Harver Empowers Talent Teams to Make Better-Informed Hiring Decisions Using Science and Data

In today’s fiercely competitive talent landscape, organizations face an unprecedented challenge: finding the right people quickly while maintaining quality and fairness throughout the hiring process. Traditional recruitment methods—relying heavily on resumes, gut feelings, and unstructured interviews—often fall short, resulting in costly mis-hires, extended time-to-fill metrics, and frustratingly high turnover rates. Enter Harver, a cutting-edge hiring solution that’s revolutionizing how organizations approach talent acquisition by leveraging the power of science and data to transform hiring into a process that’s fast, fair, and fundamentally more effective.

The Science Behind Smarter Hiring

At the heart of Harver’s transformative approach lies over 35 years of rich data insights backed by industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology and cognitive science. This isn’t just another recruitment tool built on assumptions—it’s a scientifically validated platform that has processed over 100 million candidates, providing trusted, data-driven, and adaptable offerings that help organizations make informed talent decisions at unprecedented speed.​

Industrial-organizational psychology represents the scientific study of human behavior in organizations and the workplace, focusing on deriving principles of individual, group, and organizational behavior and applying this knowledge to solve real-world problems. Harver’s team of experienced I-O psychologists works directly with organizations to establish ideal candidate profiles, determine which characteristics predict success for specific roles, and continuously optimize customized matching frameworks through performance feedback loops.​

The platform combines traditional I-O psychology best practices with cutting-edge cognitive science developments spanning more than three decades. This dual approach enables Harver to leverage scientific advancements while maintaining rigorous validation standards that ensure assessments collect objective, job-relevant data and eliminate questions that might inadvertently favor certain groups over others.​

Comprehensive Assessment Solutions for Every Hiring Need

Harver’s assessment ecosystem offers the industry’s most comprehensive suite of evaluation tools, featuring over 450 assessment options available in dozens of languages. These scientifically validated assessments evaluate candidates across multiple dimensions to provide a complete picture of their potential:​

Work Behavior Assessments include both traditional and gamified behavioral evaluations that measure personality traits, cultural fit, and behavioral tendencies that predict job success. The gamified assessments, powered by pymetrics technology, use neuroscience-based games to evaluate cognitive and emotional attributes through engaging, bias-reducing exercises that achieve an impressive 98% completion rate.​

Cognitive Ability Tests assess critical thinking, problem-solving capabilities, learning agility, and decision-making skills that drive performance across roles. These evaluations go beyond what resumes can reveal, uncovering natural strengths and potential that traditional screening methods often miss.​

Realistic Job Previews represent one of Harver’s most innovative features, using interactive videos and situational judgment tests to give candidates an authentic glimpse into day-to-day job realities. These previews help manage expectations, reduce early turnover by allowing poor fits to self-select out, and simultaneously provide recruiters with valuable insights into how candidates would respond to actual workplace challenges.​

Job Knowledge and Skills Assessments evaluate technical competencies, language proficiency across 29 languages, and role-specific capabilities including remote work diagnostics. This ensures organizations can confidently assess candidates’ ability to perform from day one, regardless of geographic location.​

Reference Checking Solutions through Checkster, Harver’s automated reference checking platform, streamline what traditionally consumes hours of phone tag into a two-minute mobile-friendly process. The proprietary algorithm even detects fraud, flagging approximately 12% of candidates who attempt to game the system by using family members as references or self-completing reference checks.​

Two-Way Matching Technology: The Game-Changing Innovation

Traditional recruitment operates on a one-way street where organizations evaluate candidates solely for the position they applied to. Harver disrupts this outdated model with proprietary two-way matching technology that revolutionizes talent placement.​

This sophisticated system assesses candidates across multiple competencies using scientifically validated assessments, then compares their profile against 900+ pre-built job profiles to identify not just fit for their applied role, but potential matches across all open positions. The matching data triggers customizable automation rules that progress qualified candidates through the recruitment funnel without manual intervention, enabling true “Apply to Hire” automation.​

