Picking the Right People.

• Position: Hiring software - Brief Article

When Washington Mutual opened 16 new branches in Las Vegas last year, it used a new program called "Occasio" -- Latin for "favorable opportunity"--to evaluate potential employees. A year later, says Kristin Poolman, Washington Mutual's regional staffing manager for new markets, all but two of the 147 new hires are still with the company and are performing "exceptionally well."

The bank now uses the system for hiring nonsupervisory personnel throughout the company, and Poolman says it has saved considerable time. "What used to take three hours in screening/interviewing time has been whittled down to 30 minutes," she says.

"Because of technology, we don't need employees with as much cash handling and math skills," Poolman says. "Now we are looking for people with sales ability who have excellent customer-service skills and are good at selling additional banking products. We've hired excellent people, many of whom may have been passed over in our previous system."

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