelines for skills such as coding, developing and software engineering have struggled to keep pace with growing demand. As a result of their success, this skills gap has been keenly felt by MYOB in recent years.

Challenge

MYOB’s challenge was not simply attracting tech talent fast enough to fill roles but ensuring that talent is diverse. MYOB’s leadership team wanted to embed a diversity mindset across the business, to produce outcomes that are more equitable and inclusive, and more innovative and profitable. However, the technology sector has historically lacked female and minority group representation.

The Future Makers Academy

To tackle the lack of diversity in its talent pipeline, MYOB built The Future
Makers Academy, a talent program seeking people from diverse backgrounds to join its software development team.

While The Future Makers Academy is predominantly aimed at graduates, a sub-program within the Academy named ‘DevelopHer’ aims to bridge the diversity and skills gap by offering women with no technical experience an opportunity to start, upskill, and progress a career in this fast-growing sector, including those changing careers or re-entering the workforce.

In an ultra-competitive market for tech talent, it’s critical to have an engaging and fast hiring process. Screenings were previously being carried out manually, with each application taking around 15 minutes to screen. The task of reviewing 600 videos occupied an entire week for a team of five people. The result was that the application processed was slowed.

MYOB required a fair and equitable assessment solution that allowed the talent acquisition team to funnel applications more efficiently and reduced their time-to-hire.

Objective: 

MYOB required a new assessment solution that would fulfil three key objectives:

1. Efficient for both MYOB recruiters and candidates. MYOB needed to review and process applications faster and candidates needed a streamlined experience with assessments that were short and an easy-to-use platform.
2. Blended and multidimensional. MYOB was looking for a rounded view of candidates, assessing personality, technical ability (coding), cognitive reasoning and video interview.
3. Fair and equitable. The Future Makers Academy is designed to identify and attract diverse candidates, so it was essential for MYOB that the solution could assess applicants fairly and accurately.

Solution:

Blended assessments wrapped in inclusive, engaging content

Sova proposed a blended assessment solution mapped to MYOB’s key competencies in order to identify high potential candidates, without relying on experience or qualifications. video interviews and engaging multimedia content were also included to enable applicants to learn about MYOB and the role.

MYOB selected Sova for its candidate and administrator experience, along with the scientific rigour required to predict success in the role. Sova’s online assessment tool balances relevant and engaging content for candidates with accuracy and fairness, ensuring equitable outcomes.

The Sova platform included a visual dashboard allowing MYOB to review candidates against multiple metrics, presenting them with a rounded view and the opportunity to optimise assessments for fairness.

We are committed to attracting the best tech talent and we are highly passionate about building a diverse workforce with inclusion at its heart. We were finding ourselves inundated with hundreds of applicants for The Future Makers Academy.

Sova has transformed the application assessment process for us, enabling us to identify, attract and review diverse candidates while driving crucial efficiencies. Our team has been freed up to focus on more value adding work to further advance our early talent programs .

Kristina Nutt – Emerging Talent Program Lead, MYOB

Outcome:

Sova enabled MYOB to identify and attract the right candidates while streamlining the screening process, and therefore getting the best talent to offer stage much more quickly. The efficiency offered by the Sova platform enabled the MYOB talent acquisition team to save more than 320 hours of recruiter time each year.

The blended and dynamic assessments allowed MYOB to identify high potential, best-candidates, as indicated by trainees’ ‘time to proficiency’. Once selected, candidates completed their onboarding in half the time of previous training cohorts.

Identifying high-potential trainees also was correlated with an increase in productivity. Trainees completed their rotations more quickly than past cohorts, in just two-thirds of the time previously taken.

For the impact of the DevelopHer campaign, MYOB’s “DevelopHer” initiative was nominated for AAGE’s Will Spensley Memorial Award for Innovation. Since launch, DevelopHer has transformed the lives of 19 women. 100% of these women remain in software related roles including 87% still at MYOB, demonstrating the impact of the program to identify talent with potential to succeed within technology, despite having no previous experience.

Crucially, the company now has a talent assessment process which reflects its diversity and inclusion mindset.

As the market for technology talent continues to intensify, MYOB is well positioned to attract and identify the best and most diverse candidates and quickly make job offers.