For organizations, this means maximizing the value of every applicant in their talent pool. A candidate who’s only an adequate fit for a customer service role might be an exceptional match for a sales position—and Harver’s matching technology surfaces these insights automatically. For candidates, it means being considered for opportunities where they’ll genuinely thrive, even if they didn’t initially discover those roles.​

Measurable Business Impact: The Numbers Tell the Story

The true measure of any hiring solution lies in tangible business outcomes. Harver’s impact on organizational performance is documented across multiple critical metrics:

Time-to-Hire Reductions: Organizations implementing Harver experience an average 52% decrease in time-to-hire. Some clients report even more dramatic improvements—ADT saved over 10,000 recruiter hours annually while tripling recruiter output through automated screening and predictive scoring that surfaced high-potential candidates instantly.​

Turnover Reduction: Harver clients reduce 90-day attrition by an average of 22%, with some organizations achieving even more remarkable results. Arvato Bertelsmann slashed unwanted employee turnover by 63% after implementing Harver’s realistic job previews and scientifically validated assessments. When half of new hires were leaving within three months due to misaligned expectations, Harver’s solutions transformed retention by ensuring candidates understood exactly what the job entailed before accepting offers.​

Candidate Satisfaction: Despite increasing efficiency and reducing time requirements, Harver maintains an exceptional 97% candidate satisfaction rate. This proves that speed and quality aren’t mutually exclusive—when the candidate experience is thoughtfully designed around engagement, transparency, and value, applicants appreciate the process even when it includes rigorous evaluation.​

Quality of Hire Improvements: Companies using Harver see measurable performance improvements among new hires. Paramount Advertising reported a 12% increase in employee performance alongside reduced recruiting time and significantly boosted diversity.​

Eliminating Bias to Build Better, More Diverse Teams

In an era where diversity, equity, and inclusion represent both moral imperatives and business necessities, Harver’s commitment to unbiased hiring stands out. The platform is specifically designed and continuously validated to reduce bias and adverse impact throughout the selection process.​

Harver’s team of I-O psychologists and data scientists perform multiple analyses throughout assessment development to ensure fair and equitable implementation. Their assessments are built and tested to be unbiased, using validation studies to eliminate questions that might prioritize some demographic groups over others.​

The pymetrics gamified assessments exemplify this fairness-first approach, being nonverbal, intuitive, and validated for fairness across gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. By focusing on fit rather than background, these assessments uncover hidden talent that traditional methods systematically overlook.​

Organizations leveraging Harver for diversity recruitment have achieved remarkable results. One global auditing firm increased female hires by 44% after redesigning their recruitment process with Harver’s volume hiring software. KPMG partnered with Harver to digitally transform their hiring process for entry-level roles, implementing data-driven assessments that evaluate hard and soft skills while safeguarding against unconscious bias and ensuring equal treatment regardless of background or experience.​

Artificial Intelligence: Responsible Innovation for Better Outcomes

As AI rapidly transforms recruitment, Harver takes a measured, ethical approach to implementing artificial intelligence that enhances rather than replaces human judgment. Their AI governance framework encompasses compliance with key legal and ethical standards including EEOC, OFCCP, NYC Local Law 144, Illinois AI Video Interview Act, and preparation for EU AI Act requirements.​

Harver clearly distinguishes between automation, which follows rule-based workflows for tasks like scheduling and screening, and true AI, which involves learning and model-driven predictions. This transparency helps organizations understand exactly how technology supports their hiring decisions.​

Critically, Harver’s AI functions as decision-support, not decision-making. The system empowers recruiters with insights and recommendations while ensuring human judgment remains central to final hiring choices. This approach delivers responsible, explainable outcomes that align with both organizational goals and legal standards.​

Harver CHAT, the conversational hiring AI tool launched in 2023, exemplifies this philosophy. Built on advanced conversational AI and natural language processing, CHAT automates application processes with always-on messaging that engages candidates, dynamically collects required information, and routes applicants to appropriate next steps—all while maintaining a 4.7 candidate satisfaction score. Early users reported reducing application time from 30 minutes to just 3 minutes, saving upwards of 60 hours of recruiting time per open position.​

