As automation handles more simple customer journeys, many CX leaders are asking where humans now create the most value.
At Customer Contact Week, HiringBranch CEO Stephane Rivard and Fundraising Direct Operations Director Sarah Wise argued that the answer lies in changing how contact centers hire.
Their session showed how skills-based hiring, powered by AI simulations, helps identify fundraisers and agents who can truly communicate, handle objections, and stay resilient, instead of just looking good on a CV.
“You hire for hard skills or for CVs, you fire for soft skills. This goes away,” said Rivard.
Using a live case study from Fundraising Direct, plus results from Bell Canada, they set out a clear path for CX leaders who want better performance and less recruiter strain.
Fundraising Direct: High-Stakes, Human Conversations
Fundraising Direct is a specialist telephone fundraising agency that supports charities such as the Red Cross and UNICEF. The team runs hundreds of fundraisers and hires 150 to 200 people a year, often students and early-career workers.
Wise stressed how human the work is:
“We are a telephone fundraising agency. We fundraise on behalf of the charities we work for. The client and supporter relationship is really important.”
Agents must build rapport fast and handle emotional topics. “We are asking people for money, which is never easy to do,” she said. “They need to have very human conversations. It must not sound impersonal. It cannot be anything less than a human interaction.”
Old Process: Time-Heavy and Gut-Led
Before HiringBranch, hiring relied on:
- CV reviews
- Group assessment centers
- One-to-one interviews
- A three day training program, then time in a monitored “grad bay”
The full process could take up to two weeks.
“We are a very small enterprise, and historically, we spent a lot of time and resource on trying to find the right candidates,” Wise said.
Recruiters spent hours screening, even though the real success factors were soft skills on live calls.
Switching to Skills-Based Hiring
From CVs to Job Simulations
HiringBranch built a custom assessment that mirrors real fundraising calls. Candidates complete an online simulation that tests:
- Fluency
- Ability to build rapport
- Objection handling
- Emotional control during tough calls
The platform scores performance and links it to the outcomes Fundraising Direct cares about, such as decision-made contacts and pledge results.
Fundraising Direct assumed empathy would be the key predictor. The data showed a different picture.
“They thought that empathy would be the most important skill,” said Rivard. “There was no correlation.”
Instead, fluency, rapport building, and objection handling showed the strongest link to performance across campaigns.
Reducing Bias and Surfacing Hidden Talent
The assessment runs without demographic or background data.
“When they run these candidates through the platform, we have no background about them,” Rivard explained. “It is really based on the skills they can demonstrate.”
This gives Fundraising Direct a clearer view of who can succeed, not just who presents well on paper.
“Somebody could be technically qualified on paper, but if they do not have the skill set, it is a personality thing we are looking for,” Wise noted.
Cutting Out Interviews, Speeding Time to Hire
With clear benchmarks, Fundraising Direct removed most manual steps.
The new flow:
- Candidate applies and receives a HiringBranch assessment link.
- If the candidate scores above a set threshold, they go straight into training.
- HiringBranch flags “perfect fit” and “trainable” candidates, plus target skills to coach.
“The first thing that we were able to do was just stop screening by telephone,” Wise said. “We actually are able now to just eradicate interviews altogether. We do not have to see them, just get them straight into training.”
The assessment is also mobile friendly.
“It is a nice layout, a nice format. People can do it from their cell phones,” she added.