Real-World Success Stories Across Industries

Harver’s versatility shines through implementations across diverse sectors, each facing unique talent acquisition challenges:

Contact Centers and BPOs struggle with notoriously high turnover in demanding, fast-paced environments. Harver’s solutions for this sector include realistic job previews that set accurate expectations, language assessments covering 29 languages, remote work diagnostics, and behavioral assessments identifying candidates naturally suited for customer interaction under pressure. These targeted tools help BPOs scale workforces rapidly while maintaining quality and reducing the costly turnover cycle.​

Retail Organizations face seasonal hiring surges, rapid turnover, and the challenge of identifying candidates with strong customer service orientation despite limited experience. Harver’s Smart Job Navigator automatically matches candidates to roles where they’ll excel—even different positions than originally applied for—screening through assessments that measure real-world competencies and routing top talent to high-priority openings. This approach reduces early turnover while building more stable, engaged workforces.​

Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Companies require precise matching of complex technical skills while moving fast in competitive talent markets. Harver’s industry-specific tests match talent precisely to specialized roles, reducing guesswork and costly hiring mistakes while assessing both technical capabilities and cultural fit.​

Quick Service Restaurants like McDonald’s and Chili’s use Harver to identify candidates with the right behavioral traits for fast-paced hospitality environments where personality often matters more than experience. By assessing characteristics like communication, collaboration, and flexibility through situational judgment tests and personality questionnaires, these organizations build teams naturally inclined toward excellent customer service.​

The Candidate Experience: Fast, Fair, and Fundamentally Better

While Harver dramatically improves outcomes for employers, the platform simultaneously elevates the experience for candidates through thoughtful design that respects applicants’ time and provides genuine value.​

Candidates applying through Harver embark on an engaging journey featuring rich content, seamless interaction, and intuitive design. The mobile-optimized platform allows applicants to complete assessments anywhere, anytime, on any device. Video-based realistic job previews showcase company culture, team dynamics, and role realities, helping candidates picture themselves as part of the organization while making informed decisions about fit.​

Gamified assessments transform evaluation from tedious obligation into engaging experience. The pymetrics games take just 25 minutes to complete, yet candidates report finding them interesting and enjoyable rather than stressful. Importantly, every job seeker receives immediate results and personalized feedback, adding value to their participation regardless of hiring outcome.​

This candidate-centric approach yields remarkable results. With over 100 million completed candidate evaluations, Harver provides a proven path to identifying best-fit talent while candidates consistently rate their Harver experience higher than alternatives. The 97% satisfaction rate proves that rigorous assessment and positive experience aren’t contradictory goals—they’re complementary when technology is thoughtfully designed.​

Enterprise-Grade Analytics for Data-Driven Decision Making

Hiring in high volumes requires deep insights into recruitment performance. Harver’s business intelligence suite, Harver Insights, provides enterprise-grade analytics showing every metric and KPI needed for complete process control.​

Over 20 enterprise-grade dashboards offer instant access to critical business intelligence with thousands of filtering and customization options allowing precise, tailored views. Organizations can identify top-performing sourcing channels to optimize recruitment marketing spend, pinpoint process bottlenecks to improve candidate yield, and track KPIs for timely stakeholder reporting and strategic interventions.​

Sourcing analytics help talent acquisition leaders understand which channels—LinkedIn, Indeed, career fairs, employee referrals—deliver the highest quality candidates with best conversion rates. This visibility enables data-driven decisions about future investment rather than relying on historical assumptions that may no longer hold in rapidly changing labor markets.​

Operational insights show hiring velocity, rejection rates, and efficiency comparisons across locations or teams. One large retail customer uses this visibility to monitor hiring by location, determining whether each store meets sales needs and identifying best practices for replication across the organization.​

Experience insights aggregate real-time candidate feedback, allowing recruitment teams to proactively monitor satisfaction rather than waiting until after hiring decisions to learn about process problems. This continuous improvement cycle ensures organizations stay competitive in delivering the modern, responsive candidate experience today’s job seekers expect.​

Return on Investment: Quantifying the Value

Implementing new hiring technology requires demonstrating clear ROI. Harver makes this calculation straightforward through measurable improvements across multiple cost centers:

Reduced Turnover Costs: With the average cost of replacing a single hourly employee approaching $5,000, and retail turnover averaging nearly 60% annually with 22% of attrition happening within the first 30 days, improvements in retention deliver immediate savings. Using Harver’s ROI calculator, organizations can quantify exactly how much they’ll save by reducing early attrition—on average, clients see 22% decreases in 90-day turnover.​

Time Savings: When recruiters save thousands of hours annually through automation of screening, scheduling, and reference checking, those hours translate directly to cost savings and capacity for higher-value strategic work. ADT’s 10,000+ hours saved annually allowed existing recruiters to manage dramatically larger candidate volumes without expanding headcount.​

Faster Revenue Generation: Open positions represent lost productivity and unrealized revenue. Every day a critical role remains unfilled costs organizations money. Harver’s 40-52% reductions in time-to-hire mean positions get filled weeks faster, accelerating return to full productivity.​

Improved Performance: Better hires deliver better results. When new employees are genuinely suited to their roles, they perform at higher levels, stay longer, and contribute more value throughout their tenure. The 12% performance improvement Paramount Advertising achieved demonstrates how quality-of-hire gains compound over time.​

The Future of Talent Acquisition is Here

As we navigate 2025 and beyond, the talent acquisition landscape continues evolving at breakneck pace. Skills gaps persist as the most significant barrier to business transformation, with nearly 40% of job-required skills expected to change and 63% of employers citing talent shortages as their primary challenge. Simultaneously, candidate expectations rise, economic uncertainty creates pressure for efficiency, and competition for top talent intensifies.​

In this environment, organizations can’t afford recruitment processes built on outdated assumptions, manual workflows, and subjective decision-making. The future belongs to companies that embrace science-backed, data-driven approaches that deliver speed without sacrificing quality, efficiency without compromising fairness, and automation that enhances rather than diminishes the human elements of hiring.

Harver represents this future realized today. By combining rigorous industrial-organizational psychology, extensive proprietary data from over 100 million candidate evaluations, cutting-edge technology including responsible AI implementation, and unwavering commitment to fair, unbiased assessment, Harver empowers talent teams to make genuinely better-informed hiring decisions.​

The platform doesn’t just incrementally improve existing processes—it fundamentally transforms how organizations think about talent acquisition. Instead of evaluating candidates solely for positions they applied to, two-way matching reveals optimal placements across all opportunities. Rather than relying on resume screening that perpetuates bias, validated assessments measure actual job-relevant capabilities. In place of gut-feel decisions made in isolation, data-driven insights inform choices backed by science.

Organizations implementing Harver aren’t just filling positions faster or reducing costs, though they achieve both. They’re building stronger, more diverse, higher-performing teams. They’re creating candidate experiences that strengthen employer brand and competitive positioning. They’re gaining strategic insights that inform workforce planning and talent strategy beyond immediate hiring needs.

For talent acquisition leaders facing mounting pressure to do more with less while improving quality and demonstrating clear business impact, Harver offers a proven path forward. The combination of scientific rigor, technological innovation, and demonstrated results across 1,300+ clients including industry leaders like McDonald’s, Booking.com, Valvoline, and Peloton provides both the capabilities and confidence needed to transform hiring into a true competitive advantage.​

The question isn’t whether your organization will eventually embrace science and data for better hiring decisions. In an increasingly competitive talent landscape, that evolution is inevitable. The question is whether you’ll lead that transformation, capturing the advantages of improved efficiency, reduced turnover, enhanced diversity, and better quality-of-hire—or whether you’ll play catch-up as competitors pull ahead.

With Harver, talent teams gain the tools, insights, and support needed to not just participate in the future of talent acquisition, but to shape it. By empowering better-informed decisions grounded in science and validated by data, Harver helps organizations build the workforces that will drive their success for years to come.

FAQ’s

1. How does Harver use science and data to improve hiring decisions?

Harver leverages over 35 years of data backed by industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology and cognitive science to transform hiring into a scientifically validated process. The platform combines traditional I-O psychology best practices with cutting-edge cognitive science, analyzing data from over 100 million candidate evaluations to identify patterns that predict job success. By replacing gut-feel decisions with objective, job-relevant data, Harver ensures that hiring choices are grounded in scientific evidence rather than assumptions or unconscious bias.​

2. What types of assessments does Harver offer, and how many are available?

Harver provides an industry-leading suite of over 450 assessment options available in dozens of languages. These include work behavior assessments (both traditional and gamified), cognitive ability tests, realistic job previews, job knowledge and skills assessments covering 29 languages, and automated reference checking through Checkster. This comprehensive range enables organizations to evaluate candidates across multiple dimensions—from personality traits and problem-solving capabilities to role-specific technical skills and remote work suitability.​

3. What is Harver’s two-way matching technology, and how does it benefit organizations?

Two-way matching represents Harver’s proprietary technology that assesses candidates across multiple competencies and automatically compares their profiles against 900+ pre-built job profiles to identify optimal placement opportunities. Unlike traditional one-way recruitment where candidates are only considered for their applied position, this innovation matches qualified candidates to other open roles where they might excel. For organizations, this maximizes candidate pool value by discovering hidden talent, while candidates benefit from being considered for positions where they’ll genuinely thrive, even if they didn’t initially discover those roles.​

4. How much time can organizations save by implementing Harver?

Organizations implementing Harver experience an average 52% decrease in time-to-hire, with some achieving even more dramatic improvements. For example, ADT saved over 10,000 recruiter hours annually while simultaneously tripling recruiter output through Harver’s automated screening and predictive scoring capabilities. By streamlining screening, matching, interviewing, and hiring stages through intelligent automation, Harver enables teams to identify and evaluate candidates in hours rather than days or weeks.​

5. What impact has Harver had on employee turnover reduction?

Harver clients reduce 90-day attrition by an average of 22%, with some organizations achieving substantially higher reductions. Particularly notable is Arvato Bertelsmann, which slashed unwanted employee turnover by 63% after implementing Harver’s realistic job previews and scientifically validated assessments. By ensuring candidates understand exactly what roles entail before accepting offers and matching them to positions aligned with their capabilities, Harver substantially improves retention outcomes.​

6. How does Harver ensure fair and unbiased hiring?

Harver’s design and validation processes are specifically engineered to reduce bias and eliminate adverse impact throughout the selection process. The company’s team of I-O psychologists and data scientists perform multiple fairness analyses during assessment development, eliminating questions that might systematically favor certain demographic groups. Gamified assessments like pymetrics games are specifically validated for fairness across gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, focusing on fit rather than background to uncover hidden talent. The platform also provides educational resources and structured interview guides to help organizations minimize interviewer bias at every selection stage.​

7. What is the candidate experience like with Harver?

Despite rigorous evaluation, Harver maintains an exceptional 97% candidate satisfaction rate. Candidates experience engaging, mobile-optimized assessments completed on any device, video-based realistic job previews showcasing actual job realities and company culture, and gamified assessments that are genuinely enjoyable rather than stressful. Every participant receives immediate results and personalized feedback, adding value regardless of hiring outcome. The design philosophy ensures that speed and quality combine seamlessly—candidates appreciate both the efficiency and the thoughtful, transparent process.​

8. How does Harver integrate with existing ATS and HRIS systems?

Harver partners with leading ATS and talent management providers for seamless, certified integration with platforms like Workday, Greenhouse, SmartRecruiters, iCIMS, and others. Integration eliminates the need to manually move data between systems, automating workflows, synchronizing candidate information, and enabling recruiters to access Harver data directly from their existing ATS. This unified approach saves approximately 10% of work time employees would otherwise spend moving between applications while ensuring all hiring data resides in one centralized location.​

9. What is the pricing structure for Harver, and what does implementation cost?

Harver uses a customizable pricing model tailored to specific organizational needs rather than public tiered plans. Estimated starting pricing begins around $5,000 annually, with custom quotes varying widely based on company size, volume hiring needs, and required features. Implementation timelines range from a few weeks to several months, with small business implementation costs typically $5,000-$10,000 while enterprise implementations may exceed $50,000 depending on customization requirements. Additional services like video content creation, job analysis workshops, and training services are priced separately.​

10. What compliance and data privacy standards does Harver maintain?

Harver maintains enterprise-grade security and compliance standards including GDPR, CCPA, ISO 27001, and SOC 2 Type 2 certifications. The company protects data with administrative, technical, and organizational controls, encrypting information both in transit and at rest. Harver employs a dedicated privacy team, works with an external European Data Protection Officer, and undergoes regular third-party audits to ensure rigorous compliance with global data protection regulations. This commitment ensures candidate and hiring data receives the highest level of protection.​

11. How does Harver’s AI implementation differ from other recruitment platforms?

Harver takes a measured, ethical approach to artificial intelligence by implementing it as decision-support rather than decision-making. The platform clearly distinguishes between automation (rule-based workflows for tasks like scheduling and screening) and true AI (learning and model-driven predictions). Harver’s AI governance framework ensures compliance with EEOC, OFCCP, NYC Local Law 144, Illinois AI Video Interview Act requirements, and preparation for EU AI Act mandates. Harver CHAT, the conversational hiring AI launched in 2023, exemplifies this philosophy—it automates application processes while maintaining human judgment as central to final hiring decisions.​

12. What improvements in diversity can organizations expect with Harver?

Organizations using Harver for diversity-focused hiring have achieved remarkable results. One global auditing firm increased female hires by 44% after redesigning their recruitment process with Harver’s volume hiring software. KPMG partnered with Harver to digitally transform entry-level hiring, implementing data-driven assessments that evaluate skills while safeguarding against unconscious bias. By measuring job-relevant capabilities rather than background or experience, Harver’s approach uncovers hidden talent from underrepresented groups that traditional methods systematically overlook.​

13. What specific business metrics can talent leaders track with Harver?

Harver’s Insights business intelligence suite provides over 20 enterprise-grade dashboards with thousands of filtering options, enabling leaders to track critical metrics across multiple dimensions. Organizations can monitor sourcing analytics to identify highest-quality channels, operational insights showing hiring velocity and process bottlenecks, experience insights aggregating real-time candidate feedback, and performance analytics tracking new hire effectiveness. This comprehensive visibility enables data-driven decisions about recruitment investment, process optimization, and strategic workforce planning.​

14. How does Harver’s realistic job preview feature reduce early turnover?

Realistic job previews use interactive videos and situational judgment tests to give candidates authentic glimpses into day-to-day role realities, allowing poor fits to self-select out before accepting offers. This approach has delivered remarkable results—Arvato Bertelsmann reduced unwanted turnover by 63% by implementing realistic job previews that set accurate expectations. Rather than surprising new hires with unexpected job demands or cultural misalignment, RJPs establish mutual understanding upfront, ensuring candidates who proceed are genuinely committed to the actual role.​

15. What support and training does Harver provide to organizations implementing the platform?

Harver provides comprehensive implementation support including change management guidance, discovery and auditing guidelines, technical onboarding, and dedicated training resources. The company offers phone support, email/help desk access, chat support, and 24/7 live representative availability to ensure successful platform adoption. Organizations receive personalized implementation plans, customer success management throughout deployment, and ongoing training to maximize ROI and platform utilization. Harver also provides detailed integration guidelines, pre-implementation checklists, and workflow configuration support to ensure seamless adoption within existing HR technology stacks.​

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